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

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"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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Gwat, from Baloch lore, the shapeless evil spirit of the winds, is notorious for being the nemesis of young men and women, taking possession of their bodies, driving them to insanity, and being the cause of their death. It whispers.

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"While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —Only this, and nothing more."
Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (1845 / Engraving), by Gustave Doré.

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In Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, at a feast, Father Olavida sees a mysterious stranger: an Englishman, none other than Melmoth, the novel’s Faustian antihero. He reels away in terror and collapses to his death, in recognition of Melmoth’s devilish presence.

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"You are not you – you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream – your dream, a creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions…"

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"Because this is just what a nightmare is. Walking about among people you know, looking in their faces – and suddenly the faces change – and it's not someone you know any longer – it's a stranger – a cruel stranger."

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'O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
...
Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.'
T.S.Eliot

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"Now, man of the croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;

And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound."

The Wanderings of Oisin, by W.B. Yeats, 1889

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Did you drink too much night potatoe vodka.... or did she?

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The Brocken spectre is an optical illusion created by the shadow of an observer cast upon mist or clouds when the Sun is shining behind them, often observed in mountainous regions. A halo of light will frequently surround the figure's head.

Artist unknown

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"On many occasions the curious atmospheric effects enchanted me vastly; these including a strikingly vivid mirage—the first I had ever seen—in which distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles." At the Mountains of Madness (1/2)

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In Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock's 'The Other Side' (1893), Gabriel is a boy in a beautiful Breton village that lies opposite an evil shadow land, separated by a brook. That is, until Gabriel crosses over, picks a witch flower and meets the beautiful Lilith 1/7

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Salamanders 🖤🔥

"Salamanders have been seen in the shape of fiery balls, or tongues of fire, running over the fields, or peering in houses" Paracelsus

It was believed that salamanders could withstand heat and flames (and even create fire).

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Chinese mythology - Hui Lu, a magician and fire god who kept 100 firebirds in a gourd. By setting them loose, he could start a fire across the whole country.

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Tikbalang are malevolent/mischievous creatures who waylay travellers and sometimes kidnap young women. It's said that one April night in 1580, a woman at a Manila ball was kidnapped by one, with horse's legs clearly visible under its coat
🎨 iantoy (deviantart)

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In Japan, if your child starts acting strange quite suddenly, there's a good chance they're dead and a goblin is wearing their skin! Called an Amanojaku, these spirits resemble changeling tales of Europe.

🖼: M. Meyer

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The Princess and the Goblin✨
In George Macdonald's 1872 novel, the goblins plan to abduct Princess Irene and marry her to the goblin prince. This fairy tale book was inspiration for fantasy authors Tolkien, Lewis and L’Engle.

🌟Charles Folkard

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