Basque Archives - Bone and Sickle

Grottos, Caves of Wonder

By boneandsickle | March 5, 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:43 — 55.8MB)

Grottos are a peculiar subset of caves, usually small and picturesque, and often associated with wonders both otherworldly and manmade.

NOTE: Details on our Patreon raffle for the 15-disc set, All The Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium Of Folk Horror, are at the bottom of this post.

We begin with what is likely the best known example of the sacred grotto, the Catholic shrine at Lourdes, France, where in 1858, the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared to a 14-year old Basque girl by the name of Bernadette Soubirous. Particularly of interest to our show is the regional folklore that provided a background for these apparitions, especially the association between a variety of supernatural beings and caves.

While the grotto at Lourdes is a natural structure, the grottos we examine through the rest of the show are artistic constructions, the first of these being the “grottos”formerly created by British children on Grotto Day. The choice of material for constructing these is oyster shells, as the day coincides with the Feast of St. James, patron of oyster harvesters. The connection between St. James and shells is explored via the pilgrimage route leading to his tomb, the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, one for which the symbol of the “pilgrim’s scallop” serve as prominent way-markers.

We then move into the classical world to examine the nymphaeum, a grotto dedicated to the nymphs, specifically the Naiads or water nymphs, a combination of cave and spring as was the case with Lourdes. From this Greek concept grew the Roman notion of the purely secular “pleasure grotto,” such as the famous (and ill-fated) example created by Emperor Tiberius for his villa on the Italian coast at Sperlonga. Mrs. Karswell reads some remarks by the historian Suetonius on this.

After hearing a bit from the 15^th-century architect Leon Battista Alberti on a revived interest in artificial grottos during the Renaissance, we look at the grotto’s evolution into the “water theaters” of the 16th and 17th century, their “trick fountains” and water-driven automata. Here we citing two Italian examples (Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati and Tivoli Gardens in Florence) and one from Austria, Saltzburg’s Hellbrunn Palace.

We then hear a bit about the return during the Romantic era to the earlier classical preference for constructing grottos that simulated natural caves, hearing in this case a quote from the British poet and satirist Alexander Pope enthusing over his grotto completed in 1725. We also hear about England’s most famous grotto in Margate on the southeast coast and the mystery associated with it and about a grotto. Also mentioned is the grotto created fort the gardens of Hawkstone Hall in Shropshire (where other “follies” include a romantic “hermitage” that once employed an actor portraying a bearded hermit).

Our final example, comes from Germany, the “Venus Grotto” constructed for King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the so called “Mad King” responsible for building the palace of Neuschwanstein, Germany’s famous “fairy tale caste. The details of the Venus Grotto should help you better understand Ludwig’s particular strain of “madness.”

We end our episode returning to the story of St. Bernadette and some of the grim details involved in her canonization, namely the exhumation of her body to determine if it might be physically “incorrupt.”

(The song you hear in a couple snippets during the show is, btw, is 1959 single “The Village Of St Bernadette” by Anne Shelton.)

PATREON RAFFLE

We have a special offer running from now until April 30, a chance to win the 15-disc set, All The Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium Of Folk Horror. It’s a splendid collection released in conjunction with the Folk Horror documentary Woodland Dark and Days Bewitched, which is one of the included discs. Not only does it include over 31 hours of folk-horror films on BlueRay, but also 3 CDs including a reading of a classic Arthur Machen story and a 156-page book on the folk-horror genre.

BONE AND SICKLE PATREON LINK:

https://www.patreon.com/boneandsickle

ELGIBILITY:

The value of the collection is $279 and a randomly chosen subscriber at the $4 monthly level or above will be announced on May 1.

To enter, you must subscribe on the once-yearly plan, which actually saves 15% on what you would otherwise pay monthly.

You will be automatically entered upon signing up as stipulated.

FEATURE FILMS INCLUDED IN THIS SET:

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED (192 mins/1.85:1/English 2.0/CC)
EYES OF FIRE (86 mins/1.85:1/English 1.0/CC)
LEPTIRICA (65 mins/1.33:1/Serbian 1.0/English Subtitles)
WITCHHAMMER (107 mins/2.35:1/Czech 1.0/English Subtitles)
VIY (76 mins/1.33:1/Russian 1.0/English 1.0/English Subtitles)
LAKE OF THE DEAD (77 mins/2.40:1/Norwegian 1.0/English Subtitles)
TILBURY (57 mins/1.33:1/Icelandic 1.0/English Subtitles)
THE DREAMING (90 mins/1.85:1/English 1.0/CC)
KADAICHA (88 mins/1.33:1/English 1.0/CC)
CELIA (103 mins/1.85:1/ English 1.0/CC)
ALISON’S BIRTHDAY (99 mins/1.85:1/ English 1.0/CC)
WILCZYCA (103 mins/1.33:1/Polish 1.0/English Subtitles)
LOKIS: A MANUSCRIPT OF PROFESSOR WITTEMBACH (100 mins/1.66:1/Polish 1.0/English Subtitles)
CLEARCUT (98 mins/2.35:1/English 5.1/English 2.0/CC)
IL DEMONIO (100 mins/1.85:1/Italian 1.0/English Subtitles)
DARK WATERS (89 mins/1.85:1/Italian 2.0/English Subtitles)
A FIELD IN ENGLAND (90 mins/2.35:1/English 5.1/English 2.0/CC)
ANCHORESS (108 mins/1.66:1/English 1.0/CC)
PENDA’S FEN (90 mins/1.33:1/English 1.0/CC)
ROBIN REDBREAST (76 mins/1.33:1/English 1.0/CC)

