Icy Sedgwick's Blog, page 30

Fortune-Telling Made Easy: 4 Strange Forms of Divination

In dark and uncertain times such as these, it’s easy to wish you could see into the future. You might easily turn to fortune-telling practices to try and navigate the potentially choppy waters ahead. The idea of divination as a whole lies beyond the scope of this post. It’s not just fortune-telling, it’s more a […]

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Who was Spring-heeled Jack, the Victorian scourge of London?

Spring-heeled Jack sits in the centre of a weird Venn diagram. It features urban legends, ‘penny dreadful’ serial fiction, theatre plays, and modern folklore. The last sightings of him were in the early years of the 20th century. Yet Jack still makes appearances in contemporary popular culture, including: Houdini & Doyle, Spring-heeled Jack by Philip […]

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Inviting Sin-Eaters to a Funeral: Fact or Folklore?

There are few areas of human existence not touched by folklore and superstition. Unsurprisingly, burials and funerals come with a whole raft of beliefs and practices. Some of them persist to this day, while others, like sin-eaters, have largely died out. Despite the practice apparently lasting from the 17th to the early 20th century, there […]

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Moths in Folklore: Bringers of Death and Letters

Moths aren’t exactly popular insects. Within folklore, they’re typically viewed as either messengers from the dead or symbols of death. Some of the symbolism crosses over with that of the butterfly. It’s easy to see why they get muddled up. Both butterflies and moths belong to the Lepidoptera family. T. R. New points out that […]

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Rats in Folklore: Signs of Bad Luck and Harbingers of Doom

Rats get the blame for an awful lot throughout history – usually spreading the plague. Clearly, they don’t spread the plague…but the fleas they carry do. It’s not just the plague they carried. They’d also ruin food supplies. In ancient Egypt, people believed rats represented both destruction and discernment. They’d decimate food stores, but they […]

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Bats in Folklore: Vampires, Familiars and Death Omens

Say the word ‘bats’ to people, and they’ll often think of two things. They’ll either picture a version of Batman (mine’s Michael Keaton, thanks). Or they’ll think of a legion of versions of Dracula, exploding into a cloud of bats, or hovering at the window of an all-too-willing victim. But in truth, bats are incredible […]

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[Guest Post] How To Write A Dark-Fantasy-Inspired D&D Campaign

I freely admit that I know nothing about Dungeons & Dragons. So I especially haven’t got a clue how you’d write a D&D campaign, let alone a dark fantasy inspired adventure! Thankfully, I know someone who does. So it’s my pleasure to hand over my blog to Hollie Jones who’ll teach you how to write […]

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[Book Review] The Pre-Raphaelite Language of Flowers

The general conceit of The Pre-Raphaelite Language of Flowers is that Debra N. Mancoff has collected a range of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and she’s decoded the paintings with a focus on what the flowers in the paintings mean. In some cases, the artists are only dimly associated with the 19th-century art movement. Her […]

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What 4 weird things you might find at an English crossroads?

Crossroads occur in folklore and legends all over the world. One of the most famous examples involves legendary blues musician, Robert Johnson. He claimed to have made a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, which explained his prodigious talent. And don’t forget some of the strange folklore involving burying things at crossroads. One old […]

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[Book Review] Tudor Folk Tales

We can often think of the Tudor period as being one of strict class and gender boundaries. Or we look at the shenanigans of the ruling royal family and work backwards to assume what the era must have been like. Tudor Folk Tales by Dave Tonge aims to dispel some of these myths – and […]

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