This week for Folklore Friday I figured I'd promote my satanist feminist zine--The Bite Zine! This is a project I've been working on since the summer with a group of friends and the last issue we did was cryptid themed! There were a lot of great submissions and we were all so pleased with the final product. I, myself, whipped up a little watercolor for the issue. Since it came out in February, it seemed fitting to have a love-themed cryptid piece. Interested in getting a copy

Today's Folklore Friday is all about a historical figure that I find so marvelous and amusing that I wrote a poem inspired by her. Her name is Mary Toft and she's known for being a human who gave birth to rabbits. Mary Toft (1701-1763) was a normal English woman from Godalming, Surrey until 1726 when she convinced doctors that she was birthing rabbits like children. As an 18th-century English peasant, when Mary became pregnant in 1726, she was still stuck working in the field

One unforgettable thing I did in 2018 was that I finally made the great trek to The Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV. Now, if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, it's cryptids. I'm talking about American folklore, the cousin of Bigfoot, the monster under your bed--all that juicy stuff. Mothman was first seen on November 12, 1966. Five men were in a cemetery, digging a grave when they saw a brown winged creature lifting off from the trees--but it wasn't a b

This time for Folklore Friday, instead of telling you a tale on this blog, I'm going to direct you towards a podcast I recorded with a week ago! Local podcast Ghoul on Ghoul sat down with me to talk spirits, silliness--and there are a few surprises! Listen here: I can promise you goosebumps and even a little laughter with any listen. Click the image link below to check out their Instagram post with relevant photos to the story. And while you're there, make sure to give them a

Art by Brian Froud If you're seeking some sort of intro, please refer back to the first post in this series on faeries! This week I'm going to talk about a few more of my favorite Scottish faeries: Red Caps, Ghillie Dhu, and Selkies--all beautiful, terrible, wicked, and divine. Art by Alan Lee Red Caps Red Caps are hateful things that live only for blood and carnage. They look emaciated, with leathery brown skin and little to no hair. You'll find them at the ruins of castles

Art by Brian Froud One piece of lore that has always stuck with me is faeries. When I was a kid, my best friend and I would watch Jim Henson's Labyrinth almost every day after school. We were mad for it. The idea of living and playing with the fey like Toby, having a faerie love you so deeply and insanely as Jareth loved Sarah--it was all dizzying and magical. It was easy to lose yourself in the dream of it all. So picture me again--no longer a child in elementary school, but

This week's Folklore Friday is going to focus more on weird news than folklore per se, but we're still looking back at my time in Transylvania. Another stop on my tour included the famous Merry Cemetery--the epitome of dark humor. In the Cimitirul Vesel, aka Merry Cemetery, your tombstone features a picture and limerick describing your life and/or death. Some are sweet and some aren't for the faint of heart. You can quickly go from giggling to nervous, uneasy laughter. They r

The Hoia-Baciu Forest sits ominously near Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in a geographical area better known as Transylvania. The forest covers an area of roughly 3 square kilometers and is sometimes known as the Bermuda Triangle of Romania. Legend has it, the name comes from a shepherd who disappeared in the forest with a flock of two hundred sheep. It's said that most of the people who live nearby avoid the forest due to the stories and folklore passed down through the ages, but it