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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 1m

If a relative is taken by the fairies and a changeling left in their stead, you have one chance to get them back in some lore: you must go to where the fey are known to congregate on the next full moon and there negotiate with the joyful taken. #MythologyMonday 🖼️: E. Hughes

Edward Hughes' classic depiction of a young woman finding a fairy grove, full of little people who regard her with their wings and fairy lights.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 3m

Fairy comes from the Old French faie, which referred to a woman powerful in magic, word, or craft. This evolved to Fairy, Fey, etc. over time. Beings we call fey have other names: for example in Gaelic they are aos si, among other terms. #MythologyMonday 🖼: B. Froud

A somewhat low resolution image of Brian Froud's fairies on procession, showing weird little dudes wearing pinecones on their head or leaves on their face surrounding a bright green-blue fairy queen in a toga walking through the woods, attended by other fairy women.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 6m

It seems that fairy lore, from Italy to the Hebrides, is the lore of the land, the lore of those who came before: fairies are most strongly tied to cairns, to burial mounds, and to sites of great importance, and those spirits remain with us, reminders of the land #MythologyMonday

Uig, on Skye's northernmost point, also called the Fairy Glen, is famed for its connection to fairies in Skye's folklore; here the landscape is rolling hills and flat peaks, bushes in the glens, with two people atop one of them.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23h

The site where the Korean Declaration of Independence was read was made into a Japanese restaurant by the occupiers, popular with soldiers, but a year later in 1920 a rain of blood fell on everyone in the restaurant, the spirits of the dead angry at freedom denied. #SpookySunday

Japanese soldiers marching through Seoul in 1904-1905, rifles on their shoulders, packs on their backs. The people of Seoul watch in silence.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23h

Jack was a cunning soul, barred from Heaven but denied by Hell because of a bargain he made with Satan. Thus forced to wander Earth eternally, he took hellfire and put it in a turnip: thus were born Jack-O-Lanterns. #FolkloreSunday #SpookySunday 🖼️: J. Ukropina

Jovan Ukropina's depiction of old man Jack wandering the forests of Ireland with a grin on his face, the turnip in his hand carved to have a face and glowing with hell's coals.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23h

Kaiserwalzer is one of Vienna's haunted restaurants, where patrons have seen plates fall with no cause, furniture moving of its own accord, and even shadowy patrons moving and blocking passage. No one can quite account for why. #SpookySunday

The gateway to Vienna's Kaiserwalzer 2.0 restaurant, showing an outdoor area, several plaques telling what is inside, and menus, along with trees.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23h

The first known example of apple bobbing comes from Celto-Romano fusion, combining the two cultures and spreading accordingly. A maiden who placed a bobbed apple under her pillow would dream of her future lover. #FolkloreSunday

An old postcard for Halloween, showing a young maiden with flowers in her hair for some reason bobbing for a single apple, with the text A Joyous Halloween.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 07/10/2026

At Samhain it is believed that the dead return home, coming to seek hospitality and see how the living have gotten on. This leads to happy reunions at times, while in other cases, the disappointed dead bring the fright we associate with Halloween today. #WyrdWednesday

A spooky vintage room with faded paint, with images of superimposed figures somewhat transparent all over it, two hands on the wall as if trying to get out.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 07/10/2026

In the American South, birds are connected to angels. Many believe feathers found on the ground are signs angels have visited. The dead return as angels, and when a cardinal visits you, it is the spirit of the dead coming to visit you. #WyrdWednesday

A male American cardinal, a bright red bird with black around the beak to the eyes, on a bush branch with berries around it.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 07/10/2026

Even gods can return from the dead: murdered and then cut into pieces by his brother Set, Osiris was reconstructed by his wife Isis, and then left his son Anubis to the Duat, to become King of the Dead while his other son, Horus, fought for kingship of the Living. #WyrdWednesday

A sketch of an etching showing Osiris standing between Isis and Nephthys (or potentially Ma'at), holding the rods of kingship in Egypt, the winged scarab above him.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 06/10/2026

Emily comes from old stock, an aristocratic Southern family that fell on hard times after the Civil War. Life was not what she expected but she remained as defiant as her father. Faulkner's classic tale "A Rose for Emily" is the definition of Southern gothic. #FairytaleTuesday

