I’d like to flag a wonderful episode of In Our Time, which has a history of automata. Also, I’d like to flag that the Cryptid Keeper has an episode on the tatzelwurm. If we add an episode by FoodStuff / Savor about the herb basil, we have enough material for a far better way of…
Read More
Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Volumes 2 and 3
I’m continuing to cut down Bottrell for the Cornwall gazetteer. The Fuggo : a place to delve, and a spirit “ABOUT a furlong south-west of Trove, but on a tenement of Boleigh, is the Fuggo. It consists of a cave about six feet high, five feet wide, and near forty long, faced on each side with rough stones, across…
Read MoreRing the bells and open the gates! It’s the Games From Folktales August 2018 transcripts!
Sorry about the lack of art assets this month – my time was spent on Episode 150.
Dunsany: Taking up Picadilly
A short Dunsany episode, but one of my favourite stories from him. Thanks to Thomas Copeland for reading this into the public domain through Librivox. Taking up Picadilly Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off—or so they seemed.…
Read More
The Ring of Gyges
In the Republic, there’s a thought experiment that a faerie or demon might make real in Mythic Europe. A shepherd named Gyges finds the grave of a king, after an earth tremor, and removes a ring from it. When he places the ring upon his finger and twists it, he becomes invisible. He uses this…
Read MoreGames From Folktales Episode 150: Cornwall
Thank you to everyone who has supported Games From Folktales for 150 episodes! Here’s a little gift: the first edition of the Cornwall gazetteer I’ve been promising. Click to access cornwall-edition-1.pdf I call it the first edition, because at some point I hope to extend the section on saga seeds, and have a map professionally…
Read More
Mujina by Lafcadio Hearn
This folktale by Lafcardio Hearn was used to create the minions of an enemy published in “Antagonists”. Mujina, by Lafcardio Hearn. On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka,—which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the Slope of the Province of…
Read MoreTintagel Castle
A reconstruction of the medieval Tintagel Castle is on English Heritage’s web page.
Read More
Cornwall: Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Volume 1
Bottrell was one of the researchers that Robert Hunt used to flesh out his book, so his material has been already fossicked over, at one remove. Bottrell uses a lot more of the local dialect, and his colour text is better than Hunt’s. For example, all the descendants of Jack the Giant are shaggy because…
Read More
Walking under Wittgenstein’s ladder
This week I’ve been thinking about Hermetic applications of Wittgenstein’s ladder, but to get there, I need to take three steps back. I hit upon the idea in Terry Pratchett’s books, where it’s called lie-to-children, which is taken from Cohen and Stuart. An example I can think of is when Neil Gaiman wrote a Doctor…
Read More
Games From Folktales 