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• Post #4355663

  The Crown of Justification was placed on the dead of ancient Egypt, a sign one had overcome death in the Duat and risen to the company of the gods. It could be as simple as a laurel or palm leaves or as elaborate as a jeweled crown. #MythologyMonday

• Post #4198010

  Cernunnos is the Celtic horned god, called the great peacemaker and master of the wild places. This figure is largely mysterious, and we only know his name from a single source, a stone pillar in Paris, yet he has captured the modern imagination of Celtophiles. #WyrdWednesday

• Post #4197982

  The Horned Serpent of Muscogee Creek myth has crystalline scales and a gem imbedded in its forehead, feasting on sumac and being a magnet for wild game. Its horns are used for medicine, its scales for divination. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: Dracarian

• Post #4164265

  Hunters among the Hopi and Zuni tribes revere Toho, the Cougar spirit and Guardian of the North. He teaches hunters to be clear in their goals, steadfast in their dedication, and prefer action to cunning. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼️: J. Gash

• Post #4164164

  Red Riding Hood can be found all over the world: in Taiwan, Aunt Tiger is a version where the tiger must eat three children to gain shape-shifting powers and hopes to do so by pretending to be their aunt. A clever girl sees through his disguise. #FairyTaleTuesday 🖼 HodariNundu

• Post #4164124

  While tigers are not native to most of Europe, at best coming to the Black Sea's eastern edges, tigers have been part of European art since Antiquity: Dionysus is sometimes depicted in Hellenistic art as riding a tiger or a chariot driven by tigers. #FairytaleTuesday

• Post #4164104

  Dawon is Durga's battle steed, a powerful celestial tiger-lion that attacks alongside his mistress and devours the enemies of righteousness in Indian myth. #FairytaleTuesday

• Post #4139521

  Bengkala is Indonesia's Village of the Deaf, where two witches fought and deafened one another, passing that on to their descendants and creating a unique sign language, Kota Kolak. Despite its reputation, only 2% of the population has genetic deafness. #MythologyMonday

• Post #4139389

  In the tale of Hoichi the Earless, Buddhist monks paint a blind musician's body with a Buddhist sutra that makes him invisible to ghosts as long as he stays still: but they forgot the ears! #MythologyMonday

• Post #4139365

  Greek myth's most famous transgender individual is Tiresias, turned from man to woman (or intersex) by Hera and/or Zeus during a quarrel. The blind seer oversaw many tragedies and many heroes sought their wisdom. #MythologyMonday 🖼: J.H. Füssli

• Post #4112889

  Both Emer and Fand loved Cuchulainn; when a wasting disease came upon him the two women put aside their differences. Fand, Queen of Tir na nOg, made her husband Manannan make it impossible for Cuchulainn and Fand to see each other, healing him. #FolkloreSunday 🖼: G. Gaudenzi

• Post #4112824

  Most famous of the female warriors called onna-musha is Tomoe Gozen (巴 御前), a hero of the Genpei War that began Japan's tradition of shoguns. She was fierce, skilled in bow and sword, and made a habit of bringing heads to her beloved lord. #FolkloreSunday 🖼: T. Yoshitoshi

• Post #4063570

  The spirits of the dead come to Odysseus when he visits Hades, being comrades from the war regaling him with regrets and fates after the Trojan War, but also family who died waiting for him, including Anticlea, his mother who died of grief waiting for him. #PhantomsFriday

• Post #3986453

  There is an open question in Arthurian canon as to what becomes of Galahad (or Percival in older traditions) when he obtained the Grail. Did he ascend with it to Heaven? Does he now defend it? Did he die? Different authors take different stances. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: D.D. Crane

• Post #3986332

  Lohengrin is the Knight of the Swan, an older medieval trope incorporated into the Arthurian cycle. The son of Percival, he rides a boat driven by swans and must never be asked his name by the maiden he rescues, or he can never return. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼️: W. Crane

