folklore, superstitions, myths, and the paranormal

All of a sudden, guests appeared on your doorstep. Would you let them in?  - and other macabre arts of mine that I put into one post! Undead creatures, monsters, lots of bones and overall spookiness included! — Information about these characters and setting is here

It's a large order, but I'm sure it can be reached!

The International Cryptozoology Museum is looking to restore and inhabit this historical building located in Bangor, Maine! The museum's current locations are small and make the collection they hold seem crowded. It deserves a larger space to thrive in. It was built in 1945 and served as a garage and car dealership. But it was also eventually used as a laundromat, a taxi depot and a recycling center.

A number of things need to be done to this building to make it safe and modern. The money raised will go toward things like replacing windows and pipes. The International Cryptozoology Museum is a non-profit and relies on donations to survive.

Please consider donating and if you can't donate, sharing is so helpful!

The Treesqueak is a fearsome critter from the folklore of North American lumberjacks. Said to resemble a weasel, it has the chameleon-like ability to blend in with its surroundings.

The Treesqueak is both named and known for its wide variety of calls, which can sound like a panther, a piglet, and even fireworks. They spend most of their lives up in trees, crying out when the wind shakes their tree homes.

Image source.

Monster master list.

Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources. tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.

Journals (open access) – Folklore, Occult, etc

Culutural Analysis - folklore, popular culture, anthropology – The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture

Folklore - folklore, anthropology, archaeology – The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes

Incantatio - journal on charms, charmers, and charming – Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript

Oral Tradition – Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics – Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms

International Journal of Intangible Heritage 

Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English) – Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography

Folklorica - Slavic & Eastern European folklore association – Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic

Esoterica - The Journal of Esoteric Studies – The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral 

The Esoteric Quarterly

Mythological Studies Journal

Luvah - Journal of the Creative Imagination – A More Poetical Character Than Satan

Transpersonal Studies – Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes

Beyond Borderlands  – tumblr

Paranthropology

GOLEM - Journal of Religion and Monsters – The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914

Correspondences - Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism – Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom 

– History, Archaeology

Adoranten - pre-historic rock art

Chitrolekha - India art & design history – Gomira Dance Mask

Silk Road – Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China

Sino-Platonic - East Asian languages and civilizations – Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions

MELA Notes - Middle East Librarians Association

Didaskalia - Journal for Ancient Performance

Ancient Narrative - Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions – The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel

Akroterion - Greek, Roman – The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies  – Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass

Roman Legal Tradition - medieval civil law – Between Slavery and Freedom 

Phronimon - South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities – Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy

The Heroic Age - Early medieval Northwestern Europe – Icelandic Sword in the Stone

Peregrinations - Medieval Art and Architecture – Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings 

Tiresas - Medieval and Classical – Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages

Essays in Medieval Studies  – The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan

Hortulus - Medieval studies – Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue

Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU

Medieval Archaeology – Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall

Medieval Feminist Forum  – multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres

Quidditas - medieval and renaissance 

Medieval Warfare

The Viking Society - ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011

Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)

Al-Masaq - Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue

Mythical Creatures of Europe - article + map

Folklore - limited free access – Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves

Digital Philology -  a journal of medieval cultures – Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography

Pomegranate - International Journal for Pagan Studies

Transcultural Psychiatry

European Journal of English Studies  – Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issue

Books, Texts, Images etc. – Folklore, Occult etc.

Magical Gem Database - Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]

Biblioteca Aracana - (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc. – Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon

Curse Tablets from Roman Britain - [x]

The Gnostic Society Library – The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory

Grimoar - vast occult text library – Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic

Internet Sacred Text Archive - religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts

Verse and Transmutation - A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry

– History

The Internet Classics Archive - mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts

Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection - [x] [x] [x]

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive - Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x] 

Vindolanda Tablets - images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]

Corsair - online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]

Beinecke rare book & manuscripts  – Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur'ān–1813

LUNA - tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography

Maps on the web - Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]

Bodleian Library manuscripts - photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts – Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts

Early Manuscripts at Oxford U - very high quality photographs – (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]

Trinity College digital manuscript library  – Mathematica Medica, 15th c.

eTOME - primary sources about Celtic peoples

Websites, Blogs – Folklore, Occult etc.

