# yulefolklore gothicadvent cumbria

Wise Men guided by a star illustration by Gustave Dore

My first thought of light in winter (although I know that historically they must have travelled a bit later in the year) from the story of the three magi/wisemen following a star to find Jesus.

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2021-12-10

Lucia Day on December 13, is a celebration of light in the dark Scandinavian winter. The Lucia procession is led by a girl or a woman dressed in a white gown and wearing a wreath of candles in her hair, bringing hope and light into the darkness.

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2021-12-10

From November through the 12 days of Xmas,stay out of barns with opposite doors after dark. They're the kind through which the Wild Hunt is most likely to come riding.
If you do find yourself...


🖼️:Wild Hunt by Velamir on DeviantArt

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2021-12-04

According to Italian folklore, female children born at midnight on Christmas Eve would become a witch (strega) and males would become werewolves (lupa manaru)
art by

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2021-12-04

Yule is a time filled with frightening folklore- possibly none more scary than some Sami tales of the Stalo, a giant creature who eats people and children.

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2021-12-04

In the children's fantasy novel "Silver on the Tree" by Susan Cooper, Welsh boy Bran Davies has a phobia of the Mari Lwyd - the Welsh Christmas tradition of carrying a horse's skull door-to-door - and his terror pursues him as a demon shaped like a horse skeleton.

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2021-12-04

Hans Trapp is another "anti-Santa" who hands out punishment to bad children in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of France. The legend says that Trapp was a real man, a rich, greedy, and evil man, who worshiped Satan and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

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2021-12-04

Perchta is a shape-changer who enforces a strict no-spinning rule during the holidays. If you were well-behaved, she might leave you a present, but if you went against any of the season’s traditions, like eating wrong foods she would stuff your stomach with straw

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2021-12-03

The Yule Goat is a wide ranging Germanic tradition, made of straw or other materials depending on region and meant to represent the steed Father Christmas rides upon. This goat is likely a reference to Thor's rejuvenating goats, given that both represent food.

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2021-12-03

We know very little about Yule itself, and less about the Yule-beings. This title was given to the Norse gods, who rode across the Yule night sky in grand procession, often indicated by a great howl!

🖼: P.N. Arbo

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2021-12-03


Miserable, miserly, mean & extremely wealthy curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, rejects the Christmas season of good will. By the end of the tale & after the visitation of 4 ghosts he is redeemed & a reformed man
🎨Anton Pieck

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2021-12-03


There is no Yule without Krampus...
Pic Austrian postcard

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2021-12-03

In Cumbrian folklore, a Bargest is a frightening spirit which has the power of foretelling death. It generally appears in the form of a large black dog. A strike from it's paw leaves a wound that never heals

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2021-12-03


FRAU PERCHTA
...from Austrian and Bavarian tradition, the female counterpart of Krampus, depicted as a crone, with a beaked iron nose, prowling the streets, around Yuletide whatever you do..do not cross her..

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2021-12-03

"They gave me neither bread nor drink from horn
I peered down below
I clutched the runes
Screaming I grabbed them
And then sank back"
-Hávamál, Andy Orchard's translation
🖼️Alan Lee

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2021-11-27

Kašč or Kaščej Biesśmiarotny is a figure in the Slavic folklore. It is difficult to say who he is and where he came from, but it is well known that he is a very powerful and evil sorcerer. For centuries he was chained, but was released by cunning.

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2021-11-26


Be especially careful of the Eloko, if you’re among the Mungo-Nkundo in the DRC.

It is said that one day a hunter took his wife, at her own insistence, into the forest, where he had a hut.

🎨: Paula Hammond

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2021-11-26

Merrow in Irish folklore are similar to mermaids, seducing their prey into following them into the sea with their song.

A Cohuleen druith is a magic hat that Merrow wear so they can dive beneath the waves, without it they lose their power to return to the water.

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2021-11-26

what is the cuttlefish in the sky trying to tell you?

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2021-11-26

"The stalk is withered dry my love
So will our hearts decay
So make yourself
Content my love
Till death calls you away" (The Unquiet Grave)

... whispers the dead maiden, slightly annoyed, to her officious lover mourning on her grave in the 15th century ballad

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2021-11-26