"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
Curiously enough, when one thinks about spookiness rarely the mind goes to Ancient Greece. And this, I think, is one of the worst disservices we can do to our ancestors (beside Percy Jackson, I mean): Greek mythology is riddled with monsters, dark creatures lurking in the night, curses and malevolent deities...
This is probably my favourite among the traditional 1001 Nights, but it's very rarely included in anthologies and it's far into the 577° night, so people rarely reach it. Since I think it's spooky as hell, let me give it to you today on my...
Skull lyres such as the ones in the header were made by an indigenous entrepreneur for selling to the Europeans as authentic stuff from the dark, savage continent, and they have baffled scholars for over two centuries. And I think it's just hilarious. You can...
The Art of the Day on my Patreon is Henry Fusely's "The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches", an illustration to a passage from Milton's "Paradise Lost". One can always resort to Mr. Fusely when looking for spooky stuff, isn't that right? ...
In Austrian and German folklore, the Drudenmesser is a decorated knife meant to guard off an evil spirit called Drude or Trude. It's today's Object of the Day on my Patreon. ...
When it comes to spooky mermaids, there's very little stuff that can match Elizabeth Jerichau-Baumann's paintings. We take a look at them today on my Patreon. ...
The Jikininki is a human-eating Japanese ghost who features in Lafcadio Hearn's collection of spooky stuff called Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. For those of you who follow the blog, I have written about him here and particularly I talked about three of his...
The Vetala Panchavimshati, also known as The Twenty-five Tales of Baital (Baital Pachisi) is a collection of Sanskrit tales and legends placed within the frame story of king Vikrama who promises a sorcerer (vamachari) that he will capture a creature. The collection of tales has...
For many of us, fall is the best season and October is the best month, leading up to all things spooky. Many people out there are creating prompts for artists and all people creative (check this out from WorldAnvil last year, for instance) and prompts are...
Well, since we're about to enter the spookiest season and since I'm after all writing a Gothic novel, I thought I could start with one of the oldest tropes in the world: the story in which the hero overcomes a hideous monster. According to Christopher Booker...
