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Darklings!
Tomorrow is the last day we'll let the beasts run free - #FaustianFriday draws close and so is the new topic for the last week of #31DaysOfHalloween ... and of course we will RT your spooky tagged tweets. Looking forward to see you again!
Medieval thinkers saw dragons as scary beasts doing the “devil’s work.”Such myths spurred Victorian writers & illustrators in their depiction of dragons. Here are two 12th-cen manuscripts of fiery dragons, & Arthur Rackham’s fairy-tale, but fierce dragons. 🐉
#FaustianFriday
Serpents and chickens shouldn't mix eggs, unless you want basilisks and cockatrices. A serpent or frog's egg hatched by a cockerel becomes the King of Serpents, a Basilisk. A cockerel's egg hatched by a serpent or frog produces a Cockatrice. #FaustianFriday
🖼: 1-D. Scott
A couple of beasts from the 18thc grimoire Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros (c.1775)
Author Unknown. Held in the Wellcome Library, London
#FaustianFriday
#31DaysofHalloween
"I could see his staring eyes...He vanished behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence...then began a shrieking and a sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians."
– 'War of the Worlds' (1898) #31DaysofHalloween #FaustianFriday 7/7
Five Madagascan Monsters for #FaustianFriday
1. The Songomby
What do you know about this beaut of a man eating beast from Madagascar? It is said to be practically invincible but the hero Imbahitrila defeated one with two magical eggs from the angavola bird.
#FaustianFriday Cerberus: in ancient Greek mythology, the hound of Hades. Often depicted with three heads, he is the guardian of the gates to the Underworld, preventing the dead from leaving.
🖼 Cerberus, by William Blake
The Linworm slithers despite its limbs, using these instead for traction and for grabbing things. It haunts Scandinavia, Sweden in particular, and has spread as a heraldric motif from there, where it originated from runestones. #FaustianFriday
Dragon's nature has been described as dual. Both medicine & poison, loyal & deceitful. This reflects, says Martin Shaw, human nature. Do we store personal treasures & gifts in our dark caves, or do we distribute them around the world? Are we a hoarder or a gifter?#FaustianFriday
Draugen is a huge, seaweed covered monster in Norwegian folklore, that was thought to be the ghost of a drowned fisherman. Draugen often appeared during storms, trying to drag the fishermen under water and drown them.
#FaustianFriday
“The Sea Monster”
Theodor Kittelsen (1881)
"My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know." 🖤 Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
#31DaysOfHalloween #FaustianFriday
🎨 The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse.
The Ethiopian Crocotta/ Leucrotta is a hybridized were-animal that can mimic human voices to lure their prey. If the creature looks at you three times then it will root you to the spot.
🖼: @arvalis
#SuperstitionSat #31DaysOfHalloween #FaustianFriday
The waters around Hopeless Maine are cursed with monstrous sealife, angry tides and dramatic rocks, which tend to prove fatal. #FaustianFriday
We visit @prof_elemental's extremely haunted attic for #FaustianFriday (I expect it's cursed as well, and a bit messy)
#FaustianFriday
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."—Goethe
The Erlkonig by Schubert
#31DaysOfHalloween
🎨Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Moritz von Schwind, Albert Sterner
https://t.co/4hUbyDoYlA via @YouTube
In Britain, the distinction between fairies and ghosts is ambiguous. When King Arthur stole a cauldron from Fairyland, he also confronted the ghosts of Welsh folk heroes. Likewise, sometimes a fairy king leads the Wild Hunt, but other times it's Arthur's ghost. #FaustianFriday
Ghost said to priest:
'In life, love gnawed my skin
To this white bone;
What love did then, love does now:
Gnaws me through.'
-Sylvia Plath- #FaustianFriday