EssAeEm
@essaeem.bsky.social
280 followers 140 following 590 posts
Connoisseur of the weird and wondrous, especially animation, theme parks, folklore and puppets. I also run @gifs-of-puppets.bsky.social.
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godysseypodcast.com
Thor took a short voyage with Tyr's father Hymir, meant to be a fishing expedition, but the Thunderer knew better. He eschewed gentle seas to fish to the harsh churning waves and used an ox head for bait: he caught Jormungandr the World Serpent, who got away. #WyrdWednesday
An unknown artist's depiction of the final battle between Thor and Jormungandr, showing Thor leaping with a massive, too-long instead of too short handled Mjolnir from a stormy mist into the Midgard Serpent, a massive snake with pointy teeth and a long tongue, with horns all over the serpent's back.
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21rosa.bsky.social
Sir Gawain must journey through the 'wyldrenesse of Wyrale' to fulfil his quest - the beheading contest with the Green Knight: "Sometimes he warred with dragons & with wolves/sometimes with the crag haunting woodwose/with bears, bulls & boars, or pursued by giants across the fells" #WyrdWednesday
Image of knights in blood red cloaks, a black cloaked Mari and scarlet swords suspended from the ceiling. The Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead (2024). 'Into the Wyld' was an exhibition exploring the legacy of the medieval poem 'Gawain and the Green Knight' Gawain journeys through the wilderness of the Wirral so the topography of the north west was a major theme of the collaborative exhibition and day long conference
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curiousordinary.bsky.social
One of the most well-known tales in #JapaneseFolklore is of Urashima Taro and his journey on the back of a magical turtle to the palace of the dragon king under the sea. Unfortunately when he returned home, 300 years had passed and everyone he knew was gone.
🎨Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1882
#WyrdWednesday
A man hding a fishing rod sits on the back of a large turtle with seaweed growing from its shell that looks like a tail.
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signemaene.com
1/3 According to a Flemish folktale, bokkenrijders or buckriders, who were said to be thieves, ghosts, or sometimes even witches, and rode through the sky on the backs of goats in Flanders and the Netherlands, had stolen the Queen's laundry.

#WyrdWednesday
Art from Affiche: "De Bokkenrijder of het skelet." Opdrachtgever: Het Hollandsch Tooneel. Shows a buckrider riding through the sky. Castle in the far distance. Clouds.
essaeem.bsky.social
Long ago, the goddess Pele traveled across the ocean in her canoe to search for a suitable home where her fire and lava would be safe from the waters of her sister and rival Nāmaka the sea goddess, ultimately settling inside Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. #WyrdWednesday
Photo of the Pacific Ocean at sunset
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drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
This takes me back to when I was a school library monitor in Sixth Form and allowed to log on to the librarian’s computer, which was one of the few with a reliable internet connection. Of course, we used it for important things…
archive.org
🐹 Before viral videos on TikTok or YouTube, there was Hampsterdance.

Full of dancing hamster GIFs & a sped-up tune, it became one of the internet’s first viral hits.

You can still dance to it on the #WaybackMachine ➡️ web.archive.org/web/19991222...

#Wayback1T

🧵
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godysseypodcast.com
Charles Perrault's version of Cinderella is one of the most popular, and it is this version that installed the pumpkin-as-carriage that Disney animated: this New World crop had become so ingrained in European society by the 17th century it bled into fairy tales. #FairytaleTuesday
William Henry Margetson's depiction of Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother, the latter using her wand/cane to turn a pumpkin and mice into a carriage and horses right before Cinderella's very eyes (also indoors, so that seems unsafe).
Reposted by EssAeEm
yokai.com
Tonight's A-Yokai-A-Day is story number 100 of Shokoku hyakumonogatari!

It took four years of A-Yokai-A-Days to finish this collection, and I am happy to complete it. I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did.

Check it out for free on my Patreon below:

www.patreon.com/posts/yokai-...
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Telling One Hundred Ghost Stories Lead to Wealth and Honor | Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy)
Get more from Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy) on Patreon
www.patreon.com
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dannyrobins.bsky.social
👻🎃 UNCANNY HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN: DAY 6 🎃👻

Are you enjoying counting down the days until #Halloween? Today’s bijou bite of the bizarre is Case 6: The Blanket Seal 🛌

What happened in that university hall of residence room?

Send your questions and theories on the case to [email protected]!
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emjanerothwell.bsky.social
‘The realm of fairy-story is wide & deep & high & filled with many things: all manner of beasts & birds are found there; shoreless seas & stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, & an ever-present peril; both joy & sorrow as sharp as swords.’
—JRR Tolkien
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yokai.com
If you died, what would make you come back as a #ghost?

I think I would definitely come back to play D&D, though I'm not sure my players would want an undead DM.

But an afterlife of board games seems like a fun one!

