# faustianfriday gothicadvent cumbria poetry skullfriday

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

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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2021-11-26

"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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2021-11-26



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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2021-11-19

"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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2021-11-19

"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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2021-11-19

'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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2021-11-19