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May 4 13 tweets 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
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
The last word in body preservation is of course the mummy, with the Egyptian process considered the gold standard. The body is washed and removed of all its organs before natron, a dehydrating salt, is packed into the cavity and left to dry for seventy days before wrapping. Image
All that remains is for the sarcophagus - from the Greek sarx (‘flesh’) and phagein (‘to eat’) - to claim it.
But don’t feel like you’ve missed the boat on an eternity in bandages. Should you wish it is still an option, thanks to nonprofit organisation Summum, which offers modern mummification for its followers. Image
The first mummy to be laid to rest inside the group’s pyramid mausoleum was the founder himself, Claude Nowell, in 2008. Image
What if the body will not be hidden away? While embalming is a common method to slow decomposition in cases of long term display, like Lenin and Mao Zedong, more intensive methods are used.
The details are a state secret but even with his unique chemical cocktail Lenin is said to need re-embalming every eighteen months.
With little more than a skeleton covered with skin now closer to leather, it is not clear how far these suspended heads of state can truly be said to be ‘preserved.’ Image
Plus their display is pretty unimaginative, next to Mickey Easterling, a New Orleans socialite known for her extravagant parties, who didn’t want to miss out on her final one.
At her own funeral she was seated centre-stage with her signature feather boa, a cigarette in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. Image

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More from @folkhorrormagpi

May 6
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
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
Dec 23, 2022
†hê þïl¢hårЧ mµ§† rê†åïñ †hêïr hêåЧ.
Would you eat this - the Christmas eve-eve traditional Cornish stargazy pie? There are many recipes, usually involving potato, and sometimes sand eels, mackerel, herring or dogfish, but to be a true stargazy pie the intact pilchard heads must be placed looking up at the sky,
before going in the oven.

The dish is most associated with the village of Mousehole and its annual celebration on 23rd December, known locally as Tom Bawcock’s eve.
Read 10 tweets
Jun 2, 2022
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
Read 7 tweets
May 23, 2022
Trail trees are trees that have been shaped by human intention rather than environment or disease, and they have been used for centuries to mark the way through the woods across the Americas.
A network of pre-Columbian roads and trails denoted by these trees, most often oak and maple, have been well documented across First Nation territories. Their uses varied between nation and specificity of the region but may have included pointing out a fresh water source
off a main route, minerals or other resources that may have been important to Native Americans for medicinal and ceremonial purposes, or designated areas of significant importance such as council circles and gathering points.
Read 9 tweets
Aug 27, 2021
The mesmerising driftwood sculptures of Japanese artist Nagato Iwasaki. ImageImage
All of the figures are part of an interconnected work that Iwasaki calls simply ‘Torso’ and each have undergone a painstaking process of construction over the past 25 years. ImageImage
“Gathering bits of wood from here and there, like an insect building a nest, I create sculptures” says the artist in one of his few interviews. Driftwood of just the right shape and size to mimic a human collarbone or the curve of a pelvis Image
Read 8 tweets

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