Irish Lore, The Blarney Stone .

 

The Blarney Stone.

🇮🇪 🪨☘️

The Blarney castle was built by Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, the 9th Lord of Muskerry, who also founded the nearby Friary  and Carrignamuck castle.

Blarney castle is located in Blarney, County Cork Ireland and is perhaps one of the most famous castle's on the emerald isle, it was Built as a military stronghold by Cormac Láidir MacCarthy / MacCárthaigh in 1446 and is home to the magic stone known world wide as the Blarney Stone. 

It has become so popular throughout the years that now millions of  tourists come from all over the world just  to kiss the stone each year. 

The word "blarney" originated  during the 16th century when the lord's of Blarney Castle,  the MacCarthy clan, used clever  words to stall Queen Elizabeth I's demands for the castle and territory. 

 Kissing the Blarney Stone is believed to grant you  the ability to speak persuasively and eloquently to anyone, this ability is known as the "gift of the gab" The term "blarney" itself refers to skillful flattery or misleading talk. 

The stone is a large piece of limestone at the top of the castle, which is set in the wall below the battlements.

 Tourists that want to kiss the stone or assisted by a guide to lean over backwards and kiss it(there is safety railings in place as well). 

There are a few different origin stories regarding the magical stone.

Some believe the stone received it's magic by Titania the Queen of the Faeries, who told the MacCarthy clan to kiss it for answers. 

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Religious stories surrounding the stone.

Some claim the stone is the Stone of Jacob from the Old Testament and that it was brought to Ireland by the Prophet Jeremiah. 

Another story tells that the Blarney Stone served as a deathbed pillow for the legendary St Columba — the saint credited with spreading Christianity throughout Scotland. Some claim, that the stone was taken from Scotland and brought to Ireland.

A less biblical, story suggests that the stone was part of the Stone of Scone (also known as the ‘Stone of Destiny’) — a legendary block of stone used in the coronation ceremony of Scottish Kings. 

It is believed that Scottish hero Robert the Bruce give the stone to the MacCarthy chieftain as a token of gratitude for supporting the Irish in the Battle of Bannockburn. 

Brazilian Myth: Yara/Lara.

 

Lara..

Mãe das Águas 

 mother of the waters

Lara also Know as the “Lady of the Waters, or Mother of the waters” is most often depicted as an attractive yet very  dangerous  and seductive mermaid-like cryptid from Brazil.

She lives in the rivers and lagoons, where she sings her haunting songs to attract the local fisherman  using her beautiful voice and good looks to call them to their deaths, similar to Greek sirens.

 with the combined beauty of her voice and seductive figure she easily lures  men into the water where they seldom return. The few that do manage to escape her are haunted by her otherworldly songs for the rest of their life often driven to madness.

 In most  versions of this myth she lures men who fell under her spell into the water to drown them.

In other variants her spell  would compel him to simply leave everything he had  behind and live with her underwater forever because of her beauty ...though in this kinder version she is  said to be a very loving and attentive wife and would love him for  the rest of his life.

However she is   immortal and will spend most of eternity alone. (Humans only live so long).

In yet another versions  

She was a beautiful young warrior-woman, skilled in combat and the art of  war though she lives  in a patriarchal tribe, she eventually gained the admiration of the entire tribe and even her father the chief respected her ability, however her brothers grew jealous of her and  decided to murder her during the night. 

According to this version she defended herself from her brother's and accidentally killed them in the process upon discovering he's sons dead , her father became furious at her.

 She fled to the jungle  but was eventually captured and punished for her brothers death's, by being drowned in the river.

 A different ending to this version  claims the brothers  killed her the nigh of the attack and dumped her body in the river then  blamed the night goddess, Jaci, for her disappearance.

In both versions she ends up in the river, And is turned into a mermaid   by the nearby fish on the night of a full moon or by Jaci.

Now  she takes her revenge on all men by seducing them and drowning them in the river.

Some claim even being near her territory is enough to drive a man crazy and make him want to enter the water.

Ghostly Folklore: Dames Blanches 🇫🇷👻

 

Dames Blanches.

🇫🇷🌉👻

In French folklore there is a ghost like woman often seen near bridge's or alleys.

Her name is Dame Blanche .

 The most common version of the legend says she would stop someone and ask them to join her in dance or assist her in a certain way in order to pass. If the passerby offered her assistance, she would make him courtesies and disappear,  if he refused to play along with her request, he would meet an unfortunate end.

The name Dames Blanche translates to  “White Ladie / Ladies” 

She is a supernatural entity most often thought to be a spirit though some believe she may infact be a type of fay .