Check out today's A-Yokai-A-Day post below:

www.patreon.com/posts/yokai-...
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Ōmori Hikogorō’s Wife Died and then Came Back to Play Sugoroku | Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy)
Get more from Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy) on Patreon
www.patreon.com
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stephengrae.bsky.social
I'm just about to step inside this "fairy ring", so if you don't hear from me for a few hundred years...
A "fairy ring" of toadstools
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racheldeering.bsky.social
🖼️ Inga Moore for The Wind in the Willows.
Woodland scene, mole in brown coat and red scarf, illustration.
essaeem.bsky.social
A lovely view of EPCOT's World Showcase Lagoon as seen through the Japan Pavilion's torii gate, which is inspired by the iconic floating torii at Itsukushima shrine.
Reposted by EssAeEm
stephengrae.bsky.social
Goblin Ha' is under Yester Castle. Its owner, the Wizard of Yester had the castle built over an entrance to Hell, and the builders were an army of goblins

from: "Boggarts, Brownies, Hobs and their Goblin Kin"
bardofcumberland.com/folklore/

#31DaysOfHalloween #booksky
art: Alan Lee
Goblin illustration by Alan Lee
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curiousordinary.bsky.social
'Harvest Fox Spirit' (messenger of Inari, kami of the crops) - Shoson Ohara, ca. 1910.
#JapaneseArt #ukiyoe
A fox dancing on hind legs with a leaf on its head.
Reposted by EssAeEm
signemaene.com
According to a Flemish folktale, a farm was haunted by a man with two dogs who had 'hellish' eyes. One night, he arrived at the farm in a phantom carriage drawn by four horses. Ten people got out and started partying. A priest eventually banished the ghost to a wasteland.

#PhantomsFriday
Photograph by Léonard Misonne. Pictorialist photograph of four horses standing on a muddy road in the woods.
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yokaiparade.bsky.social
Ushirogami is a one-eyed ghost that sneaks up behind you and pulls your hair or makes your umbrella blow away or breathes on the back of your neck...then disappears when you turn around. #FolkloreThursday
a surprised-looking woman walking down a Japanese side street with her hair being pulled by a one-eyed ghost
art by Maeoka Tetsuya
Reposted by EssAeEm
yokai.com
Another Japanese ghost story for everyone's #Halloween enjoyment, free on my Patreon!

A-Yokai-A-Day for Oct 2: How Attachment to Money Became a Strange Light in Tsu, Ise Province

#yokai

www.patreon.com/posts/yokai-...
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Attachment to Money Became a Strange Light in Tsu, Ise Province | Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy)
Get more from Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy) on Patreon
www.patreon.com
Reposted by EssAeEm
tlrose.bsky.social
Beware of traipsing over the burial sites of the Nordic haugbùi, or “barrow-dwellers,” for the spirits are known for showing no mercy dispensing their specific form of punishment: Reciting poetry to trespassers.

#FolkloreThursday

🖼️ The Merry Cemetery
by Amrita Sher-Gil
A painting of an atmospheric but cheery looking cemetery decorated with different cross tombstones, and in the background and a line are little houses, some showing figures before them.
Reposted by EssAeEm
overslizzie.bsky.social
Every seven years in Alfriston, the ghost of a white dog was said to appear on White Way, thought to be Thomas Chowne's pet.

Chowne was killed by robbers and when his bones were found and moved to St Andrews churchyard, sightings of the ghostly dog ceased.

#FolkloreThursday
Photo Public domain
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yokaiparade.bsky.social
Everything can come to monstrous life in Japan, even vegetables! In one legend, a pumpkin monster called Sunamura no onryō appeared in the neighborhood of Sunamura night after night, terrorizing people by chasing them around yokai.com/sunamuranoon... #FolkloreThursday
Edo-period illustration of a squash monster
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tlrose.bsky.social
When theaters close for the night a ghostlight is kept on the stage so the spirits can perform; otherwise they'll haunt the actors & sabotage the current show. #FolkloreThursday

📸 credit www.reddit.com/media?url=ht...
An eerie photograph showing a ghostly light left on an empty stage
essaeem.bsky.social
Among the many ghosts that have been witnessed haunting the Tower of London is an apparition said to resemble a bear standing on its hind legs. In 1816, the encounter a guard had with this ghostly bear was so intense that he died of fright. #FolkloreThursday
Photo of The Tower of London from across the Thames River at night
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godysseypodcast.com
A ghost haunts the wonderfully named Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia, wandering those glades and waterways calling out for his lost love, whom colonists called the Lady of the Lake. The tale inspired Poe's "The Lake" and a ballad by Thomas Moore. #LegendaryWednesday
The Lake of Dismal Swamp: A Ballad, written by Thomas Moore, ESO. This text on the front of a pamphlet is accompanied by an image of the viewer looking out into Dismal Swamp to see a woman on a tiny canoe, standing and glowing as she comes towards you, brushing her hair back in her sheer white dress, as if she were walking on a sunny day. It is not sunny. It is night. And you are in a swamp. Get out.