Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus, the military origins of the term ballpark estimate. And when two people say the same thing simultaneously, […]
The Utsuro-bune ("hollow boat") was an object that "allegedly washed ashore in 1803 in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan." According to the legend, "a young woman aged between 18 and 20 arrived aboard the 'hollow boat' on February 22, 1803. — Read the rest
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Tencitt di Cunardo e Famiglia Bosina sono attesi a Parre, in Val Seriana per la 20a edizione del raduno regionale FITP, in programma tra sabato 13 e domenica 14 giugno
A writer stumbles upon a tiny, motionless creature on a country road and, against all good advice, takes it home. The resulting memoir, Raising Hare, is a lovely meditation on nature and our relationship to it. And: have you ever invented a fake swear word to hide the real ones from little ears? One family’s […]
Connie from Marana, Arizona, grew up being warned that Rawhead and Bloody Bones would get her if she went rummaging in closets or her grandmother’s hope chest. The creature—or sometimes a pair of creatures—dates at least as far back as the mid-16th century, when an anti-Catholic pamphlet refers to Rawhed and Bloody Bone as secretaries […]
The 17th-century English antiquarian John Aubrey recorded a love charm called moulding cockle bread. A young woman would climb onto a table, lift her skirts, and, in Aubrey's words, "wabble to and fro with the Buttocks as if they were kneading of Dough with their Arses." — Read the rest
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Alfred Watkins was driving across the hills near Blackwardine, in Herefordshire, when he looked out at the landscape and thought he saw a pattern. Ancient mounds, hilltop beacons, old churches, moats, and standing stones seemed to fall into dead-straight lines across the countryside. — Read the rest
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/1TTxvIJlhLze3pjfa9nBBW
Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experiences that are uniquely their own, from a point of view that is theirs and no one else’s. Plus, why do we say that someone who’s fortunate has the luck of the Irish? And […]
L’article « J’ai redécouvert le costume alsacien avec une photo de mon arrière-grand-mère » est apparu en premier sur Pokaa.
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/1zBHuoQHilbCT5jXxg596n
Two men sat in a car on Abbey Road in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, on the night of February 1, 2025, waiting to catch a ghost. Luke Roberts and Jai Brewer call themselves the "banana hunters," and they had come to watch a particular street corner opposite a church. — Read the rest
The post 15 honey-drizzled bananas appear on a plate every month on a street corner appeared first on Boing Boing.
High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality check — but the last thing you’d actually want to touch is dog water! Also, the history of the word hangover, and the many names, in several languages, for the effects […]
A story of desire and the patience of forgotten things.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascual_Abaj
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_saint
A story of when the distance between a told thing and an untold thing was believed to matter enormously.
Hao Xing’s paintings unfold as fragmented, speculative worlds where folklore, memory and fiction merge.
2,059 words The recent South by Southwest Film Festival saw the debut of a documentary which has left the world of cryptozoology in shambles. Capturing Bigfoot has shown that the world’s most famous footage of Sasquatch, the Patterson-Gimlin Film (PGF), was a hoax.1 The now debunked video was first presented to the world in 1967. […]
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Theodor Kittelsen was a Norwegian artist known for his illustrations of Norwegian nature and folklore.
These three pictures all depict the nixie, a water dwelling spirit that would attempt to drown people by luring them into the water, often by taking the shape of a horse
These are elves or huldra, humanoid creatures that are often…
Tucked behind the manger in traditional Catalan nativity scenes, almost hidden, is a little figurine with his trousers down, squatting. That's the caganer — literally "the defecator" — and he's been there since at least the 17th or 18th century Baroque period. — Read the rest
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Review by Tom Muir. A Garment for the Moon by Shonaleigh, Published by Orkneyology Press. The latest book from Orkneyology Press has a close, personal connection to the foundation of the publishing company. When my wife Rhonda suggested that we publish our own books through our website we hadn’t thought about publishing anything else. During […]
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https://archive.org/details/native-american-tales-and-legends/mode/2up
A collection of tales from various native Indian peoples.
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https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Main_Page
I’ve been working on this wiki and interactive map of translated German-language folk tales since last June, and while there are always more tales to add, the wiki is functionally complete.
Please take a look, and tell me if there’s anything that could be improved!
In the courtyard of Schwerin’s former ducal palace stands a sandstone statue of a diminutive man with a heavy moustache and pointed beard. Dressed in Renaissance-era court attire, he wears a short tunic, a millstone collar, and a feathered hat. Created around 1856 by local sculptor Heinrich Petters, the figure depicts _Petermännchen_ (literally “Little Peter Man”), the castle’s household…
Revied by Erin Farley. Scottish Folk Tales of Love (The History Press, 2026), by Tom Muir, illustrated by Hester Aspland. I could pretend this is an objective review from a disinterested bystander, but Tom Muir, author of the present volume, has ever-so-slightly scuppered that by including a genuinely lovely paragraph about me in the acknowledgements. […]
Nisseluer against Nazis