The Dead Lover’s Heart

By boneandsickle | February 13, 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:25 — 57.7MB)

Whether freshly removed or strangely preserved after death, the dead lover’s heart occasionally has continued to be embraced as a repository of intensely shared romantic experience. This Valentine’s Day episode explores two different narratives touching on that theme: a historical tale from the 19th-century literary culture of England and a collection of related medieval legends, literature, and song.

The first half of our episode looks at the strange circumstance surrounding the death, in 1822, of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the postmortem keepsake inherited by his wife Mary Shelley.

Louis Fournier’s “The Funeral of Shelley,” 1889.

The second half examines two gruesome narratives taken from the 14th century, both from Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, namely that of the ill-fated lovers Ghismonda & Guiscardo (First Story, Day Four) and of the tragic romantic exploits of Guilhem de Cabestaing (Ninth story, Day Four). Incidentally, our Valentine’s Day show from last year also explores another gruesome tale from The Decameron.

De Cabestaing was an actual historical figure, a Catalan ministrel, whose fictional vida (biography) was often attached to collections of his ballads and served as Boccaccio’s inspiration.

We also look at the Ley of ’Ignaure, a chivalric romance written by the Burgundian French author, Renaud de Beaujeu, probably around the year 1200. This was likely the source of Cabestaing’s vida, Boccaccio’s stories, and the English-Scottish ballad, “Lady Diamond,” from which we also hear a snippet.

"Sigismunda Mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo 1759 William Hogarth — “Sigismunda Mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo 1759 William Hogarth

Myth and Magic of the Smith

By boneandsickle | January 24, 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:13 — 58.6MB)

Folklore of the blacksmith portrays him as a semi-magical figure, a wily opponent of the Devil, a mythic creator in classical and biblical narratives, and an embodiment of occult wisdom within certain secret societies and neopagan groups.

We begin with an audio snippet from the excellent 2017 horror-fantasy Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil, a cinematic elaboration of the Basque folktale, “Patxi the Blacksmith” collected back in the 1960s by the Spanish priest and Basque ethnographer Jose Miguel Barandiaran.

This is one of dozens (perhaps hundreds) of variants of “Blacksmith and Devil” tales found from Russia to Appalachia, all of which involve a smith selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for some reward, then somehow tricking the Devil out of his due. Some variations of the story collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are outlined, and Mrs. Karswell reads passages of an Irish variant from the 1896 volume, The Humor of Ireland, one which also serves as a sort of origin story for a popular seasonal custom.

While most of the blacksmiths in these tales tend to be roguish, England offers a devil-combating smith who is actually quite saintly, namely St. Dunstan, the 10-century Abbot of Glastonbury, who also found time to master the harp and the art of blacksmithing. We hear several variations of his encounter with the Devil.

We then explore folk customs associated with St. Clement, the first-century bishop of Rome whose particular style of martyrdom led to his being embraced as patron of blacksmiths. A variety of celebrations by ironworkers on St. Clement’s Day (November 23) are discussed; we hear a snippet of a song associated with “clementing” (going door to door to collect donations for the “Old Clem Feast,”) and hear a tale told at these feasts explaining how the blacksmith was declared “King of All Trades” by King Alfred. There’s also a bit about a pyrotechnic festivity known as “anvil firing” associated with these celebrations and a snippet of the traditional blacksmith-toasting song, “Twanky Dillo,” sung by the Wild Colonial Boys.

Moving further back into Anglo-Saxon history, we encounter the figure of Wayland the Smith, one who appears briefly as a swordsmith and armorer in Beowulf and other English narratives but whose story is most thoroughly presented in the Lay of Völund part of the Poetic Edda (“Wayland” being an adaptation of the Old Norse name “Völund.”) We hear a brief summary of this tale, including the particularly gruesome revenge taken by the smith upon the king who takes him captive.

We also hear a bit about Wayland’s Smithy in Oxfordshire, a Neolithic long barrow or stone-chamber tomb supposedly occupied by a ghostly blacksmith.

