#FolkloreThursday: `A cattle-herding #brownie of the #Scottish islands, the #gunna hung about small farms making sure the cows did not trample the garden. As with many such helpful sprites, he went naked despite the weather. Any attempt to provide clothes drove the gunna away.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

#FolkloreThursday #Celtic: `In the plain of Bray, lay the Gardens of the Sun-god #Lugh. So sunny and so fair and fertile was that plain, with waving meadow-grass and buttercups, and the sweet may-blossom girdling the fields. Close all about the fort the gardens lay, with apple-trees shedding their pink and white upon the playing fields of brilliant green.`
Source: Cuchulain, The Hound of Ulster, by Eleanor Hull

#FolkloreThursday #Celtic: Among the talismans #Lugh demanded from Tuireann's three sons as
punishment for the murder of his father #Cian were three apples (according to the tale, from the Hesperides Garden in the East of the World). `Only these apples will satisfy me, as they are the best and most beautiful in the world. This is what they are made of: Their colour is that of polished gold, and the head of a one-month-old child is no larger than any one of these apples. When you dine on them, they taste like honey, and bleeding wounds and the most malignant diseases disappear. The apples do not diminish when eaten, even if one eats from them for a long time and constantly. Whoever succeeds in taking one of these apples has accomplished his greatest feat, since he will never lose it again.`
Source: Guyonvarc'h/Le Roux `Die #Druiden`

#FolkloreThursday: One of the greatest #Celtic visions of the #Otherworld was that of Emain Albach, the Isle of Apples, a beautiful place of everlasting summer whose handsome residents danced the sun-drenched days away. The Otherworld looked like this world, only more beautiful and changeless: trees bore blossom and fruit at the same time there, no one ever aged or grew infirm, death had no dominion in the #Otherworld.
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

For the Muscogee Creek, mythical alligators were believed to guard the gateway between the physical and spiritual worlds! Lovely piece of lore shared here! #FolkloreThursday #Muscogee #Creek

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:b4lfd7p64hrbk7pqi746ghma/post/3mhxnnijhvk2h

Got a sleepyhead, stubborn pear tree? Lore in these parts says you have to have a talk with it. Give it a firm warning and a gentle tap with a switch - this tells the tree it's time to wake up and produce! #FolkloreThursday #TreeLore #Folklore

Watching for the blooms on the Dogwoods isn't just about the view, it's a foretoken! Once those white petals fall, the 'Little Winters' are over and the garden is safe. #FolkloreThursday #SouthernFolklore

#FolkloreThursday: The apples significance continues into folkloric uses such as that in the British Cotswolds, where an apple tree blooming out of season meant coming death. Symbolizing harmony and immortality, abundance and love, the apple was considered a talisman of good fortune and prosperity. Some have connected the word to Apollo, whose name may have originally been Apellon, a word derived from the same source as our word “apple.”
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

In South Georgia, we don't just fence a garden; we "fix" it. Old lore says burying a Mercury Dime at the corners blinds the trickster rabbit and keeps haints from your harvest. A flash of silver in the soil ensures the earth is paid and the crop is protected. #FolkloreThursday #Conjure #FolkMagic