Bone and Sickle

Tag: macabre

Gallows Lore

ballads, black magic, Charles Dickens, crime, criminals, cunning folk, death, England, EPISODE, execution, folk customs, folk medicine, folk music, folk tales, folklore, gallows, hand of glory, hangmen, history, Ireland, Jack Ketch, legends, literature, magic, puppets, science fiction, Scotland, superstition, William Calcraft

We examine the lore of the gallows, focusing on the British Isles, encountering hangmen as figures straddling history and myth,[…]

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Walled Up Alive

ballads, black magic, cannibalism, Catholicism, Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allen Poe, EPISODE, execution, folk music, folk tales, folklore, foundation sacrifice, Gothic, gothic literature, history, horror, human sacfrifice, immurement, legends, literature, magic, Middle Ages, movies, murder, murder ballads, nuns, Rome, saints, superstition

Walling up a living victim, or immurement, has been used both as a punishment and for darker, magical purposes. In[…]

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