The Sly Minds of Cunning Men
A folktale from India showcasing corruption, portrayed through the Emperor Akbar and his trusted courtier, Birbal
https://medium.com/@weareji/the-sly-minds-of-cunning-men-6c7cddac13e1?sk=0867b43e696ff19941c4c142bbde5de7
#AkbarBirbal #folkstories #India #fiction @mastodonindians #corruption #governance #statecraft
https://www.wacoca.com/media/279881/ 
爽文《乾坤化水壺》意外被一股旋風侵入，卻發現似乎被獻祭了，生機在不斷流逝，而他卻在夢中意外獲得了一個奇怪的壺，這能否救他的性命呢…… #2023WinterDrama #2023冬ドラマ #AIStories #AI故事 #AnimeStories #ComicStories #DecompressionStories #EmotionalStories #FolkStories #REAL⇔FAKEFinalStage #SleepAidStories #SuspenseStories #助眠故事 #動漫故事 #情感故事 #懸疑故事 #民間故事 #漫畫故事 #解壓故事
I'm reading another collection of local supernatural stories (this time a more "eliptonical" book in nature - credit to @robindlaws ) and a surprising spookie emerged that I did not expect :
The Fiery Barrel
- they are inconsistently hot - sometimes they burn, but mostly not.
- they mostly appear to people walking at night, usually from the pub (funny that)
- they roll at people or chase them around (even up stairs) and then usually jump into a well, or a body of water
- can't be found in the morning
- seem to be more common around here than fiery men, carriages, baskets and other objects
It starts fairly typical - a local farmer around the year 1910 has an old ("wild") mother from somewhere "southern", father died a strange death.
He brings home a young wife and she starts getting poorly, while the mother gets healthier. Mother throws out the rosary, only comes out after dark, "the religion of her homeland wasn't Christianity" etc.
But hang on, when the farmer spies on what goes on in the house after he leaves - the mother turns into a straw-stuffed corpse and drains the wife's blood through a straw!
When attacked with the rosary she turns into dust.
So yeah, there's a cool unusual vampire for your games and such - The Straw Woman.
What does it mean to create an anime story that really sells itself?
Folk stories book covers by Egyptian artist Helmi el-Touni.
https://www.tumblr.com/sar-soor/741074294239526912/skotoseme-folk-stories-book-covers-by-egyptian
@bookstodon
#books
#BookCovers
#Egyptian
#FolkStories
#HelmiElTouni
fascinating #folkstories & #fairytales from around the world related to all kinds of #bodyparts … 
From: @TarkabarkaHolgy
https://ohai.social/@TarkabarkaHolgy/110286823183530994
A random #folklore musing I keep coming back to but have no answer to: where are Northumberland's sea stories?
We have a long and dramatic coastline, and a history of fishing communities, sea trade, and sea smuggling. But no mythical sea creatures, no ghosts of drowned sailors, and the sea itself is incidental even in the few folk stories set on the coast.
I have the odd theory, but no answer. Makes me sad to think that they might have existed but been lost!
#Northumberland #NorthumbrianStories #folklore #FolkStories #NorthumberlandFolklore @folklore
The #Ghosts of St Michael and All Angels:
Situated in the village of Ford, #Northumberland, overlooking the Milfield Plain, a rich area of pre-historic monuments, towards the Cheviot Hills. The oldest parts of the church are 13th Century and would have stood when James IV of Scotland took Ford Castle (behind me as I took the photo) before the Battle of #Flodden in 1513, fought just a few miles to the west.
Both the church and the castle were heavily renovated in the 19th Century.
The old Rectory used to stand between the church and the castle, said to have been a very old house, but now gone without a trace. A guest who stayed there once, in a room in a narrow wing facing the castle to the north, reported being disturbed in the night by a 'violent shaking' of the bed curtains, and a voice in her ear said twice, "This is not a spare room.".
On another occasion in the late 18th Century, two men of the village, one of them the schoolmaster, passed the churchyard after dark and saw the Rector (priest) standing in the moonlight, as if preparing to take a funeral. He then walked away and passed into the church. At the time, the Rector was very ill in bed, and died soon afterwards.
It was a traditional belief in the area that to be buried to the north of the church was a terrible thing, although it was noted that this belief had died out by the end of the 19th Century.
#History #Folklore #Stories #FolkStories #FolkHistory #GhostStories #Haunting #Supernatural @folklore
Dat jullie het weten: ‘The first farmers were women; men do not seem to have taken over the cultivation of the crops until the invention of the plough (3000 B.C). These women farmers worshipped a goddess of the corn, who was probably a form of the Mother, or Great Goddess protectress of the living and the dead’
The Henhole, deep in the Cheviot Hills. Where waterfalls blow backwards, peregrines fly overhead, and fairy music drifts out of the hills.
It's said that once a hunting party chased a white hart all the way up the College Valley, only to be entranced by the beauty of the music and disappear forever underground.
