Bone And Sickle

In this episode, we continue our survey of supernatural sailors’ lore of the North with a look at mermen, Iceland’s “evil whales,” and sea-draugs. After a brief audio tidbit recalling our previous discussion of the  Norse World Serpent, Jörmungandr (courtesy of the TV show Vikings), we briefly reconsider the Kraken  in the context of the 13th-century Norwegian … Read More Read More The post Mermen and more Marvels of the Northern Seas appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The Kraken is only one of the monsters said to inhabit the storied northern seas of Scandinavia. This episode is the first of two that will examine fantastical nautical tales of these regions. We begin with a bit of dialogue about the Kraken uttered by Davy Jones in Disney’s 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean film Dead … Read More Read More The post The Kraken and Other Marvels of the Northern Seas appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The mythology of bees has been tied for centuries to notions of the otherworld and death.  In this episode we trace some of that folklore along with examining some highly peculiar uses of honey. Horror or sci-fi films referencing bees exploit the more mundane fears bee holds for mankind.  Our survey of these includes clips … Read More Read More The post Bees: Gods, Death, and Honey appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Medusa was one of the Gorgons, creatures originally considered quite monstrous, who over the centuries came to be humanized and even regarded as beauties transformed into snake-haired villains. In this episode, we’ll dig back to the most ancient sources to examine the bare bones of the myth. We begin with a nod or two to the … Read More Read More The post Medusa and the Gorgons appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The motif of lovers retaining the head of a decapitated partner is surprisingly widespread. In this — our romantic Valentine’s Day episode  — we have a look at old ballads, literature, fairy tales, legends, and even a few historical anecdotes in which such things occur. We begin with the English murder ballad, “In Bruton Town,” … Read More Read More The post The Lover’s Head appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The macabre feelings stirred by waxwork figures go far beyond their use in horror films, back to the Terror of the French Revolution, and beyond to their use as funeral effigies and in magic rites of popular Italian Catholicism and Roman-Etruscan witchcraft. We begin with  a brief look at wax museums in horror cinema (going … Read More Read More The post Waxworks appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Four our third year, we embrace the old tradition of seasonal ghost-storytelling. This year Mrs. Karswell reads for us a tale written by Edmund Gill Swain, from his 1912 collection Stoneground Ghost Tales (“Stoneground” here being the name of a particularly haunted but fictional English village.) Swain was a Cambridge colleague of M.R. James, the … Read More Read More The post A Christmas Ghost Story appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Books of cautionary stories for children were a popular Christmas gift in Victorian times. These tales of misbehaving children and the tragic consequences of their deeds, like the Krampus myth, served as not-so subtle reminders of parental expectations. This episode consists mainly of readings by your host and Mrs. Karswell of these grim (and amusing) stories intended … Read More Read More The post Terrible Tales for Terrible Tots appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Harlequin is an enigmatic figure with roots in dark folklore of France, specifically that of the Wild Hunt (Chasse Sauvage) a nocturnal procession of ghosts or devils, particularly associated with the time around Christmas and New Year.  The myth is also common to England and examined more closely in its Germanic manifestation in Episode 16, … Read More Read More The post The Hellish Harlequin: Phantom Hordes to Father Christmas appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

In southern Italy, belief in witchcraft  has a long history, much of it centering on the town of Benevento, about 30 miles east of Naples. From a 1428 testimony by accused witch Matteuccia da Todi, we have the first mention (anywhere in Europe) of witches flying to their sabbats — their gathering spot, in this case, being … Read More Read More The post Witchcraft in Southern Italy appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

As a short holiday bonus, we’re offering this special episode examining some obscure aspects of Halloween as manifested in our lives today. Forgotten traditions associated with the holiday arise in surprising forms many of us may not initially recognize. Simple occurrences perceived as nothing more than an everyday nuisance come into focus during our holidays … Read More Read More The post Halloween Bonus Episode appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Midnight Spook Shows featured stage illusions borrowing from techniques used in fraudulent seances alongside vaudeville-style comedy and burlesque. Performances were staged in movie theaters, paired with a film screening, usually but not exclusively from the horror genre.  The tradition began in the mid to late 1930s and ran into the early ’70s, reaching its heyday in … Read More Read More The post Spook Shows appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The gibbet was a hanging iron cage used to display the corpses of criminals in 18th and early 19th-century England. To be thus “hanged in chains,” in the judicial jargon and thinking of the day, subjected the criminal to an extra measure of postmortem shaming and offered the general public a rather extravagant cautionary example. Naturally, … Read More Read More The post The Gibbet, Hanged in Chains appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

We’re doing something different this time out. Bone and Sickle is taking off the rest of September to allow time for Mr. Ridenour’s research and Mrs. Karswell apiary maintenance. To fill the gap, we’re offering listeners a sample of the short bonus episodes all our $4-and-up Patreon subscribers hear every month. We hope you enjoy this … Read More Read More The post Marvelous and Rare appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

We examine the lore of the gallows, focusing on the British Isles, encountering hangmen as figures straddling history and myth, strange histories and folk-tales, as well as superstitions and magical practice associated with the hanged man’s rope and body. We begin, of course, with a bit of gallows humor, provided in the sea shantey, “Hanging Johnny,” … Read More Read More The post Gallows Lore appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

The method Frankenstein employed to create life is left mostly a mystery in Mary Shelley’s 1818 book. How then did the notion of stolen body parts stitched together and animated by lightning become so firmly entrenched in popular imagination? Our episode begins with a clip from Universal’s pattern-setting 1931 production, Frankenstein, in which Henry Frankenstein … Read More Read More The post The Frankenstein Method appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Western tales of bottled spirits, imps, devils, and even ghosts are largely borrowed from the Islamic and Jewish legends of jinn captured by King Solomon.  In this episode, we explore how this is expressed in folk tales, demonological treatises, and literary borrowings. We begin with a nod to the Assyrian god Pazuzu (and a clip from Exorcist … Read More Read More The post Bottled Spirits: Imps, Devils, Ghosts appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

They Arabic mythology of the jinn is, not surprisingly, quite different than what you might glean from Western pop culture. Films such as 1940’s The Thief of Baghdad and 1958 Ray Harryhausen classic, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, which we hear sampled in our opening might have you believe these creatures function as nothing more than wish-granting … Read More Read More The post The Jinn appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Toads have long been associated with magic, as witches’ familiars and as a source both of poison as folk healing. We begin with a poison allegedly brewed from a toad by the “wise wife of Keith,” Agnes Sampson, one of the accused in Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials in 1591-2. The poison was to have … Read More Read More The post Toad Magic appeared first on Bone and Sickle.

Quite distinct from their Western equivalent, Slavic mermaids might better be described as water ghosts, as they are almost always the spirits of departed females, while their male equivalent takes the form of a water goblin or water sprite.  The Russian word for mermaid is rusalka (rusalki pl.) and male creature is a vodyanoy.  Similar … Read More Read More The post Slavic Mermaids: Water Ghosts and Goblins appeared first on Bone and Sickle.