A cover for A Rose for Emily, showing Rose holding the body of long-dead Homer Barron, dressed in his finest. and holding a botttle with a rat tail coming out of it; it is unclear Emily's age in this image. Artist unknown, but Google refused to let me know who it is.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 06/10/2026

Ghuls are djinni or djinn-adjacent monsters of Arabia and the Muslim world, evil spirits that dwell in cemeteries and eat the flesh of the dead: they often disguise themselves as the living and engineer mass feats of death for feasts of their own. #FairytaleTuesday

"Amine discovers the Ghoul" from a version of the Thousand and One Nights, showing the servant Amine seeing a full-blown ghoul uncovering a dead body and revealing it to the woman courting his master, who is also herself a ghoul.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 05/10/2026

Yūrei are Japanese ghosts, unable to pass on. There are countless types of yūrei in Japanese and indeed international media, most in the form of angry ghosts, onryo. Famous examples include Ringu, Ju-on, and One Missed Call. #MythologyMonday 🖼: N. Davies

A tribute by artist N. Davies for the film Ringu, where the girl is crawling out of the television, with the katakana for Ringu written in an otherwise blank canvas. Her hair obscures her face, just like in the film.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 05/10/2026

Brazilian white lady-style ghosts are called Dama Branca, and are believed by some to be the ghosts of young white women who died in childbirth or violent men, including "honor killings" for those who loved across races. She avenges herself against abusive men. #MythologyMonday

An unknown artist's depiction of a White Lady, showing a woman in a gorgeous complex white gown, frayed at the ends, with skeletal hands; her face is sorrowful, her crown made of bones and laurels, and she is in all white, her head glowing.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 04/10/2026

The original headless horseman is the Dullahan of Ireland, carrying his own head as he searches for souls on Ireland's roadways. He may be an evolution of the Irish god Crom Dubh, the Black One. #FolkloreSunday #SpookySunday 🖼️: W.H. Brooke

W.H. Brooke's Dullahan, showing a rider with a horse who has thrown not only his own wailing head into the night, but his horse's head too.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 30/09/2026

Long Gu, or Dragon Bones, is a traditional ingredient in Chinese medicine. Once thought to be literal dragon bones, many admit that long gu are the fossilized remains of dead animals, be they dinosaur, birds, or mammals. #WyrdWednesday

An example of fossilized mammal bone used as long gu, held by a human hand, with herbs in the background.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 30/09/2026

In the depths of the Congo River Basin, a monster dwells: the Mokèlé-mbèmbé is one of Africa's most well-known cryptids, essentially a dinosaur-like creature that lives in the waterways, terrorizing humans and animals alike. #WyrdWednesday

An unknown artist's depiction of Mokèlé-mbèmbé, here a pleliosaur with fins, in conflict with three hippos as white birds fly around the battle.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 30/09/2026

The White River Monster, or Whitey, may be the stuff of Ozark tall tales, but it's also perhaps North America's most friendly river monster. Often described as a giant fish, eel, gar, or dinosaur style sea monster, Whitey is defensive of fish, so be careful. #WyrdWednesday

Whitey as depicted by an unknown artist, here breaking a ship called the Juno using the ridges on its back. It here is a massive fish-looking animal with spikes for teeth, two of which are coming out of the front like horns.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 30/09/2026

Modern historians have suggested that dragons were proven to premodern populations by none other than unearthed fossilized dinosaur bones. Given how close modern dragons look to these bones it is entirely possible, though dragon truthers would very much disagree. #WyrdWednesday

$An in-tact T-Rex skull and jaw, fossilized with fracture lines on the snout and occipital areas.$

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 29/09/2026

Charles Perrault's version of Cinderella is one of the most popular, and it is this version that installed the pumpkin-as-carriage that Disney animated: this New World crop had become so ingrained in European society by the 17th century it bled into fairy tales. #FairytaleTuesday

William Henry Margetson's depiction of Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother, the latter using her wand/cane to turn a pumpkin and mice into a carriage and horses right before Cinderella's very eyes (also indoors, so that seems unsafe).