Demonthings - Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project 

Invocatio - (mostly) western esotericism

Heterodoxology - history, esotericism, science – Religion in the Age of Cyborgs

The Recipes Project - food, magic, science, medicine – The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)

Morbid Anatomy - museum/library in Brooklyn

– History 

Islamic Philosophy Online - tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English

Medicina Antiqua - Graeco-Roman medicine

History of the Ancient World - news and resources – The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt

Διοτίμα - Women & Gender in Antiquity

Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online – Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures

Medievalists – folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags

The Homes of Hidden Animals Series by Jeniak

COUNTING CROWS & MAGPIES

Crows have always been closely associated with witchcraft and the Otherworld, said to to sit on the Devil’s shoulder as adversaries of God and bringers of death and misfortune. The magpie was a common bird for witches to shapeshift into, it was even rumoured that the soul of a black sorcerer would come back as a magpie in order to guide those new to the Craft.

Here are three versions of the famous rhyme:

I. “One for sorrow. Two for mirth. Three for a wedding. Four for a birth. Five for silver. Six for gold. Seven for a secret never to be told.” 

II. “One for anger. Two for Mirth. Three for a wedding. Four for a birth. Five for rich. Six for poor. Seven for a witch, I can tell you no more!”

III. “One for sorrow. Two for joy. Three for a girl. Four for a boy. Five for silver. Six for gold. Seven for a secret not to be told. Eight for heaven. Nine for hell. And ten is for the Devil’s own sel.”

If someone saw a bad omen there was a couple of things they could do to avert the bad luck that’d otherwise befall them. They could draw a cross on the ground, bow and wish the magpie a good day. Or they could turn around three times and spit over their left shoulder. Another simple method was to cross one’s fingers and say:

I. “I cross the magpie, the magpie crosses me; bad luck to the magpie and good luck to me.”

Celtic mythology describes Cait Sidhe as a fae spirit that takes the form of a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. People of ancient Ireland believed that cats operated somewhere between the mortal and spiritual realms.

They viewed them as guardians of the gates of the Otherworld.

a link between humans, the Otherworld and other realms. According to Celtic folklore, spirits that took the form of Cait Sidhe, a large black cat, could steal the soul of the dead before the Gods, devil or the angels could claim it. Where they take the souls nobody knows.

Northern Scottish believed hearing a Cait Sidhe scream or yowl meant you or someone in your family would die soon while the centeral and southern Scottish saw them as gentle guardians of death that guided lost souls into the place after.

The Insular Scottish believed they were the ones that warned you of death but also would grant you wishes if summoned and given offerings.

The Icelandic people have the yule cat which is put in the cait Sidhe terminology.

From what I can tell Russians and Germans held the black cats are witches in disguise belief but they also had a fearful respect if them.

Another Irish tradition derived from the ancient belief that certain spirits took the form of a cat happens on All Hallows Eve, known in Ireland as Samhain, hallows eve, all hallowsv day and just halloween on that night, spirits, fae and demons would be roaming the earth. Everyone set a dish of milk outside so that when Cait Sidhe passed your house, they would be happy with the offering and bless your home and maybe even your whole blood line. If you did not set out milk, Cait Sidhe would be displeased and disrespected so they'd leave a curse on your livestock and cause the cows to not give milk or bare young. Possibly curse your wife as well woth infertility.

Catholics and Christians took the idea of the Cait Sidhe and erased the fae part. Claiming they were demons sent from hell so they may sell innocent souls..

The mythology of the Cait Sidhe even had it's hold in the Americas. Ingenious people say the black cat as a trickster, african south Americans saw the black cat as a symbol of evil while African north Americans saw them as guardians.

White americans had mixed feelings on black cats but they always held some sort of magical power be that a protector or a trickster.

The neolithic Irish people and many Scottish also believed in the Cait Sidhe but believe that Cait Sidhe were not fairy spirits but were actually witches that could take the form of a cat. It was said that these witches could transform into a cat eight times but if they took the form of a cat on their ninth transformation, they would remain a cat. Many think it's the origin of the saying that cats have nine lives.

This is also thought the term " never cross a black cat's path " comes from since that cat may just be a Cait Sidhe or a witch.

Południca (Noonwraith, Lady Midday), a demon in Slavic mythology.