Perhaps one of the most iconic scenes in Disney’s 1963 classic The Sword & the Stone is the magical duel. Merlin and Madam Mim start having a magical duel, with each changing form to try to best the other. Mim cheats, and Merlin finally defeats her, though this sequence is more inspired by the novel […]
Shapeshifting Creatures of Folklore: Fairies, Selkies and Ghosts
Shapeshifting is an ancient ability that appears in cultures around the world across the ages. It appears in an array of ‘types’ of shapeshifting. Some creatures can simply shift their form due to a natural ability. Gods often change their form (hello, Zeus), but they can also change the form of others. Look at the […]
The Folklore of Furniture: Beds, Tables and Chairs
Furniture tells us a lot about a period, people, or place. It’s solid, so it can often be the only tangible artefact left. It often bears the impression of human activity through use, and they tell stories. For example, you can see the botanical cabinet belonging to Mary Eleanor Bowes at Bowes Museum in Barnard […]
The Christmas Rose: The Myth and Magic of the Black Hellebore
While holly, ivy and mistletoe might be the most obvious Yuletide plants, there is one more that bears a festive name – the Christmas Rose. Only it’s not a rose at all. It’s a hellebore. A black hellebore, to be precise. Black hellebore is actually named for the colour of its roots, not its petals […]
Conifers and Christmas: The Folklore of Pine, Spruce and Fir Trees
Put ‘christmas trees’ into Google and it returns about 1,350,000,000 results. They’re an intrinsic part of the festivities, yet you actually have three main types of conifers to choose from: pine (Pinus), fir (Abies), and spruce (Picea). Oslo has sent a Norway spruce to London every Christmas since 1947, displayed in Trafalgar Square (Woolf 2020: […]
The Folklore of Ivy: Christmas, Divinations, and Magic
A range of plants enjoy connections with Christmas, not least due to their status as evergreens. At a time of year when many plants have shed their leaves, these plants offer a welcome burst of colour. Ivy (Hedera helix) is no exception, and even features in Christmas carols such as ‘The Holly and the Ivy’. […]