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 27/09/2026

Sheriff George Corwin was called the Strangler during the Salem Witch Trials for presiding over many of the deaths; when he died, he was buried in his basement. Atop of this was built the Joshua Ward House, where people report cold hands around their necks and arms. #SpookySunday

The modern Joshua Ward House, a brick three-story home that has been immaculately maintained, reflecting the sunset through its windows.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 27/09/2026

An Algonquin tale tells that the changing color of leaves is the blood of the Bear, who greedily ate the food stored in preparation of winter and whom the Algonquins chased across the world. Finally hit with an arrow, his blood turns the leaves red in autumn. #FolkloreSunday

An autumn scene inside the silhouette of a bear.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23/09/2026

The Gaelic Cailleach accepts offerings of bread, often burnt, varying by region and time of year. In autumn, near Samhain, she accepts this gift for her time of year has begun. #WyrdWednesday

The Seaside Forager's Dulse Focaccia as a Soulcake for the Cailleach on the Hebrdies island of South Uist; here it is shown on a stony beach at lowtide with a blue sky above.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23/09/2026

The ancient Greeks had little agreement over the centuries regarding how to portray the seasons as gods. The most common depiction of autumn was fruitful Karpo, one of the original Horae. A goddess of harvest and ripening food, she attended to Persephone. #WyrdWednesday

A procession for a harvest festival, with a man at the front with the staff of Dionysus, followed by a woman holding sheaths of grain meant to be Persephone, followed by a woman attending her long braid extensions or rope knots from her bun, who is holding hands with the woman or man behind her. This is a statue on a wall, with cracks and damages; the person behind the attendant, aka Karpo, is headless.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23/09/2026

In Daoist astrology, autumn is the time of the White Tiger of the West and the element of metal. It represents a movement inward, a time to reflect, to grieve, and to celebrate the good things life brings, in preparation for the harsh truths of winter. #WyrdWednesday

A white tiger painting next to a maple tree beside a mountain's fog, by an unknown artist.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 23/09/2026

Mabon, a modern neopagan name for the autumn equinox, derives its name from Mabon ap Modron, himself derived from the pan-Celtic Maponos, the Great Son. Mabon is the second of the main autumn harvest festivals, after Lunasa and preceding Samhain. #WyrdWednesday

Witchy tips for Mabon from @pagangrimoire. The following are images with words beneath them, in order from top left to bottom right, in two lines of three.

An apple: go apple picking or bake with apples;
Trees and a a trail: go for a quiet walk in nature
A broom: Make a broom for your home or altar
A journal: Take time to reflect or journal
An orange leaf: Harness the energy of the season to find balance
A pomegranate: Decorate your altar for the season

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 21/09/2026

Hardly faithful to Hephaestus, Aphrodite crawled into bed with her lover Ares and the trap was sprung: god of invention, Hephaestus had created a trap to ensnare the lovers so they would be on full display for all to see, humiliating them as they humiliated him. #MythologyMonday

Costantino Cedini's depiction of Venus and Mars being trapped by a net in a bed made of clouds by tiny little cherubs; the other goods look on in the corner, expectantly, from the Palazzo Capodilista in Padova.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 20/09/2026

Founded at the onset of Santa Fe's creation, the La Fonda Hotel was where law enforcement tried and hanged outlaws. Though destroyed several times, ghosts of outlaws, businessmen, lynch victims, and one territorial judge have been reported. #SpookySunday

The La Fonda Hotel over a century ago; the modern building looks very different. An adobe building with just two floors is visible with cars of the 1920s visible on a mostly empty street, parked in front of the hotel. Beside it are attached brick buildings in a style similar to the 1920s.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 20/09/2026

Zoroastrian Valentines is called Jashn-e Mehr, an Iranian festival of the autumnal equinox which celebrates the ties that bind, whether platonic or romantic. Dedicated to Mithra, kings were crowned on this holy day and the festival survives Islam. #FolkloreSunday

A celebration of of Jashn-e Mehr at UCTI University of Malaysia, put on by Iranian students there; an altar before a stage is filled with fruits, wheat, tea, candlesticks, and scone-like sweets, along with seasonal flowers and other confections.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 20/09/2026

On Christmas Day, 1948, Ladell Allen's mother noticed she was missing and found her dying from drinking mercury cyanide over a jilted lover. Though once contained to a sealed-off room, the ghost of Ladell Allen now haunts all of Allen House in Monticello, AR. #SpookySunday

A gothic-filtered Allen House showing an Edwardian style two story building with a red roof and white paint from the street, taken by the owner circa 2023. Honestly if I was real estate-savvy in 2023 I'd have bought this thing, that's a bargain for 5500 square feet.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 20/09/2026

