🍀⛅️🍀Though Fridays and the number 13 have historically been considered ominous, there's no record before the 19th century of #Friday13th being especially unlucky - it seems to be a relatively modern conjunction without a backstory, so don't worry! #FolkloreThursday #FolkyFriday #FolkloreSunday

My paternal Granny, "Dr Mary" - midwife, herbalist, & preparer of the dead. If "Dr Mary" told you to see a city doctor, "you wuz bad off". Pine, mullein, mustard, & asafoetida were all allies to my Granny. I still know one woman who my Granny brought into this world. #FolkloreThursday #Heroine

"Queen of the Okefenokee", Lydia Stone. She was at least 6ft tall, & became a very wealthy landowner during a time when women were not usually empowered. My father saw her once as a very little boy. He never forgot it. I love visiting her grave! #FolkloreThursday #Okefenokee #Heroine

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

In France and Germany, St Elmo's Fire was explained as being the lost soul of a drowned sailor warning of sea storms. In Brittany, it was known as the wandering candle. In Greece, it was seen as a bad omen come to destroy the ship... #FolkloreThursday 🎨Book Illustration c. 1860

Old Boneless is a coastal fairy made of clinging fog and mist haunting the seashores of Down and Antrim, obscuring the rocks from unwary mariners. Over the centuries, it has drifted towards the towns where it sustains itself on the smoke from chimneys... #FolkloreThursday 🎨Sedlacek

#FolkloreThursday #Celtic: `The paganism of the Goidelic peoples considered the various objects of nature, especially the sun, as malignant beings, who had to be propitiated with offerings to avert their wrath.`
Source: https://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/folklore/ch05.htm