You’re looking at an 18th-century illustration from one Marie-Jeanne Valet, aka “the Amazon”, aka “the Maid of Gévandan”, showing her getting attacked by a monstrous creature. The 19- or 20- year old Marie got these creds for having successfully fought off the enormous and bloodthirsty animal, which was something that as many as 100 people […]
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After the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the literature that had flourished went into abeyance. For instance, the entire genre of playwriting just went out of existence. It was finally a tenth-century woman named Roswitha of Gandersheim who revived this art. Her plays today read charmingly clunky, like fourth-grade presentations. As with much about
“Dulcitius” and the Revival of Playwriting Read More »
This is a set of bone sewing needles found in the Cave of Courbet near Toulouse, France, dating to around 13,000 years ago. Trace the history of the sewing needle and you will trace one of the key technologies that enabled Homo sapiens to migrate around the planet, and to outlast our closest human relatives,
The Green Children of Woolpit Read More »
VIKING HOARD ALERT! Not, like, the immanent threat of hoards of Vikings coming to invade, but the other sort of hoard — as in, the stashed treasures from Viking-age Scandinavia and Britain, buried for safekeeping but never reclaimed by their owners. Hundreds of such hoards have been discovered in modern times, many by amateur treasure-seekers
Scottish Viking Hoard Read More »
This is the story of a famous Russian woman and author,, Anna Akhmatova. Here she is in 1924 at age 35, looking weary and seductive. By this time, Anna (neé Anna Andreyevna) had lived through fin-de-siecle Europe, the artsy cabaret scene in St Petersburg, the First World War, and the Communist Revolution. Well might she
Anna Akhmatova, Russian Poet Read More »
The Ancient Greeks were right to have the story of how Prometheus brought fire to the human race front-and-center in their mythology. Fire is an amazing thing — most vertebrates flee from it when it happens in the natural world. But we humans learned to control it, and that revolutionized our existence. The control of
Fire and Evolution Read More »
Ephedra (technically Ephredra sinica) or ma-huang, is a shrub with small scaly leaves that comes from northeastern China, Russia, and Mongolia, and is especially interesting in the history of medicine. Recipes using ephredra have been used for thousands of years in Classical Chinese medicine. Frequently the plant has been a key ingredient in treating asthma
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This grizzly painting of two polar bears rending apart the remains of human corpses with a shipwreck in the background is the subject of a fascinating urban legend. Called _Man Proposes, God Disposes_, it was painted by artist Edwin Landseer in 1864 to depict the tragic failure of Englishman Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition 19
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This painting by the Early Modern European artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger shows a line of dancers, but they don’t look like they are having that much fun — for instance, the two women in the center are staring off into space, not paying attention to the musicians in their path. And that’s because they
The Dancing Disease Read More »
Washington DC’s Sackler Gallery has an exhibit right now called “Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints.” It’s a fascinating view of the ways different artists thought about monsters and ghosts as popular subjects of Japanese “Noh” Theater, a type of performance that moved from elite circles to the masses in the
Kasane the Vengeful “Noh” Spirit Read More »
Yesterday, I was fortunate to experience the full solar eclipse from the Pymatuning State Park Reservoir in western Pennsylvania. The light turned silvery as the sun neared total obfuscation, and green colors emerged and reds dimmed, the effect of our eyes’ cones coming offline and employing the rods more. Shadows close to the ground sharpened
In the late 1500s in China’s Ming Dynasty, one of the world’s most epic sagas was published: _Journey to the West_. Attributed to Wu Cheng’en, it incorporated folk tales and myths with an historical account of a Chinese monk seeking Buddhist texts and wisdom. Along the way, the monk is aided by protectors, of whom
“Journey to the West” and “Dragon Ball Z” Read More »
Today my daughter and I got to visit VAMPA, a paranormal museum in Doylestown PA! The very recently constructed museum was a sensory adventure. Starting with the garage-sale garden exterior, which sprawled with iron gazebos, plastic near-life sized dinosaurs (only some of which were broken), and lots of pseudo-Greek statuary, visitors wind their way to
VAMPA Museum, Doylestown, PA Read More »
Here you see a modern artist’s rendition of a mythical Malaysian evil tiger spirit called “hantu belian,” which the Malay peoples believed would possess a person’s body and make them commit great violence while they were unconsious. This belief in hantu belian’s destructive powers was pervasive enough that they formed the origin story of the
Hantu Belian and Running Amok Read More »
Just in time for the fall season, *and* Halloween, comes the news of a recent discovery in Poland of a 17th-century “Vampire” burial. An archaeological team led by Dariusz Polinsky of the Nicholas Copernicus University was conducting excavations around an Early Modern graveyard near Bydgoszcz when they unearthed the skeleton shown here. It belonged to
In 19th-century German-speaking countries, folktales about horrifying agricultural monsters became widespread. They picked up from even earlier local legends, streamlining beliefs into a general picture of Feldgeister – “field ghosts” and Korndämonen – “corn demons”. (First and second images). These stories involve a range of beasts that are sometimes humanoid, other times beasts, and additionally
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#what-I-didn’t-see-on-my-way-to-work-this-morning Here is a detail from a 15th-century manuscript showing a mermaid playing music. She’s got two instruments and only two arms, so she is obviously quite the bard. Mermaids were widely believed to be real creatures in the Middle Ages. In fact, women/sea-creature hybrids have been fabulous legends across many civilizations, but they end
Since it is almost Halloween, what could be more fitting than a horror story featuring a mythical creature? Gather ’round ye old phone screen for the tale of the Warsaw Basilisk. This story has been examined by many scholars — not for its veracity, but to establish that the account did indeed occur in the
Boo! And happy Halloween, dear readers. This day’s habits and festivities draw from a number of traditions across quite a wide spread of time, but some of the most interesting are from 19th century Europe and North America. Take this picture from the 1860s, for instance, showing a woman having a fright from a ghost.
Séances and Spiritualism Read More »
In the mood for a Medieval ghost story? In 12th century Europe, tales dealing with a procession of the dead (often aristocratic soldiers), who are doomed to wander the earth to atone for their sins and often appeared to be suffering,, became popular. One of these sorts of tails was recorded by an Englishman named
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