Wayland escapes from “Myths and legends of all nations” (1914)

We then have a look at the smith god of classical mythology, Vulcan (Roman) or Hephaestus (Greek), his physical traits and fantastic creations, which extend beyond simple smithing into the realm of magic and even the creation of the first human female, Pandora.

Another metalworker associated with mankind’s origins is Tubal-Cain, described in the book of Genesis as the first “forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.”

As a descendent of Cain (who commits mankind’s first murder) and a creator of weapons enabling more deaths, Tubal-Cain’s folkloric reputation tends to be rather black. The apocryphal book of Enoch, presents a truly Luciferian blacksmith seemingly based on Tubal-Cain, the fallen angel Azazel, who utterly corrupts mankind before the flood of Noah.

This flood narrative also figures into the mythology of Freemasonry and the role assigned the figure of Tubal-Cain in its rituals. (I give away a few masonic secrets in this segment and can only hope I will not pay for this with my life.)

Also discussed is the Masonic-inspired Society of the Horseman’s Word whose members were said to exercise supernatural control over horses in rural areas of Scotland and England in the 19th century. The order’s mythological founder was understood to be either Cain or Tubal-Cain, depending on the region.

A blacksmith and son of one of these Horsemen was Robert Cochrane, who in 1966, founded The Clan of Tubal Cain, a coven and spiritual path intended to rival the Gardnerian witchcraft largely defining the neopagan world of the 1960s. We end the show with a particularly strange and tragic tale associated with this group.

Toad Magic

By boneandsickle | June 21, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:32 — 60.1MB)

Toads have long been associated with magic, as witches’ familiars and as a source both of poison as folk healing.

We begin with a poison allegedly brewed from a toad by the “wise wife of Keith,” Agnes Sampson, one of the accused in Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials in 1591-2. The poison was to have been used against Scotland’s James VI before he ascended England’s throne as James I. At the center of the trial was the accusation that Sampson and others had raised a storm to sink the ship bearing James home from Oslo with his new wife Anne of Denmark.

Macbeth and the Witches (Thomas Barker, 1830)

Shakespeare seems to allude to elements from this trial in his play Macbeth, mentioning toads and frogs as elements of the concoctions brewed by his witches in Act IV and seemingly referencing the events in an aside uttered by a witch regarding sending a storm against an enemy’s ship. The Bard’s inclusion of “real” witchcraft in his play has long been said to be the reason for a “curse” upon productions of Macbeth. Included in our discussion is a particularly ugly (and lethal) 1848 incident in New York City attributed to this bit of lore.

A witch’s servant, or familiar, in the form of a toad is also alluded to as an offstage character in Macbeth. Mrs. Karswell reads for us a number of accounts from 16th and early 17th century England presenting toad familiars sent to torment the enemies of witches. We also hear of a toad exploding in a fire, and toads sustained on the blood of their witch mistresses, as well as a sad story from Newmarket, England, involving William Harvey, physician to Charles I, and an bruitish attempt to subject an alleged toad familiar to scientific scrutiny.

A woodcut illustration from a book published in 1579 of a witch feeding her ‘familiars’.

Next we discuss the fear of toad’s venom in the Middle Ages, hearing some comments on the subject from 12th-century German mystic and theologian Hildegard von Bingen and a tale associated with the English boy-saint William of Norwich involving some prisoners and an unfortunate attempt at the use of toad poison.

Toad’s venom, according to medieval folklore, could be neutralized by the toadstone, a particular mineral also assigned powers against stomach and kidney ailments. We hear of a peculiar method of obtaining this prized artifact and an obscure reference to the toadstone in the 1973 folk-horror classic The Wicker Man.

We also hear a clip from The Wicker Man in which a toad or frog is used in folk medicine to cure a sore throat. Superstitions about toads and their magical efficacy against various ailments continued into the 19th century, resulting in the phenomena of traveling “toad doctors” and “toad fairs.” The use of toad bones in a midnight ritual performed by English “Toadmen” in order to gain mastery of horses to be trained is also discussed as is the discovery of miniature frog coffins, stashed in Finish churches, in a folk-magic practice similar to the British and American use of “witch bottles.”

We return to the continent and the discussion of toads’ association with witches (and heretics) as conceived by the Church in terms of service to Satan. This topic brings us a letter written by Pope Gregory IX to bishops of the German Rhineland involving Satan as a french-kissing toad, as well as a ritual attributed to French and Italian members of the Waldesenian sect allegedly consuming a ritual beverage brewed from toad excrement.

In Spain’s Basque province of Navarre, home to the “Cave of Witches” at Zugarramurdi, witchcraft trial testimonies demonstrate a particular emphasis on toads. We hear of them raised by novice witches in the fields, used to poison the land, and dancing at the witches’ sabbath.

Toads are sometimes mentioned as an ingredient of the “flying ointment” believed to have induced a visionary experience transporting witches to hilltop revels. However, this effect is more likely attributed to other ingredients in historical recipes (particularly plants of the nightshade family.)

