Folk Horror Magpie 🥀 Profile picture
Jun 2, 2022 7 tweets 6 min read Read on X
A few years ago All Saints Church in Hereford got funding for the erection of a cafe on a new mezzanine level. A new seating gallery had excellent lighting, all the better to illuminate detail of the magnificent intricate carvings cloaked in shadow since the 14th century! …Ah. Image
The man in the carving has appropriately been nicknamed Seamus O’Toole, and it is thought that his spirited salutation was created by a disgruntled medieval artisan. ImageImage
Stone gargoyles and decorative misericords have all sorts of symbolic meanings but there is some anecdotal evidence that the more ribald version was a final flourish of carpenters and masons scammed of their pay. ImageImage
Elsewhere one tale tells of church authorities who thought they were being clever by ‘running out of cash’ only at the very end of construction, when all that was left to do was to affix the cherubs to the rafters. ImageImage
Cue over 100 cherubs with massive phalluses and an aggrieved church having to hire scaffolding to hack each offending protuberance off by hand. ImageImage
A reminder, for your long weekend, that a system of divine rule may not always have the best interests of the people in mind, and that small acts of dissent are the lifeblood of revolution. Image

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More from @folkhorrormagpi

Dec 10
This gravestone has been on my mind for some time, its inscription so perplexing and sinister: ‘Nameless - Be sure your sin will find you out.’ It stands at an angle in a tiny Wolds village churchyard not far from my Mum’s, and recently I went to find it. Image
Though the cemetery at St Andrew’s in Irby-upon-Humber is small, the ‘sinner’s grave’ is difficult to spot. Somewhat sunken, it stands not much more than a foot tall and the epitaph is losing its battle with moss. The wording is taken from the book of Numbers (32:23) in which Image
Moses restates the principle that misdeeds cannot be hidden from God. 

Up close the tragedy becomes obvious: this is a child’s grave.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 19
Easter, Passover and the vernal equinox; these spring festivals are not far away and I’ve been reading about The Three Hares Project, which since 2000 has been documenting a distinctive emblem seen across cultures and down the ages.
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Its origins, meaning and sheer breadth of reach are as fascinating as they are mysterious. Image
The project was set up by three researchers: art historian Sue Andrew, cultural environmentalist Dr Tom Greeves, and film-maker and photographer Chris Chapman, as a non-profit aiming to record and research all known occurrences of the three hares motif. Image
Read 10 tweets
Jan 20
Lighten the dry Jan blues by visiting the Jarramplas Festival, which takes place in Piornal, in the Spanish region of Extremadura every year on 19-20th January. As well as being a sight to behold it is also BYOT (bring your own turnip). Image
The focus of events is the costumed ‘cattle rustler’ named el Jarrampla, who wears a cloak of multicoloured rags and is adorned with a great horned mask. This villain, played by a lucky volunteer, runs around the 1,200-strong town banging a little drum while local people
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throw turnips at him in an attempt to expel his general bad vibes for another year. Two tonnes of turnips if you want the specifics. Next day’s bruises must be about as colourful as the costume.
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Read 8 tweets
May 6, 2023
SEALORE

Earliest man established the sea to be in mysterious commune with the heavens and beyond our power to influence. Leonardo da Vinci thought that the tides to be the breathing motions of a large beast and tried to calculate the size of such a creature’s lungs. Image
Human imagination populated the world’s oceans with monstrum marinum. ImageImageImage
Some, like the mermaid, are familiar and knowable, while others remain inscrutable and of impossible scale, like the legendary Scylla and Charybdis, the six-headed serpent and the great undersea colossus whose maw formed a whirlpool that could devour a ship whole. ImageImage
Read 10 tweets
May 5, 2023
TREELORE

Whether they heal, harbour ghosts or commune with the gods, The Bleeding Tree looks at the trees in our world and in the folklore we create to describe it. I became fascinated with trees that ‘bleed’ whether physical, like the red sap of the El Drago Milenario... Image
or ‘dragon tree,’ to the more figurative, those that bleed in sorrow, sacrifice or accusation.
Indeed trees can bleed in evidence of crime, as recorded in one of the great New England folk legends collected by the renowned folklorist Charles M. Skinner. Skinner reports on the origin of the Micah Rood apple variety, or ‘Bloody Heart Apple’, Image
Read 9 tweets
May 4, 2023
BODY PRESERVATION

The matter of matter; body disposal is not the only option when there are so many preservation methods for those inclined to live fast and leave a pretty corpse. Image
One Catholic tradition sought to preserve the physical state for as long as possible. These are the ‘incorruptibles,’ like Bernadette Soubirous, a miller’s daughter from Lourdes whose body has lain unravaged by time in a grotto since her death in 1879. Image
Catholicism has a strong tradition of reliquary; many pilgrimage traditions were created around body parts and bone fragments of dead saints. Image
Read 13 tweets

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