Folklore Thursday - What I Learned Today

Today is my favourite day of the week - Folklore Thursday. It is the day that Twitter becomes an archive of folklore, stories and history, and I get to learn a lot of awesome and sometimes wacky things. Here are some of the things I learned about today:

The Snow King and that magic number 3.

The Lithuanian folk tale of Eglė the Queen of Serpents

A typical tale of 3s, of not judging a...er...serpent...by it's appearance, treachery and loss. 

Obviously...

Old world names for herbs

Eye of Newt and Devil's Dung were just code names it would seem...

Not sure this kind of thing would have stopped Maleficent...

Or if you'd prefer to make friends with the faeries instead of pushing them away, here is a lovely article on...

Keeping Faeries Close

The Great New England Vampire Panic

This is a very long article from the Smithsonian, but it is also very interesting. I am always intrigued how folklore was used as the 'logical' (or there abouts) solution, when in hindsight these things seem absolutely ridiculous!
When your family is prone to tuberculosis, you blame a dead relative (who also died of this) as the one rising from the dead and draining your family. And the solution? Exhume them and eat or burn their heart. I am a tad confused as to why people's minds, in the particular case mentioned in the article, immediately went to the dead relatives when what would have made more sense would be the one unaffected (immune?) relative being the vampire and drawing life from the dying ones....but anyway. Still worth a read to hear from folklorist Michael Bell about vampire pilgrimages and the like.