In pre-Christian Slavic tribes, Dożynki was an autumn equinox festival, one celebrating the gifts of the earth and the hope of renewal next year, when the gifts would come once again. Holdovers from these celebrations include the baking of massive pancakes. #FolkloreSunday

A painted photo of from the early 20th century showing two traditionally dressed Russian women with the last sheafs of fall.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 16/09/2026

Nagual are shapeshifters, human tricksters born with shamanic powers and familiars they can use for good or evil: the person must choose. Found across Mesoamerica with evidence stretching back millennias, modern Mexican naguals are often associated with brujería. #WyrdWednesday

The Borgia Codex, showing two naguals in an Aztec context, including clothes, ways to transform, and associated gods

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 16/09/2026

Found in Mesoamerican art until the Spanish conquest, the Olmec werejaguar motif is found in all manner of art and may have represented rain, sovereignty, or priestly help. Said to be born of women and jaguar, their power was summoned by warriors to defeat foes. #WyrdWednesday

A statue of a werejaguar, which is a man sitting with his knees to his chest, his face having a priestly hat, but his face distorted into a cat-like face.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 16/09/2026

Ancient Mesoamericans imagined the night's sky like that of a cave, with light glistening from each stalactite from far above. Rain is water rushing into our cave, and for that rain gods are given much prominence in Mayan and Aztec mythos. #WyrdWednesday

A Mesoamerican cave full of glow worms, which looks suspiciously like a night's sky reflecting on the cave's water.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 16/09/2026

The mythologies of the Aztec peoples come to us in two sources, in the same book: the Florentine Codex, the most complete work, is written on one side in Spanish, and one side in Nahuatl, recording indigenous life, but sometimes telling it differently. #WyrdWednesday

A picture of an opened Florentine Codex, showing illustrations words, some in Spanish, some in Latin-script bound Nahuatl.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 15/09/2026

He lassos tornados. He brought a storm from California to solve a drought in Texas, only to create the Gulf of Mexico. He dug the Rio Grande to give his horse water. He is Pecos Bill, a giant of Southwestern storytelling and of proportion, too. #FairytaleTuesday

An unknown artist's painting of Pecos Bill lassoing a tornado as it flies away with cowboys and cows, a Texan windmill in the background.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 15/09/2026

Aesop's Fables comments on the intelligence of crows in "The Crow and the Pitcher," which is not so much a fable on perseverance and cleverness, as it is an observable fact that crows are problem-solvers. #FairytaleTuesday

A drawing depicting a crow standing on a rock, putting a stone into an ancient Greek pitcher, showing a farmer and his cow on it

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 15/09/2026

The Scorpion begged the Frog to ferry it across the pond, promising not to sting him, so he agrees; halfway across, the Scorpion stung him. "Why? Now we will both drown," he asks. "A Scorpion cannot change its nature, dear Frog." So goes the famed fable. #FairyTaleTuesday

Artist Michael Morgenstern's depiction of the Scorpion and the Frog, with the frog having a concerning human eye. The sun sets between the scorpion's tail, which angles to the frog's back, indicating how this ends.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 14/09/2026

Contrary to popular belief tarot began its life as a set of cards meant for playing games. It was not until the 18th century that tarot became a divination tool. Like most decks it has four suits (the minor Arcana) but adds 22 additional cards (the major Arcana) #MythologyMonday

Modern tarot designed to look like old school Italian tarot, with bright colors, funny hats, and lots of Catholic imagery, including a death with a strong skeletal structure.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 14/09/2026

Roman augurs would watch flocks of birds for movement, direction, shape of flock, and types of birds involved: this divination was called augury, and interpretation taking auspices. The location of Rome's founding was based on Romulus using augury. #MythologyMonday 📸: D. Biber

A murmuration of birds flying in the sky, showing the flock in the shape of a bird flying above a sunsetted mountain horizon.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 14/09/2026

Compasses are ancient, a Chinese invention used first in divination before navigation, as it always seemed to point in certain directions, and directions are sacred to the divinations of the I Ching: thus, all compasses are themselves iron magic. #MythologyMonday

A late Han Dynasty (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE) compass, with an iron spoon over a brass plate whose various bars and lines indicate the constellations, directions, and trigrams