She can be seen near near caverns, ravines, bridges and other narrow places where she can attract the attention of people passing by.

In France, the Dames Blanches are most  popular in  Lorraine and Normandy and were said to appear in Occitan, the Pyrenees mountains with various other sightings throughout the country.

The Dames Blanches have similar counterparts in name and characterization in Germany she's called  Weiße Frauen and in  Dutch she's  the Witte Wieven.

She may also have ancient connections to a pre Christian guardian goddesses known as the Matres,  specifically the Dominæ, who watched over the home, perhaps became the Dames of folklore.

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Thomas Keightley (1870) describes the Dames Blanches as a type of Fae known in Normandy "who are of a less benevolent character." They lurk in narrow places such as ravines, forest, and on bridges and try to attract passerby attention. They may require one to join in her dance or assist her in order to pass. 

If assisted she "makes him many courtesies, and then vanishes." One such Dame was known as La Dame d'Apringy who appeared in a ravine at the Rue Quentin at Bayeux in Normandy, where one must dance with her a few rounds to pass. 

Those who refused were thrown into the thistles and briar, while those who danced were not harmed. Another Dame was known on a narrow bridge in the district of Falaise, named the Pont d'Angot. She only allowed people to pass if they went on their knees to her. Anyone who refused was tormented by the lutins(a type of hobgoblin), cats, owls, and other creatures who helped her.

The Mavka 🌳🌲 ☠️

 

The Mavki is a Russian/ Slavic forest  creatures that haunts the caves  and forest of the countryside most popular in Ukraine.

The Mavki (singular: mavka) are typically forest spirits though  in some versions she is a type of rusalka

According to the myth any girl who drown themselves because of an unhappy love life become rusalka similarly any young women that dies a tragic or premature death may become a mavka.

Mavkas  live in the forests, mountains, or caves, they are young attractive often naked female spirits described as  tall with round faces and long hair .

They decorating their homes with rugs and weav thin, almost transparent clothes from stolen flax. They are also known for their love of flowers, which they wear in their hair and plant in the mountains to lure young men in. 

Is  some beliefs, a man could also become a rusalka: in the Sosnytsia Raion of the Chernihiv Oblast it's believed that men and women can become one of these spirits if they died on Trinity week. 

According to myth, they are similar to if not a variant of rusalki or mavki 

Both are depicted as beautiful young women with green moss or reed colored hair, though a more malevolent version of the Mavka is  sometimes said to have  no back or a  transparent back through which all of their internal organs were visible (those were more often called nyavka).

 Like rusalka that lure men into a watery death, the Mavka will lure men into the woods, where she tickles him to death or tangles him in her long hair and drown him 

 

On Pentecost (Navka's Easter), Mavkas are said to hold celebration, dances, and orgies, accompanied by a demon playing a flute or pipes. To save an unbaptized baby's soul, one must throw up a kerchief during Pentecost, say their name, and add "I baptise you

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It may be safer to just stay out of the woods and away from creeks and rivers all together lol

Tennessee, Class A bigfoot encounter

 

First hand account from Lawrenceburg TN.

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 My husband and I saw a what we believe to be a Sasquatch on the night of June 12, 2021. We were driving home together with our daughter at approximately 9:30 PM when we turned onto our street. Mind you, we live in the deep country side outside of Lawrenceburg Tennessee.

My husband turned the wheel slightly to turn onto our street and there was an animal with fingers touching something on the ground, picking at it with its fingers. When the animal saw our headlights turning, it intentionally averted the headlights and ducked underneath them.

It was only about five feet from the front of our vehicle at one point when we turned toward it. It was fully in the headlights.

The animal bounded across our neighbors yard. It did not run on two feet the way a human would. We thought the animal was a gorilla at first because of its movements but it looked extremely human like. It bounded with its front legs in the same way that a gorilla does except it’s arms were so long and it moved unbelievably fast.

Of course we considered that it could have been a person dressed in a hairy costume but it moved way too fast to be a person. It was definitely not a bear. It was more like a gorilla or person covered with hair. It was covered in dark brown or black hair.

The animal cleared our neighbors 250-300 foot grass lawn in about six seconds and then it disappeared from view. Our daughter who is four did not see the animal as she was playing on her iPad.

When we pulled up to our house a minute later I was absolutely terrified to get out of the vehicle because we had no idea what we had seen, and because it was so fast that it could have turned around and been to our house in about 10 seconds.

