Tag: folklore
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The Weather According to a Dead Bishop: Forty Days of Rain
Climate change deniers blame nature for everything. Heatwaves? Natural. Floods? Just weather being weather. Human emissions? Nothing to see there. Meanwhile, chemtrail believers take a different route entirely. For them, extreme weather is no accident but a masterstroke of global puppet masters, quietly spraying secret cocktails into the sky to bend the climate to their…
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Freebrough Hill — Where Arthur Waits
This hill has loomed over the Guisborough to Whitby road for generations, a constant, brooding shape on the horizon. Its symmetry is so precise, its position so solitary, that people have long refused to believe it is natural. Clearly the work of men. Or gods. Or giants. One giant in particular: Wade, whose name is…
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Of Brass Monkeys, May Blossoms and Other Perils
Growing up in Nottingham in the early 1960s, I shall never forget me mam barking “naer cast a clout till May is out” whenever I dared venture into the Spring air without full Arctic gear—duffle coat, string vest, probably a balacalva too. She assumed, and I dutifully followed, “May”meant the month, which made sense given…
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Yorkshire’s Pride: The Enduring Allure of Roseberry Topping
It has been some time since I inflicted a post about Roseberry Topping upon the world, the conical-shaped hill that looms over this northeastern corner of what is the historical county of Yorkshire, albeit a recycling of previous posts. Local pride being what it is, they have long called it “t’ highest hill i’ all…
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When the Fool Returns from Africa: Musings on Cuckoo Day
I was spared the indignity of rummaging through an empty pocket for loose change on my Monday climb up Roseberry Topping, which is just as well, since I heard no cuckoo. According to local superstition, today—April 14th—is “Cuckoo Day,” the date when this allegedly symbolic bird is supposed to announce its return with its distinctive…
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Whitby Abbey: Holy Vows, Pagan Wars, and the Problem of Easter
I usually try to avoid posting touristy photographs, but in this case, my resolve faltered. This one was taken looking back as we wandered towards Ruswarp, along the River Esk, with the ruins of Whitby Abbey brooding in the distance. A cliché, admittedly, but quite picturesque in a ruinous sort of way. As for the…
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Toads and Toadies—Spanghew and Sycophants
I came across this small fellow today. Brushes with nature are always a delight, especially when they happen out of the blue, so there was no real competition for today’s photograph. Toads, as everyone ought to know, are entirely harmless. They rid gardens of unwanted insects and yet, for centuries, have been maligned as vile…
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The Witch-Mare of Orra—A Forgotten Nightmare Myth
Ah, Urra—barely discernible through the oppressive cloud that choked my aimless trudge around the moor it so generously lends its name to. It is also the setting for the utterly enthralling tale of the Witch-Mare of Orra. A legend I have alluded to with tiresome frequency, though clearly without bothering to grasp its finer points.…
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A’ Thomasing: A Quaint Custom for St. Thomas Day
Yesterday was St. Thomas Eve, or so I gather from the indisputable evidence of my own post about it. Naturally, this means today, 21 December, must be St. Thomas Day—a grand occasion for destitute medieval widows, who marked the day by going “a’ Thomasing.” That is, begging for alms. In some places, it was called…
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A Dreary Day, a Doubtful Saint, and Too Much Christmas
A dreary, cold day, though mercifully not freezing, but with rain looming. St. Thomas’ Day Eve—dedicated to the patron saint of doubt—drapes itself in the sort of gloom that makes you wonder why you bothered to look out the window. That housing estate west of Guisborough in today’s photo? I had been blind to its…