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Items tagged with: gothic

On this snowy day here in England, I thought I'd share this post about the Devil's Footprints. In 1885, a long meandering trail of marks was left in the snow in Devon. Though they seemed to have been made by a two-legged animal, they resembled hoofprints. They wound through churchyards & across fields, went up the sides of buildings & over roofs, & jumped estuaries - as if the uncanny being who made them had flown. Sometimes they stopped on one side of a haystack & continued on the other, without the hay being disturbed. Elsewhere the creature seemed to have jumped impossibly high walls or wriggled through tiny pipes. The prints went on for between 40 & 100 miles and were reported in the national press. The marks have been blamed on escaped monkeys & kangaroos, on austere Protestants trying to frighten religious rivals, on untethered balloons, UFOs, sea monsters & swans in padded shoes. My article: davidcastleton.net/devils-foot… #folklore #history #weird #gothic #Devon #snow
A single line of footprints stretching off into a snowy landscape. A clump of bare trees are visible in the background.

The Devil's Footprints - Devon's Diabolical Hoofmarks in the Snow - David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen

Single, miles-long lines of hoofprints left overnight in the Devon snow were blamed on the Devil. The tracks went up house walls & over roofs
David Castleton (David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen)
#History #folklore #gothic #Devon #snow #Weird

A neo-Egyptian bench on London's Embankment, with sphinxes carved into its metalwork. Such objects are evidence of Egyptomania - a craze for all things Ancient Egypt that gripped Europe in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s. #art #mythology #folklore #history #London #AncientEgypt #architecture #Victorian #gothic #weird
Bench on London's Embankment with black winged sphinxes at each end and in the middle, with their wings forming the armrests.
#art #History #architecture #london #folklore #mythology #gothic #ancientegypt #Weird #Victorian

One strange London legend speaks of a motley band of Dickensian-type characters who colonised the Tube network in the late 19th century and never returned to the surface. Their descendants are said to still inhabit the Underground system today. Strangely mutated, they live off rats and mice, discarded food and the occasional late-night passenger. #weird #urban #folklore #history #London #psychogeography #gothic
A snaking, white-tiled pedestrian tunnel on the London Underground.
#History #london #urban #folklore #gothic #Weird #psychogeography

An infamous London witch was Mother Damnable. Her cottage is said to have stood where Camden Town Tube Station is now or possibly across the road on the site now occupied by the World's End pub. Her parents were hanged for witchcraft and it's claimed she murdered two of her husbands, one of whom was found baked in her oven. With her enormous black cat, she terrified the locals, who nevertheless relied on her herbal remedies. On the day of her death, many saw the Devil enter her house. Mother Damnable was found in front of her fire, over which a concoction still bubbled. This liquid was given to her cat - its hair fell out and it soon died. My article: davidcastleton.net/mother-damn… #gothic #London #Halloween #folklore #weird #psychogeography #history
A drawing of an old, wrinkled woman in shabby clothes, who appears to be kneeling in front of a fire and suspending something over it. The black patches on her cloak somewhat resemble bats. The caption calls her 'Mother Damnable, the remarkable Shrew of Kentish Town'.

Mother Damnable – the Wicked Witch of Camden Town Tube Station - David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen

Mother Damnable was a notorious witch whose cottage stood where Camden Town Station is now located. The Devil was seen entering her house ...
David Castleton (David Castleton Blog - The Serpent's Pen)
#History #london #folklore #gothic #Weird #halloween #psychogeography

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