David Castleton (Author)

Some feel the Isle of Man is named after Manannan, a sea god who protected the island by cloaking it in mist. The name may, however, come from a Celtic word meaning 'mountain island' and the god may have been named after the island rather than the other way around. From Man's highest point, it's said that on a clear day you can see 7 kingdoms - England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland & Man, plus the Kingdom of the Sea & Kingdom of Heaven. #FolkloreSunday #folklore #mythology #history #weird

As late as 2004, in the Romanian village of Marotinu de Sus, a farmer suspected of vampiric activity was exhumed. His heart was removed, taken to a crossroads and burnt. Ashes from the heart were made into a tea and given to one of the vampire's 'victims'. The person responsible was arrested, but defiantly stated: "All the villagers said this has been going on since the olden times. It's better to take the heart out than let the corpse kill children. The elders are wise and know things." #folklore #gothic #history #mythology #vampires #vampire #paranormal #weird

In Haiti, some believe that magical practitioners can put people in a death-like trance, steal them from their graves after their funerals, revive them to a semi-conscious state, and force them to work. Some Haitians who claim to have been through this ordeal can show others their graves and death certificates. Such folklore likely, in part, originates from the traumas of slavery. The Haitian penal code states: "The use made against a person of substances, which, without giving death, will cause a more-or-less prolonged state of lethargy ... is considered an attempt on life by poisoning. If the person was buried as a consequence of this state of lethargy, the attempt will be considered a murder." The painting below is by Haitian artist Hector Hyppolite from 1946. #gothic #folklore #death #mythology #history #art #painting #graveyard #zombies

Real attempts to deal with 'dangerous corpses' persisted in England long after vampires had been made into literary and theatrical spectacles. Four years after the publication of 'Dracula', a Devon farmer is recorded as saying the coffin of a "troublesome" woman would be buried upside-down so "her can on'y diggy downwards." During World War I, English soldiers are recorded as having buried a "huge, scowling" German facedown for the same reason. #gothic #folklore #mythology #vampire #vampires #death #history #paranormal #weird

A method for dealing with vampires found in Serbia and Albania is to remove the corpse's left sock and fill it with dirt from the grave. The dirt should be taken from the under where the head rests. The sock should then be cast beyond the village boundary in the hope that - as the vampire chases after this garment - they will stumble into water and drown. #folklore #mythology #death #vampire #vampires #paranormal #gothic #weird #history

Painting of the Last Judgement from Haukipudas Church, Finland, by Mikael Toppelius (1770s). Notice the 'biting corpse' in the lower left-hand corner. Toppelius was known for incorporating folkloric material into his Baroque style and the biting corpse may represent local beliefs in what might be termed 'the restless dead', more commonly known as 'vampires'. This area of Finland may have been influenced by Scandinavian ideas about such revenants. #art #churches #folklore #gothic #weird #vampire #vampires #death #history #Finland #paranormal

Gormire is an eerily still lake on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. It has no inflow or outflow and is probably fed by an underwater spring. Folklore claims the lake is bottomless. Another myth states the Devil plunged into the lake, making the waters boil and giving them their dark colour. A different tale asserts that a goose disappeared beneath the surface only to emerge - stripped of its feathers - from a well in the town of Kirbymoorside. The lake was also the last resting place of a wicked priest whose corpse insisted on walking around after his death and causing mischief. The corpse was dug up and 'quietened' by being sunk in the lake. #gothic #folklore #history #mythology #Yorkshire #death #paranormal

In the 16th century in the Friuli region of Italy, a group known as the Benandanti (or 'Good Walkers') would go out on certain nights armed with fennel stalks to do battle against witches and warlocks, thereby protecting crops and livestock from their malign influence. The Benandanti believed they had been endowed with supernatural powers due to 'being born in the caul' and they often carried their preserved cauls with them. They claimed they could shapeshift into wolves or other animals, journey outside the body, foretell the future, and speak with the dead. Despite their good intentions, some Benandanti found themselves accused of witchcraft and heresy, with their nocturnal journeys seen as a type of witches' Sabbath. #history #folklore #gothic #weird #supernatural #occult #magic

