#FolkloreThursday
From April 24, Ireland’s Beltane flower festivals herald May 1! Hawthorn trees, fairy portals to the Aos Sí, bloom with magic.
Dressed as May Bushes with primrose & gorse, they honor Belenus’s fires & Áine’s summer, warding off evil. Cutting them risks wrath! #BookChatWeekly
by Mary Cicely Barker.
#FolkloreThursday: `The #duck was the #animal of #Sequana, goddess of the source of France’s river Seine, who was often depicted sailing in a boat whose prow was shaped into a duck’s head. Birds are often symbols of #Celtic divinity, especially of goddesses.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
#FolkloreThursday: `Animals played an important role in the religion of the #Hallstatt period. The role of the #deer as a sacrificial #animal is clearly shown by the corresponding figural scene on the Strettweg cult wagon. Since deer are not suitable for riding or pulling wagons, we must consider that deer snaffles were used as part of religious rituals.`
Source: MAMUZ Museum Mistelbach
https://todon.eu/@NeuKelte/110089528153014197
Welsh folklore warns us to take it easy on the Thursday before Easter:
"Maundy Thursday was important for doing good deeds. If anybody performed unnecessary work on this day they would be in danger of being stricken by thunder & lightning"
Folklore of Wales 1909
#FolkloreThursday
Today is #BatAppreciationDay so I thought I'd re-share my article about bats in Japanese folklore. It has information about the symbolism of bats, some yokai bats, and lots of Japanese art featuring bats.
open.substack.com/pub/curiouso...
#JapaneseFolklore #FolkloreThursday
Bats in Japanese Folklore
#FolkloreThursday: `When death approached, the #skriker appeared like a Banshee, predicting the event to come. Sometimes this portentous figure wandered the forests of #Yorkshire and #Lancashire, screaming. Or like other #fairies he engaged in shape-shifting, transforming himself into a terrifying dog.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
https://x.com/Calleenscrafts/status/1448604748257628162?t=_g1UQrf0F9K_T_AFUPVyQA&s=09
#FolkloreThursday: `In the North Riding of #Yorkshire, Jeannie of Biggersdale was said to live in Musgrave Woods where, like other #bogies or #boggarts, this dreadful spirit threatened passing travelers. One farmer who attempted to drive her out of the region lost his horse when Jeannie cut it in two. The man was lucky to escape with his life.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
https://x.com/STANHELSING13/status/1575526768601088000?t=vyL0ldVzfI422eLkzDF1OA&s=09
#FolkloreThursday: `In areas of modern France that were once Celtic territory, we find folktales about the Dames Vertes who lurk in the forests, luring travelers into ravines by their beauty and their sweet voices, then tormenting them by holding them upside down over waterfalls and laughing at their terror.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
https://todon.eu/@NeuKelte/112089133782239929
#FolkloreThursday 
#FairyFriday In Shetland's Skelwick, Maren spun flax fine as spider silk 
by the fire 
, singing to ward off envious Trows . But Grimni heard her tune and left gifts—silver, pearls, a whalebone comb. On the 7th night, he claimed her.
Maren was taken to a moss-lit hall where Trows danced. She used iron, tricked Grimni, and escaped as the hall crumbled. A week's passage in a night, her gifts dust, her wheel marked. She hung iron for protection.
Trow : Mark Bere Peterson
#FolkloreThursday: `The #wodwose/#woodwose is a British and #Scottish folkloric figure. In the forests, it was long believed, lived great hairy wild men, shy beings who avoided human contact but did no harm to anyone. Some traditional British dances and mummers’ parades include cavorting imitations of the wodwose.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
https://x.com/SwearingsCaring/status/1648863665402134528?t=CfzBOtMpojlMHzzb7P_fgQ&s=09
It's spring and the first bluebells are appearing - a flower rich in #folklore #FolkloreThursday
"The elemental loses its shape. Fur, skin, flesh and bone subside, crumbling into scree. Its eyes darken and it withdraws to the remembrance of a trackway lying beneath a pelt of leaves, sewn with the stitches of fallen branches."
#BlackDog #Shuck #FolkloreThursday #FolkyFriday #FolkloreSunday
#FolkloreThursday: `A cattle-herding #brownie of the #Scottish islands, the #gunna hung about small farms making sure the cows did not trample the garden. As with many such helpful sprites, he went naked despite the weather. Any attempt to provide clothes drove the gunna away.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
https://x.com/DaubWattle/status/1174613244369129472
#FolkloreThursday: One of the greatest #Celtic visions of the #Otherworld was that of Emain Albach, the Isle of Apples, a beautiful place of everlasting summer whose handsome residents danced the sun-drenched days away. The Otherworld looked like this world, only more beautiful and changeless: trees bore blossom and fruit at the same time there, no one ever aged or grew infirm, death had no dominion in the #Otherworld.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
#FolkloreThursday: The apples significance continues into folkloric uses such as that in the British Cotswolds, where an apple tree blooming out of season meant coming death. Symbolizing harmony and immortality, abundance and love, the apple was considered a talisman of good fortune and prosperity. Some have connected the word to Apollo, whose name may have originally been Apellon, a word derived from the same source as our word “apple.”
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
In #JapaneseFolklore akaname is a #yokai often described as a small, child-like creature with a long tongue that is said to lick the grime and filth found in bathrooms. Aka means filth but is also a synonym for red and in many cases akaname are said to have slimy red skin... #FolkloreThursday 1/3
A thought for Saturday:
There are people behind #folklore of any sort. These people have told their stories, practised their rites, maintained their traditions because they believed in them, and because the folklore was theirs.
When we begin to view these people’s folklore as a means to our end (which nearly always means the extraction of filthy lucre, directly or otherwise), our practice removes us from the people who developed the folklore; we are rather conducting capitalistic, and ultimately colonialistic, #exploitation.
Is that who we want to be?
#FolkloreThursday: `#Fairies were not evil. However, they were amoral, not tied to the moral and ethical demands of humanity. They were merely playful troublemakers rather than devilish opponents. They commonly tried to lead travelers astray. This was a minor inconvenience and could be quite frightening, but even without protection, the #fairy eventually grew bored with the trick and released the ensnared human.
More seriously, the fairies attempted to lure useful or attractive people into the #Otherworld, to do their bidding until released.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
In #JapaneseFolklore Kintaro is a hero who was raised in the mountains by a Yama Uba (mountain witch). He had superhuman strength and an eclectic group of animal companions. One day there was a very unusual wrestling competition and Kintaro was the referee. The first match... #FolkloreThursday 1/2
