The Godyssey Podcast

Art ‘heals’

CW: SA In 1611 artist Artemisia Gentileschi was sexually assaulted, and her rapists tried and found guilty. A religious painter, one of her favorite subjects was Judith's murder of Holofernes by decapitation: many believe the "model" was her rapist. #MythologyMonday

Master of mythological arts, J.C. Leyendecker is most famous for his men, which is no mistake given Leyendecker's preference for them and using his own partner, Charles Beach, as the model for many of them. Despite this, he was an equitable artist. #MythologyMonday

Lucretia Garfield, wife of President James Garfield is said to haunt James A. Garfield Historical Site in Mentor, Ohio. There she turns on lights just turned off by night security, and when there is renovation she is said to clean it up in the night. #SpookySunday

The Welsh equivalent of Samhain is Nos Calan Gaeaf, a day much like Halloween. Stones are left at the bonfire with your name on it, facing the fire: if by morning it burns away, you are safe. If by morning your name remains, you are fated to die in the next year. #FolkloreSunday

A revenant is a spirit that possesses the bodies of the dead, sometimes their own, sometimes others. Originally the term was used for ghosts. Something drives them back to life, and fiction loves a good revenant story like The Crow. #SpookySunday

Halloween is a time of fate and prophecy, for it is when the Dagda sought out his wife, the fear Phantom Queen herself. The Morrigan will give prophecy to those who earn it, whether by strength of deed or freely if one's fated time has come. #FolkloreSunday 🖼️: N. Cornock

Demons cannot reproduce in medieval Christian lore but there is a clever twist. A succubus steals sperm from human men caught in their trap, and gives it to an incubus. That incubus then uses the sperm to impregnate women: that child is infernal. #WyrdWednesday 🖼: K. Makovsky

Wyrdlings! Even in our favourite season, we might be inclined to be elsewhere for a spell. So, for Coleridge’s birthday, we give you: “Suspension of Disbelief – Opium Dreams & Wyrd Voyages!” as this week’s #WyrdWednesday topic. Come, sit & tell of strange matelots, pleasure domes & demon lovers!

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La Lechuza is a white owl who is in fact a witch, appearing as a massive raptor who preys on souls at night from the Rio Grande Valley on down. Any white owl could be her: so beware. #FairytaleTuesday

Most witches' familiars are remnants of the holy animals of pagan deities, demonized as people continued practicing pre-Christian folk magic and religion. Cats, for example, are holy to the Nordic "witch goddess" Freyja, and Egyptian Bast. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: D. Zemba

Alice Kyteler is the Witch of Kilkenny, accused in 1324 in Ireland's first known witch trial. She slew her four husbands by poison and was said to have laid with an incubus and renounced Christ. After she fled, a servant was killed in her place. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: P. Shaw

Want good luck? Keep geese! According to the inhabitants of the Kenyan village of Kakamega, geese can sense a witch and thus will begin to honk, indicating families should be on their guard, thus preventing witches from souring the luck of the family. #FairytaleTuesday

Awen is passion, inspiration, instinct that drives artists and muses in medieval Welsh thought. Sometimes depicted as coming from the cauldron of the white witch Ceridwen, awen is what drives people to create and craft. #FairytaleTuesday

Prior to 1840, the mother of Hansel and Gretel is the villain who forces her husband to leave the children in the woods, but the Brothers Grimm sanitized the tale, for how could a biological mother do such a thing? It is also implied she may be the witch. #FairytaleTuesday

"The owl was an enchanted person, and strix… bruxa signify at once the bird and the witch that fly by night… Hence also their name of klag-muhme (wailing aunt), klag-mutter, klage-weib… elsewhere it is called grab-eule [grave-owl], todten-vogel [death-bird]." (Grimm) 🎨 R. Paterson #owlishmonday

Attractive as the woman is, hold fast to your wits: this Caribbean woman is more than just good looks and flaming intellect, but a cursed woman who brings souls to their doom: she is La Diablesse, disguised as a beautiful woman but with a goat's leg. #MythologyMonday 🖼️A Silva

The original Sleeping Beauty of Germanic folklore was Brunnhilde, the shield-maiden queen whom Sigurd finds sleeping across a wall of flame; she had vowed she would marry that man. But Sigurd was disguised as his friend Gunnar: tragedy is the result. #MythologyMonday

The old Apache Hotel was a vibrant spot of gangsters and death in Las Vegas, connected to the tyranny of its owner, Benny Binion. Some rooms have benign ghosts, like the child laughing near Room 246; others have spirits angry at intrusion, like 263. #SpookySunday

Oude Rode Ogen, or Old Red Eyes, is a black dog called the Beast of Flanders. Said to hunt children who terrorize their parents, one origin suggests he is the spirit of a vagrant wrongly lynched after a failed child kidnapping, come back for vengeance. #FolkloreSunday #SpookySunday

If you are near a body of water near Obon in Japan, and you see mists on the water, don't wait for it to get closer. This is a Funayūrei, a Ghost Ship in the fog, full of resentful drowned sailors and prepared for you to join their crew. #SpookySunday 🖼: M. Meyer

According to the Chiloe people of Chile, a black cat is necessary when hunting the carbuncle: when digging holes, you must throw a black cat into them. This does not harm the cat, and it will be returned to the hunter unharmed. Without this, death is imminent. #FolkloreSunday

In different parts of Eastern Europe, it was believed that those with red hair became vampires in death for centuries, in part because of the presence of "red" hair on dead bodies when checked months later, as part of the decay process. #FairytaleTuesday 👩‍🦰: Velveteena Leigh

The Livonian Werewolf is a case where a man claimed to be a werewolf, but one who served God: he and his fellow werewolves, called the Hounds of God, rode into Hell three nights a year to fight Satan and his witches to steal back stolen grain. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼️: A. Francisco

“You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot” (Gaston Leroux) 🎨 Les Edwards “Phantom of the Opera II” (1999) #Spooktober

@guyvenables.bsky.social

I did #WyrdWednesday today instead of #FairytaleTuesday and just realized if mid conversation IRL. Mea culpa. I will be doing posts for Tuesday tomorrow. My Wednesday stuff is out there already. Y'all I'm fucking tired.

Necromancy is today the dark art of raising the dead, and while that has always been true, prior to the Enlightenment necromancy was a specific type of raising: raising spirits or the bodies they were bound to in order to speak with the dead. #WyrdWednesday 🖼: S. Rosa

Necromancy is fairly common practice in Nordic myth and folklore, at times involving völva like Gróa, offering her expertise to her son Svipdag should he ever need it, even after her death. Moms: not even death can stop their love. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: W.G. Collingwood

Good morning 🪶

Wyrdlings! In the middle of everyone’s favourite season – witchy, wyrd, wynderful – we Mothers would be amiss if we did not give you: “Something Wicked This Way Comes – Dark Arts!” as this week’s #WyrdWednesday topic. Come and conjure tales of Necromancy, Bibliomancy and Anythingelsemancy!

I never forgot this but 9/11 happened when I was like… 22? And I had all these naive ad violent images in my head. And I had one friend, slightly older guy, he was just not about that, and I asked him “you don’t want see anyone dead for this?” And he goes “no man, hate hurts the character.”