Bone And Sickle

As a “summer intermezzo” Bone and Sickle is offering three episodes this August in our “Marvelous and Rare: Antiquarian Circle” format.  These are shorter episodes normally enjoyed once a month by our $4+ supporters on  Patreon (www.patreon.com/boneandsickle).  We look forward to returning in September with our regular shows. The post Episode 92: Marvelous and Rare appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

As a “summer intermezzo” Bone and Sickle is offering three episodes this August in our “Marvelous and Rare: Antiquarian Circle” format.  These are shorter episodes normally enjoyed once a month by our $4+ supporters on Patreon (www.patreon.com/boneandsickle).  We look forward to returning in September with our regular shows. The post Episode 91: Marvelous and Rare appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Dark fairy tale elements including floating heads and bags of bones are featured in a family of tales classified under the Aarne-Thompson system as Type 480, “Kind and Unkind Girls.”  Imaginative punishments and rewards for the kind and unkind characters in question are a further interesting element.  The girls in these tales are always sisters or stepsisters, and … Read More Read More The post Dark Fairy Tales II: Heads in a Fountain, Bones in a Bag appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

“The Girl with No Hands” is the name of a a folk-tale motif shared by a number of gruesome fairy stories in which the the amputation of the heroine’s hands allows her to escape death, the Devil, or a repugnant suitor. (NOTE: For details on the 2022 Bone and Sickle shirts mentioned in the show, please visit … Read More Read More The post Dark Fairy Tales I: The Girl with No Hands appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The folklore of fairy rings and “star jelly” is strangely connected to celestial phenomena, including lightning and shooting stars. We begin with a description of a folkloric fairy ring and its dancing population from John Aubrey’s 1690 book Natural History of Wiltshire, following this with a few other folkloric takes on the topic. The botanical phenomena of … Read More Read More The post Electric Fairy Rings and the Slime from Space appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

In pagan Germanic cultures, the seeress played an extremely important role, not only as a clairvoyant, but also often fulfilling the role of a priestess, wisewoman or witch. We begin with a short clip from Robert Eggers’ The Northman, in which Björk plays a seeress.  Old Norse words used to describe this role include spákona, or … Read More Read More The post The Seeress: Germanic Tribes, Vikings, and Witches appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The best known of the 18th-century Hellfire Clubs, one founded by Francis Dashwood, is largely remembered today because of the theatrical settings in which they were said to gather, namely a ruined abbey and a network of caves. The latter is represented in the 1961 period drama, The Hellfire Club, from which we hear a brief snippet … Read More Read More The post The Hellfire Clubs, Part Two appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The Hellfire Clubs of 18th-century Great Britain were gatherings of upper-class libertines dedicated to hedonism, blasphemous jests and taboo activities expressing a cultural and political opposition to the Church. They were also the subject of lurid rumor and legend.  In this episode and the next we attempt to tease out Hellfire Club fact from folklore. … Read More Read More The post Hellfire Clubs, Part One appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Grottos are a peculiar subset of caves, usually small and picturesque, and often associated with wonders both otherworldly and manmade. NOTE: Details on our Patreon raffle for the 15-disc set, All The Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium Of Folk Horror, are at the bottom of this post. We begin with what is likely the best known … Read More Read More The post Grottos, Caves of Wonder appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Whether freshly removed or strangely preserved after death, the dead lover’s heart occasionally has continued to be embraced as a repository of intensely shared romantic experience. This Valentine’s Day episode explores two different narratives touching on that theme: a historical tale from the 19th-century literary culture of England and a collection of related medieval legends, literature, and … Read More Read More The post The Dead Lover’s Heart appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Folklore of the blacksmith portrays him as a semi-magical figure, a wily opponent of the Devil, a mythic creator in classical and biblical narratives, and an embodiment of occult wisdom within certain secret societies and neopagan groups. We begin with an audio snippet from the excellent 2017 horror-fantasy Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil, a cinematic elaboration of the … Read More Read More The post Myth and Magic of the Smith appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

In keeping with the old tradition of whiling away the nights of Christmas telling ghost stories, we bring you a tale published in 1912 by E.F. Benson.  Read by Mrs. Karswell, complete with sound FX and music as always. If you’d like some additional listening of this type, we have three more recorded in previous … Read More Read More The post A Christmas Ghost Story IV appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

In earlier centuries, Americans partook in many of the same dark Christmas traditions that gave birth to Europe’s Krampus.  This episode examines our untamed holiday history. The most obvious example of this is the character of Belsnickel, (sometimes: Pelznickel, Belschnickle, Bells Nickel, etc.), who, like the Krampus, usually appeared on St. Nicholas Day, carrying a whip … Read More Read More The post America and the Old, Dark Christmas appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Transylvania’s vampire lore inspired the setting of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, if not the character of the Count, and encompasses not only undead monsters, but living beings akin to witches.  (The show is introduced with an audio snippet from Maria Tănase, premiere interpreter of Romanian folk song.) Mrs. Karswell begins the show, reading a passage Stoker wrote … Read More Read More The post Transylvanian Vampires appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

A break from the usual themes for the Halloween season: the second part of our survey of 40 years of  Horror hosts, this time the hosts of the 1960s and a couple years of the ’70s. Included in this installment: Morgus the Magnificent, Sammy Terry, Chilly Billy Cardille, Ghoulardi, The Vegas Vampire, The Cool Ghoul, … Read More Read More The post Horror Hosts, Part Two appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Something a little different for the Halloween season: horror hosts and their evolution in the early years.  We’ll be doing a second episode (out before Halloween) rounding out our survey to include the horror hosts of the 1960s. Included in this installment: Vampira, John Zacherle, Gorgon, Marvin the Nearsighted Madman, Tarantula Ghoul, The Old Witch, … Read More Read More The post Horror Hosts, Part One appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Ghost trains and real-life railway terrors intermingle in this episode’s exploration of old train-wreck ballads, nervous and funereally obsessed Victorians, urban legends involving train deaths, and more. Mrs. Karswell begins our show reading an imaginitive description of a phantom train written by George A. Sala for an 1855 edition of the magazine, Household Words, published by Charles Dickens … Read More Read More The post Ghost Trains & Railway Terrors appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Duties in the library unfortunately prevent us from presenting a regular episode at this time, but to fill the gap, we’re offering listeners a taste of the short bonus “Marvelous & Rare” episodes all our $4-and-up Patreon subscribers hear every month (sort of antiquarian version of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not). If you’d like to … Read More Read More The post Marvelous and Rare III appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Bird-women hybrids of Greek legend and Russian folklore are uniquely ambivalent, sometimes bringing death and destruction and at others, prophetic wisdom and the joy of Paradise. The two Greek species we treat are sirens and harpies, both at times described as having the bodies of birds and faces or upper bodies of human females. Beginning with … Read More Read More The post Bird-Women of Greece and Russia appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

A dybbuk is a “clinging spirit” of Jewish folklore, a ghost that can possess a human host. Stories of dybbuks (pl. dibbukim in Hebrew for sticklers) date to the 16th century but have never traditionally included the idea of trapping a dybbuk in a box, a trope that only dates to a 20o3 eBay ad placed … Read More Read More The post The Dybbuk appeared first on Bone and Sickle.