# faustianlateshift faustianfriday preraphaelite otd mythologymonday fairytaletuesday wyrdwednesday folklorethursday superstitionsat swampsunday ireland folklore myths legends


' Come away, come away death,
And in sad cypresslet me be laid,
Fly away, fly away breath,
I'm slain by a fair cruel maid...'
Twelve Night by William Shakespeare
Pic John William Waterhouse 1900

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2021-08-07

“Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men.”-Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki

🖼: T. Shuho

16 66
2021-08-06

‘The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.’ Browning, Porphyria’s Lover, pub. 1836.
🖼 Melancholy, Edvard Munch, 1894.

10 37
2021-08-06

In Greek mythology Hypnos & his brother Thanatos are the gods of sleep & death respectively. They reside in the underworld realm of Hades, Hypnosis in the light & Thanatos in the dark.

🎨'Sleep & His Half-Brother Death'-John William Waterhouse, 1874

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2021-08-06



Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet and longest serving poet laureate born in 1809.

🎨 John William Waterhouse

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2021-08-06

A beautiful woman without match, an appetite without equal, and a man out of sorts: different Japanese villages have different stories, but the tale of the Jorogumo always has a secret: the seductive woman is a spider who wants nothing more than to devour her love

8 40
2021-07-31

The shameful secrets carried by a woman are like a black blanket that cuts her off from her unconscious & healing. In the tale 'Golden Hair' a woman is killed & buried but her hair (her life force) keeps growing revealing her murder (the secret) & restoring her.

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2021-07-30

At Samhain, Fand flying as a sea bird with her sister Lí Ban, when Cú Chulainn threw stones at them! Return as otherworldly women & beat him with horsewhips until he fell ill & bed bound for year! Eventually recovers & agrees to help her fight! Even become lovers!

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2021-07-30

J.S. Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a bit of a trickster: she plays mind tricks. She tells Laura: ‘Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a dream, and it has haunted me ever since.’ But it’s a trick, to persuade Laura her own experience was a dream and assuage her fear.

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2021-07-23

Little Red Riding Hood. (Perrault, 1922. Achille Devéria, 1830)

6 39
2021-07-23

The Fox is a wicked trickster in Evenki tales: once she killed a bear, made a sausage of his guts and give it to a man. When he tried it, she lied it was a penis. But the man liked it so much, he cut off his own and died.

And the Fox went to live with his family.

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2021-07-23

In Slavic myth Leshy, tree spirit & forest guardian is a shapeshifter & trickster. He gets his kicks by leading astray unwary travellers, abducting naughty children & babies who are not baptised. Don’t annoy him! If you do, make him laugh to get on his good side.

7 33
2021-07-23

Ares assigned Alectryon to keep watch for other gods during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery & humiliation that morning. Instead of killing Alectryon, Ares turned him into a rooster, who crows to signal the morning.

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2021-07-17

Hel is both death and a maiden. Here, Carl Ehrenberg shows her with an excessively vicious facial expression while Johannes Minkowitz shows her snacking on an unfortunate soul.

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2021-07-17

The Valkyrie ride the skies, looking for the souls of the worthy to join them in Valhalla and Folkvangr. Their queen is Freyja herself, choosing the slain for her army and Odin's, and many ate the maidens who ride with her.

🖼: W.T. Maud

10 39
2021-07-17

Death changed Izanami, creator of the ten thousand spirits of Japan. She continued to create, her body writhing with new evil spirits tainted by death. She swears to kill more each day, and her husband swears to create more each day.

🖼: O. Kuznetsova

4 22
2021-07-16

But when my glass shows me myself indeed, Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity, Mine own self-love quite contrary I read; Self so self-loving were iniquity.

—Shakespeare, Sonnet 62 ✨

Unattributed 16th century 🎨 Hall's Croft in Stratford-upon-Avon.

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2021-07-16

Le Fanu often plays with the Death and the Maiden motif. A. Milbank argues it’s fundamental to his theology. It forces us to see death materially and face its monstrosity. Carmilla is a clear example. So is Laura Silver Bell, seduced by a sinister fairy lord.

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2021-07-16

Hel looks like death: half of her body is alive, the other half in decay. She reigns over the vast majority of the dead in Norse cosmology, giving them respite from a life of hard work and toil or misfortune; but she holds resentment in her heart.

🖼: IrenHorrors

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2021-07-16