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 14/09/2026

Puritan divination methods in Massachusetts included divining the face of your future husband. To do this, pray to God while putting an egg yolk in water; break it up and let it spin by way of spoon, and within, God will reveal your future love. Puritan magic! #MythologyMonday

An egg in a cup of water, the yolk at the bottom, with bits connecting it to the top; there is something in the water or a process is taking place, because bubbles fizz at the top.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 13/09/2026

The Red Ghost was an aggressive camel, allegedly a spirit, in the American West in the 1880s, said to have a ghostly rider on its back. When hunters found it, they shot the rider: a skull fell off, revealing a rider who died in the saddle. The Ghost was later killed #SpookySunday

An unknown artist's depiction of the aggressive and angry Red Ghost of Arizona, a skeleton on its back as it charges through the cacti and rugged rocks.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 13/09/2026

Non-euclidian architecture was the height of design back in the time before humans, a subtle but maddening asymmetry that permeates the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Angles that aren't right: that alone unnerved, but was only the beginning. #FolkloreSunday 🖼: S. Sanz

S. Sanz' depiction of Cthulhu rising from his tomb at R'yleh as depicted in the story The Call of Cthulhu: the city walls lack any symmetry, with towering spires that look quite strange, and massive clawed hands with tentacles hanging from the arms scrape the walls of the building. A half dozen humans from a ship exploring R'yleh begin to stammer back in fear.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 13/09/2026

Near the mountains of Jangsan, a spectral beast has stalked the mountains for centuries, going back to the Joseon dynasty. When you hear a voice you recognize calling you off the path, you're already doomed: the Jangsan Beast has found you! #SpookySunday 🖼️: Aromie Kim

Aromie Kim's depiction of the Jangsan-beom, a white-furred quadruped with a black mask-like face with long fangs and red eyes, smiling gleefully at you.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 13/09/2026

Sudano-Sahelian architecture, sometimes called "earthen architecture," is a style which uses mud bricks and adobe plaster over wooden beams to build airy desert-friendly dwellings with distinct appearances. Famous examples include the Great Mosque of Djene. #FolkloreSunday

The Great Mosque of Djene in Djene, Mali, a mud brick/adobe building with smooth walls save for the wooden beams that stick out of it, looking a bit like a palace combined with a cactus, one of the defining features of this style of architecture.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 09/09/2026

The recurring thread in Norse ethos, as highlighted by myth and sagas, is that fate cannot be avoided. Called Wyrd, fate rules everyone and everything, and simply knowing fate is not enough to stop it. The Norns do not rule it, but can read fate. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: A. Lewis

Annabelle Lewis' depiction of the three Norns, showing a young woman, a middle aged woman, and an old crone, all similar in black cloak, tattoos, and horny tree-like growths behind them, standing before a misty pool. The youngest pours water into the pool; the elder two hold their crystal necklace between them and observe.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 09/09/2026

Loki upstages all the heroes of the grand cycle of Norse myth. Many are his plots, great is his intrigue, troublesome is his outlook, and diabolical are his intentions: Odin and Thor never stood a chance. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: Sceith-A

Scieth-A's depiction of Loki holding a spear, sitting on a rock in a boiling river at night. He looks like a combination of Arthur Rackham's flaming Loki, when the god of fire interpretation had more register, and the more recent Tom Hiddleston interpretation.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 09/09/2026

Wind comes from Yggdrasil, for at the top of the mighty Norse World Tree sits a nameless eagle, a falcon on his beak. In fury from rumors whispered to him by that rascal Ratatoskr, he flaps furiously, his winds spreading across the Nine Worlds. #WyrdWednesday

An unknown artist whose work can be found on BluePagan.com's depiction of Yggdrasil, showing the roots intertwined with lights, Niddhogg at the base chasing its own tail, creatures like the stags and Ratatoskr, and at the top the nameless eagle, wind wrapping the autumnal red top of the tree.

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The Godyssey Podcast @godysseypodcast.com · 09/09/2026

The only restrictions on human art are Prophets and God himself! And there are exceptions to that as well though rare. You can't depict the face of Prophets which is why many countries ban films with Moses or Jesus in them. Some allow for this, except Muhammad, like this image of Moses from Iran!

15th century depiction of Moses fighting Pharaoh's magicians in Mortal Kombat

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