• Post #3986295

  Though the Round Table is a symbol of the Knights being equals no matter their rank, it was only added to Arthurian romances in 1155, where Arthur creates the Round Table to deal with quarrelling nobles whose violence breaks Yuletide peace. #FairytaleTuesday

• Post #3986286

  The sons of Morgause of Orkney are among the most consequential in all of Arthurian lore: Gawaine faces the Green Knight; Agravaine's quarrel with Lancelot brings down the kingdom; the deaths of Gareth and Gaheris ensure war; and Mordred orchestrates collapse #FairytaleTuesday

• Post #3959877

  According to the Semitic cosmology, we are all of us under the sea! The Firmament protects us from the Ocean of Heaven, which the gods of Mesopotamia and the Levant famously break to flood the world when done with humanity's shenanigans. #MythologyMonday

• Post #3959781

  Found under the sea, Ryūgū-jō (竜宮城) is the Dragon Palace and the heart of the Kingdom of the Dragons. Central to both Japanese and Okinawan myth and culture, it has four gardens, each one in a different season, and a destination for pleasure-seekers #MythologyMonday 🎮: Okami

• Post #3935426

  The creation of the water closet coincided with the a London heat wave in 1858 with an unfortunate side effect: they threw waste into the Thames, where sweltering heat made the smell intolerable and poison London's river-drinking poor. This was the Great Stink. #FolkloreSunday

• Post #3885415

  Aka Manto is the Red Mantle, a spirit that haunts school restrooms. When alone, a student will find their stall has no paper, and hear someone ask if they want red or blue toilet paper. Red leads to a bloody massacre; blue sucks the blood out. #PhantomsFriday 🖼: M. Meyer

• Post #3835147

  “If there is a halo round the sun or moon, then we can all expect rain quite soon.” It's true, the old saying: ice crystals in clouds refract off the light, creating a halo that indicates a front is about to move through the area. #WyrdWednesday

• Post #3809128

  Sailors on the Amazon River often hear tale of the boto encantado, the charming Amazon River dolphin. At night they become handsome men, seducing women on the shore. Children born without a father are said to be the children of Boto here. #FairytaleTuesday

• Post #3719053

  Captain John McNeill Boyd died off Dublin's coast rescuing others at sea. When his body was recovered, his dog refused to leave his side, even after burial. Even after death by starvation, the dog remains, haunting Glasnevin Cemetery in eternal vigil. #PhantomsFriday

• Post #3672905

  According to the Sawa of Cameroon, the Jengu is a sea witch, a mermaid with wooly hair and a smile with a notable gap. She can cure illness and bring good fortune when worshipped, so have a care and be respectful. #WyrdWednesday 🖼: reneenault

• Post #3672892

  Athena leapt fully formed from Zeus' head, having gestated in her mother Metis' womb after Zeus devoured her. She wore the armor and cloak her mother made too, and came out ready for war: but Zeus wisely accepted this child, rather than rightly fearing her. #MythologyMonday

• Post #3672877

  When his sacred chickens refused to eat, thus giving him a bad omen for an upcoming battle, Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had them thrown into the sea. The Roman fleet was immediately devastated in the Battle of Drepana against Carthage. #WyrdWednesday

• Post #3672838

  Mazu is the Chinese sea goddess, who began life as a shaman from Fujian only a millennium ago. She scans the seas for her faithful, saving many against all odds and blessing them with safe passage and a safe return home. #WyrdWednesday

• Post #3630394

  By accident the ten solar crows were all released and the heat was such the world was going to catch fire. The archer Hou Yi went out with nine arrows and killed nine of the ten: that is why their is one sun. Later, he would lose his great love Chang'e, the moon #MythologyMonday

• Post #3604774

  Awen is inspiration, the gift of creativity given to bards and diviners who make beauty and speak truth to power. While today called an "energy", historical Welsh use is closer to instinct or genius, though occasionally divine in origin. #FolkloreSunday