While the venom produced by toads of the Old World doesn’t seem to contain the quality and quantity of bufotoxin necessary to produce such visions, this can’t be said for certain New World species.

One of these is the Cane toad (bufo rhinella) that invasive species best known for infesting Australia, Florida and other southern states and native to South and Central America. In the Caribbean, it’s been identified by Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis as a possible ingredient in a drug administered in Haiti to transform an enemy into a zombie, (i.e., to drug the individual into a deathlike state from which he is later “resurrected.”). Research into this subject was documented in Davis’ 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, later serving loosely as inspiration for Wes Craven’s 1988 film of the same name (from which we hear a clip).

The show ends with a quick look at the role of the Colorado River toad or Sonoran Desert toad, (bufo alvarius) as a source of psychedelic experience, particularly as its been reinvented with the last years as part of a life-changing “shamanic experience” for drug consumers already bored with ayahuasca.

Episode 9: Cave Witches

By boneandsickle | August 7, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 66.6MB)

In this episode of Bone and Sickle, we’re looking at the folklore and history of witches associated with caves. We begin with the Bell Witch, of Adams Tennessee and a quick audio montage saluting the creature, one based around the eccentric country-western song “The Bell Witch” by Merle Kilgore. Also included are snippets of The Bell Witch, The Movie, The Bell Witch Featurette, The Bell Witch Haunting, Cursed: The Bell Witch “reality” show on A&E, and a bit of Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures scaring himself in the Bell Witch cave. Just so you know, there is also a Bell Witch ballet. It’s a love story.

Authenticated History of the Bell Witch,1961Reproduction

I neglected to mention the source for the original Bell Witch legend. It is An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch, published in 1894 by the newspaper editor Marvin V. Ingram. His source was allegedly a diary kept by John Bell, the primary target of the witch’s animosity, though the existence of this diary has never been independently confirmed.

Next we visit the cave of the 16th-century seer Mother Shipton in Knaresborough, England. Wilkinson provides a dramatic reading of an account of her birth from a 1687 volume, and we learn about the curious wishing well attached to Shipton’s Cave, a geological oddity known for “petrifying” objects hung in its waters, some of which are available through the site’s gift shop. You can read more of the prophecies attributed to Shipton here.

Our next stop in England is the cave known as Wookey Hole about 20 minutes northeast of Glastonbury. Wilkinson reads us a poem from 1748, “The Witch of Wookey” describing how and why a witch formerly haunting the cave was turned into a stalagmite bearing her likeness. We also learn of Leicester’s Black Annis, a monstrous hag said to occupy a cave in the Dane Hills and do terrible things to children.

Next we visit the town of Zugarramurdi in northeastern Spain’s Basque region, known for its “Cave of the Witches,” featured in the 2013 horror-comedy The Witches of Zugarramurdi, released to English-speaking audiences as Witching and Bitching. We learn of the world’s largest witchcraft investigation that took place in this town and something of the Basque folklore that may have given the inquisitors their idea of the Devil. The song “Baba Biga Higa,” a Basque witches’ rhyme set to music by Mikel Laboa, is featured as well as music by the Basque folk group Kepa Junkera & Sorginak.

Then it’s off to Italy to learn about the Sibyls, seers rooted in classical mythology and associated with caves. Our first stop is in central Italy’s Appennine mountains where the Sybils of ancient Greece and Rome was transformed into a sort of fairy, occupying an vast underworld entered through a cave on Mount Sibilla. Nearby is the town of Norcia and the Lake of (Pontius) PIlate, sites famous int he Middle Ages for witchcraft. Our story extends a bit to Germany as we learn that the Appenine legend was borrowed into German culture and associated with the minnesinger and knight Tannhauser, whose story was taken up by Richard Wagner in his opera Tannhäuser. in the background of this segment we hear an excerpt from this opera related to the Appenine legend.

Tannhäuser und Venus, Otto Knille, 1873.

The second Sibyl, associated with a cave near Naples, is the Cumaen Sibyl featured in a story about some hard bargaining over her books of prophecy with the last king of Rome and another about the problem with wishing for eternal life. The Cumaen Sibyl’s cave, described as an entrance to the Underworld by Virgil in his Aeneid, is also near a sinister body of water, Lake Avernus, whose mephitic atmosphere is more than a little harmful to certain mortal creatures who venture too close. There’s also a mention of a rather obscure novel Mary Shelley attempted as a follow-up to her success with Frankenstein. Yes, it also relates to the Cumaen Sibyl and her cave.

Aeneas and the Sibyl, artist unknown, ca 1800

We close the show examining the strange way the prophecies of the pagan Sibyl intertwined with church teachings, and through this weird nexus ended up echoed in the soundtracks to certain horror films.