Legend states that St Fridolin asked two wealthy brothers to help endow a nunnery. One, Urso, eagerly donated some land, but died soon afterwards, leading his sibling, Landolf, to take legal action to get the land back. St Fridolin's solution was to go to Urso's tomb and waken him. Hand in hand, the saint and the corpse walked six miles to the local court, where Urso convinced his startled brother to drop his legal claims. The land for his nunnery secured, Fridolin walked Urso back to his tomb and returned him to eternal rest. This medieval legend, from Southern Germany, is one of the many 'walking corpse' stories that precede the vampire panic of the early 1700s. #gothic #history #weird #folklore #mythology #medieval #vampire #vampires #paranormal

In Richmond, North Yorkshire, legend claims a secret tunnel runs between the town's castle and a ruined abbey in the nearby hamlet of Easby. It's said that soldiers one day discovered a mysterious tunnel in the castle dungeons and - due to its narrow dimensions - decided to send a young drummer boy along it while they followed his beats from above. About half-a-mile outside town, however, his drumming ceased and he was never seen again. Folklore states that on dark quiet nights, you can still hear his drumming beneath Richmond's marketplace. Similar legends are found elsewhere. In Edinburgh, a tunnel beneath the Royal Mile was explored by a young piper who met a similar fate and the faint sounds of his bagpipes can also be heard in the wee hours. #Folklore #FolkloreThursday #BookologyThursday #history #mythology #Yorkshire #ghosts #paranormal #gothic #weird

Though ravens are strongly linked to the Tower of London, the association may not go back further than Victorian times, when some beefeaters started keeping the birds as pets. Ravens became popular pets thanks to Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem. The idea some misfortune will occur if the ravens leave the Tower seems to have emerged about 1900 and the notion their departure will result in the kingdom falling doesn't seem to predate World War II. However, medieval Welsh legend says that the severed - though still talkative - head of the hero Bran the Blessed was buried on nearby Tower Hill, facing out towards Europe as a talisman against invasion. The name Bran translates as 'raven'. #FairytaleTuesday #folklore #gothic #mythology #poem #poems #poetry #poets #history #London #weird

Some of the most curious English ghost stories relate to 'screaming skulls'. A famous one is housed at Burton Agnes Hall, Yorkshire. It is said to have belonged to Anne Griffith, whose father built the Hall. Anne had watched in amazement as the Hall was constructed, declaring it would be the most wonderful home ever built. Shortly after it was finished, however, she was fatally wounded by robbers. As she lay dying, she made her sisters promise they would sever her corpse's head and keep it in the Hall, but Anne was buried conventionally in the local churchyard. The Hall was, thereafter, tormented with groans and poltergeist activity until the family had Anne exhumed and decapitated. As long as the skull stayed in the Hall, everything was fine, but - over the years - several attempts to remove it led to supernatural disturbances. The skull remains in the Hall today. Nobody is sure of the exact location, but it's said to be bricked up in a wall. #gothic #folklore #history #paranormal #ghosts #skull #skulls #death #mythologymonday #graveyard

The Band of Holes, on Monte Sierpe (Serpent Mountain), Peru. There are around 5,200 aligned holes or pits, stretching for about 1.5 kilometres and thought to date back to around 1400. Some feel the pits - at the intersection of two Inca trade routes - may have been used to measure out goods for accounting and tax purposes. Others have suggested that the holes were graves or defensive fortifications or that they had a religious significance. #archaeology #history #mythology #folklore #architecture

John Cowper Powys was a highly eccentric British writer, whose extremely long novels explored folklore, landscape and mythology. Though some were set in the South West of England, Powys later reinvented himself as a kind of wizard Welshman. His magnum opus, Porius, is around 1000 pages long and features Merlin, King Arthur, the bard Taliessin, Neanderthal giants, the cult of Mithras, and an alchemical child. Two accounts of bilocation (being in two places simultaneously) are associated with Powys. In one incident, he promised to appear to a friend at precisely two o'clock the following day. At the appointed time, the friend looked up and saw Powys before his image slowly faded. The other account involved him appearing at a hotel to a nephew who had annoyed him, bursting through some doors and shouting "No tea! No tea!" The nephew later asserted there was no way Powys could have been at the hotel at that time. #literature #folklore #mythology #weird #paranormal #books #occult

Newcastle's historic Lit & Phil library has 16 ghosts, including phantom librarians, who tell visitors to ssshhh and violently shake the handles of the roller racks. Another ghost is a Roman soldier - the library stands on the route of Hadrian's Wall and bits of the Wall's masonry can be seen in its basement. One of the Lit & Phil's most notorious spooks is a 17th-century witch hunter, said to have sent 220 innocent people to their deaths. The witch finder seems drawn to a Victorian book on witchcraft. #paranormal #gothic #folklore #ghosts #weird #architecture #libraries #books #history

