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 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
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
In Britain, Bonfire Night (5th November) has a history as an especially badly behaved festival. 'Bonfire Boys' would take over neighbourhoods, light fires in the streets, set off fireworks indiscriminately, roll blazing tar barrels along roads, and engage in acts of vandalism. There were also fights, loud and discordant music, and the parading of effigies of Guy Fawkes, for which money was collected from shopkeepers and passers-by in a rather direct manner. The attempts of the authorities to suppress these celebrations often led to pitched battles with the police. Eventually, the authorities got their way and Bonfire Night was tamed, with either suburban back-garden events or well-organised municipal displays becoming the norm. #history #folklore #BonfireNight #weird
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
