Time slips may feel like a product of science fiction. But they bear similarities with folklore. A person journeys to a strange place, sees odd things, and is not always believed upon their return. Sounds a lot like the tale of Thomas the Rhymer and his trip to Fairyland. Time slips also have things in […]
folklore
Who is the Phantom Hitchhiker that haunts the Blackwall Tunnel?
Many stretches of lonely road feature a tale or two about a phantom hitchhiker. They’re always eerily similar in structure. A driver stops to pick up a stranger, often a young woman. During the journey, she vanishes from the back of the car. Sometimes, the driver goes to the address she gave him to investigate. Did […]
Psychogeography and Folklore: Walking the City’s Legends
A few weeks ago, we headed to Manchester to explore a story related to Dr John Dee. In that post, I mentioned a tale involving a group of psychogeographers and their attempts to contact the good doctor’s spirit. I asked if anyone wanted a post about psychogeography as a practice. People said yes, so here […]
What is alchemy and did it ever work?
Mention alchemy to most people and they’ll either think of the philosopher’s stone. Or they’ll think about turning lead into gold. Alchemy was actually a worldview, according to the oldest texts written in Greek. They came to Europe via the Middle East after being translated into Arabic. Robert Allen Bartlett makes the claim that alchemy […]
John Dee: The Magician and the Devil in Manchester
What does an Elizabethan mathematician, a northern pre-industrial town, and Beelzebub have in common? Answer? They all appear in the tale of John Dee and the Devil in Manchester. Dee, immortalised in the opera Dr Dee by Blur’s Damon Albarn, is a fascinating figure in Britain’s occult history. He even inspired a deck of oracle cards, The […]
What were the three types of water nymphs in ancient Greece?
For the past three weeks we’ve been looking at mythology related to water and the sea. Our final aquatic jaunt will be to meet the three groups of water nymphs in ancient Greece. They are the Naiads, the Nereids, and the Oceanids. Just to make things more complicated, you also have undines. Wikipedia lists naiads, […]