@Emmacox@writing.exchange @mcc@mastodon.social @tsrono@mastodon.social Interesting. The tale was first written down by William Bottrell and published in 1873. His version is more or less as I narrated it. It can be read here: https://kernowgoth.org/cornish-heritage-and-culture/cornish-folklore-legends/cornish-folklore-legends-mermaid-of-zennor-by-bottrell/

A bench end carved with a mermaid in the church of the coastal village of Zennor, Cornwall. A legend claims that a mysterious woman would sometimes attend church services, singing in a captivating, otherworldly voice. There seemed something of a spark between her and a handsome young chorister, and their voices would intertwine beautifully. After one service, the two walked to a nearby cove, disappeared beneath the waves, and were never seen again. The villagers realised the woman was a mermaid and had the bench she sat on carved with her image as a warning to men to beware of these dangerous creatures. Images of mermaids were quite common in medieval churches. Usually portrayed clutching mirrors and combs, they admonished worshippers about the temptations of vanity. At Zennor, the legend may have been invented to explain the carving after its meaning had been forgotten. #folklore #mythology #churches #medieval #gothic #history #architecture #weird #Cornwall

Established in 1854, the London Necropolis Railway aimed to relieve pressure on overcrowded city churchyards by whisking the dead out to Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. Its station, near Waterloo, featured a steam-powered coffin lift & a glass roof so no shadow would be cast on the hearse carriage. Nearby railway arches acted as mortuaries and coffins were kept in stock so guests dying unexpectedly in hotels could be discreetly removed. The station contained many waiting rooms, in which funeral services could be held, and customers could purchase first, second and third-class funeral packages. The service wound down after World War II, but the station office building can still be seen on Westminster Bridge Road. #WyrdWednesday #history #gothic #folklore #architecture #death #weird #trains #railway #London #psychogeography #graveyard

There were several St Valentines associated with February 14th, but the most famous was jailed in Roman times. He restored the sight of his jailor's blind daughter and a later tradition claims he sent her a note before his execution, signed 'Your Valentine'. Valentine's Day is thought to have become linked to love because of the courtship behaviour of birds in spring. (The day occurred later in the year in the Julian Calendar.) In 1382, the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his 'Parliament of Fowls' about birds choosing their mates on Valentine's Day. In England, Valentine's cards became popular in the late 1700s. By the early 1840s, 400,000 were being sent a year, a phenomenon spurred on by cheaper postal services and factory-produced cards. Over 3,000 women were employed in making these cards, with Charles Dickens terming the industry 'Cupid's Manufactory'. #history #folklore #mythology #HappyValentinesDay #Valentines #Victorian #literature

An interesting custom found in parts of Transylvania is 'the wedding of the dead'. If a young person dies before they can get married, they are placed in their coffin dressed as a bride or bridegroom, with the coffin being decorated with flowers. A mock wedding is then performed, with the deceased being married to an effigy, a tree, or a living person who takes on the role of spouse. This custom is thought to be an attempt to stop the deceased returning as a vampire or ghost, due to the feeling that they have 'unfinished business'. #folklore #gothic #vampires #death #ghosts #paranormal #mythology

Blackheath Caverns, South #London are a series of manmade caves & tunnels, rediscovered in 1780. Their age is unclear. Some feel they were dug by Saxons to hide from the Danes, but they were probably created by chalk mining. After their rediscovery, they were used for - often debauched - high-society parties. The caverns - one of which boasted a chandelier & bar - could accommodate 1500 people. The authorities closed them in 1854, possibly due to their disreputable reputation. #history #weird

Jack Straw's Castle is a former pub in Hampstead, London. It is said to be named after one of the leaders of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt, who allegedly took refuge on the site before he was captured and executed. A pub has existed in this location since at least the early 1700s. Charles Dickens celebrated it as somewhere he could get "a glass of good red wine" and the pub was frequented by Thackery and Wilkie Collins. In Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', Van Helsing and Dr Seward dine there. It also appears in Harold Pinter's play 'No Man's Land'. The pub closed in 2002 and the building is now - sadly - luxury flats. #London #history #literature #psychogeography #gothic #books #pubs #urban #architecture #books

@Uair@autistics.life Thanks, I've changed that typo. Windowlicker's a great track!