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
The statue of Eros - god of romantic love and sexuality - graces London's Piccadilly Circus, but he has proved an ambiguous and ambivalent deity. He is actually supposed to be Anteros - Eros's brother - and was set up as a memorial to Lord Shaftsbury, an evangelical Christian who campaigned against child labour and Britain's involvement in the opium trade. Anteros, unlike his lustful sibling, represents divine love for our fellow creatures. Shaftsbury would probably disapprove, however, of much of what has gone on under Anteros's gaze, with prostitution and the sex trade in that part of London rife. Also, the Boots chemist at Piccadilly Circus was for years the place where the majority of Britain's opioid addicts picked up their prescriptions of medical-grade heroin. My article: davidcastleton.net/eros-piccad… #history #mythology #folklore #drugs #London #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