I got up the courage to run to my house door and unlocked it and we all ran inside. We were terrified.

We both saw the animal, however it was my husband who saw that it had fingers and it was observing something on the ground. I did not see that part. I just saw the part where it started to run and when it cleared our neighbors lawn.

We had considered that maybe it was a bear but it was too ape like to have been a bear and it was too fast and slim and did not run on all four of its legs exactly the way a bear would have.

Viking Folklore: Margygr

 

Viking Folklore: Margygr the Norse mermaid.

🛶🧜‍♀️🌊

In Norse mythology, the margygr is a large mermaid like creature that's believed to live off the coast of Greenland.

Unlike later mermaid legends where the mermaid is beautiful,  this creature is described as either unnerving and hideous or strikingly beautiful both and forms always leaves it's witness's in aw/shock.

Like most mermaid sightings the Margygr is a human fish hybrid, most of the time she has the top half of a beautiful  large breasted long haired woman with webbed hands with a fish like appearance from the waist down, though she is much larger then a normal mermaid. 

In other accounts she's described as a giant terrifying and grotesque creature.

 Margygr translates to "Sea Giantess" or "Sea spirit". 

The Vikings considered these being to be more of a force of nature or powerful spirit then an actual creature, some would even pray to it for a safe voyage before they set sail. 

Sightings are rare,but when it is  spotted it's always  before a powerful storm and can be either beneficial and helpful to sailors or harmful and violent.  . 

🌊🧜‍♀️🌊

skogsrå, the Foxy forest nymph

 

The northern forest's of Scandinavia are cold and dark, they are also home to many mysterious creatures Gnomes, Trolls, Giants, elves ect.

But there's another creatures that haunts these wood, as deadly as she is beautiful...

The skogsrå.

The skogsrå is a swedish version of the huldra.

,............

She most often  appears as a beautiful young woman with  a friendly attitude. 

From the front she looks like a normal woman but  from behind she usually has ether a fox or cow tail sicking out of her skirt/dress and a hollow back (but not always).

More often than not, the men that follow her into the forest are never seen again.

 In some folktales any man  that had sex with her and returned would be like a hollow shell of his former self as his soul remained with her.

 However if the  man is a hunter or someone that was kind to her, he may be rewarded with good luck in the hunt or fishing trip but should he ever be unfaithful to her, he will be struck with extreme bad luck and  accidents. In some cases the bad luck may end if the hunter fires a shot into the woods.

 Nyland, Finland Folklore says firing  silver bullets  can kill a skogsrå

In Norway, the word huldrefolk or huldre (plural)  comes from Old Norse huldr meaning ‘hidden’ it's used for all kinds of supernatural creatures. Hulder, or Huldra in the singular, signifies a female forest spirit, though she may also appear in mountains.

 These forest spirits act alone, instead of in.large group's or families like other supernatural beings, like the vittra. In northern Sweden, the name vittra refers to a group of supernatural beings that lives underground that have many traits in common with fairies from folklore of the British Isles, as well as with the ellefolk in Danish tradition or the huldrefolk /Hilda folk in Norwegian tradition.     

 Finland also has a version of the Huldra/ skogsrå, Some names in the Finnish language, mainly from the west coast, also show a link to the Swedish traditions, metsänpiika ‘forest girl’ or metsänneito ‘forest maid’ are the most often used names for the female forest spirit. However, there are also other localised names such as haapaneitsyt ‘aspen-maid’ or sinipiika ‘blue maid’.          

 

Her other Swedish names are  skogsrå, skogsrådan, skogsråa ‘forest ruler’, råan, rådande ‘the ruler,/the ruling spirit’, skogsjungfru ‘forest maiden’, skogsfru, skogssnuva ‘forest woman’, skogskäringen ‘the forest hag’, or with a nickname such as Grankotte–Maja ‘Spruce cone-Maja’, Talle-Maja ‘Pine tree-Maja’. She is also known by many different local variants like.. Gonna, Besta, Rånda, Skogela, Lanna-frökna ‘The lady of Lanna’ or Ysäters-Kajsa ‘Kajsa of Ysäter’. On the island of Gotland, there are records of a female troll called Torspjäska that plays the same role and has the same function as forest spirit on the mainland.      Germany has a legend of a long-haired beautiful fores spirits too,.  Called  Holzfräulein ‘the tree lady’, who was dressed in leaves, or as Moosweiblein ‘the moss woman’. 

If you're heading into the woods soon, be weary of any beautiful strangers that may approach you ...... 

 🖤💕Also Happy Valentines Day.💕🖤