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  In the American South, birds are connected to angels. Many believe feathers found on the ground are signs angels have visited. The dead return as angels, and when a cardinal visits you, it is the spirit of the dead coming to visit you. #WyrdWednesday

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  At Samhain it is believed that the dead return home, coming to seek hospitality and see how the living have gotten on. This leads to happy reunions at times, while in other cases, the disappointed dead bring the fright we associate with Halloween today. #WyrdWednesday

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  The first known example of apple bobbing comes from Celto-Romano fusion, combining the two cultures and spreading accordingly. A maiden who placed a bobbed apple under her pillow would dream of her future lover. #FolkloreSunday

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  Kaiserwalzer is one of Vienna's haunted restaurants, where patrons have seen plates fall with no cause, furniture moving of its own accord, and even shadowy patrons moving and blocking passage. No one can quite account for why. #SpookySunday

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  Jack was a cunning soul, barred from Heaven but denied by Hell because of a bargain he made with Satan. Thus forced to wander Earth eternally, he took hellfire and put it in a turnip: thus were born Jack-O-Lanterns. #FolkloreSunday #SpookySunday 🖼️: J. Ukropina

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  The site where the Korean Declaration of Independence was read was made into a Japanese restaurant by the occupiers, popular with soldiers, but a year later in 1920 a rain of blood fell on everyone in the restaurant, the spirits of the dead angry at freedom denied. #SpookySunday

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  It seems that fairy lore, from Italy to the Hebrides, is the lore of the land, the lore of those who came before: fairies are most strongly tied to cairns, to burial mounds, and to sites of great importance, and those spirits remain with us, reminders of the land #MythologyMonday

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  Fairy comes from the Old French faie, which referred to a woman powerful in magic, word, or craft. This evolved to Fairy, Fey, etc. over time. Beings we call fey have other names: for example in Gaelic they are aos si, among other terms. #MythologyMonday 🖼: B. Froud

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  If a relative is taken by the fairies and a changeling left in their stead, you have one chance to get them back in some lore: you must go to where the fey are known to congregate on the next full moon and there negotiate with the joyful taken. #MythologyMonday 🖼️: E. Hughes

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  The Livonian Werewolf is a case where a man claimed to be a werewolf, but one who served God: he and his fellow werewolves, called the Hounds of God, rode into Hell three nights a year to fight Satan and his witches to steal back stolen grain. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼️: A. Francisco

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  In different parts of Eastern Europe, it was believed that those with red hair became vampires in death for centuries, in part because of the presence of "red" hair on dead bodies when checked months later, as part of the decay process. #FairytaleTuesday 👩‍🦰: Velveteena Leigh

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  The original Sleeping Beauty of Germanic folklore was Brunnhilde, the shield-maiden queen whom Sigurd finds sleeping across a wall of flame; she had vowed she would marry that man. But Sigurd was disguised as his friend Gunnar: tragedy is the result. #MythologyMonday

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  Attractive as the woman is, hold fast to your wits: this Caribbean woman is more than just good looks and flaming intellect, but a cursed woman who brings souls to their doom: she is La Diablesse, disguised as a beautiful woman but with a goat's leg. #MythologyMonday 🖼️A Silva

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  Prior to 1840, the mother of Hansel and Gretel is the villain who forces her husband to leave the children in the woods, but the Brothers Grimm sanitized the tale, for how could a biological mother do such a thing? It is also implied she may be the witch. #FairytaleTuesday

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  Awen is passion, inspiration, instinct that drives artists and muses in medieval Welsh thought. Sometimes depicted as coming from the cauldron of the white witch Ceridwen, awen is what drives people to create and craft. #FairytaleTuesday

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  Want good luck? Keep geese! According to the inhabitants of the Kenyan village of Kakamega, geese can sense a witch and thus will begin to honk, indicating families should be on their guard, thus preventing witches from souring the luck of the family. #FairytaleTuesday

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  Alice Kyteler is the Witch of Kilkenny, accused in 1324 in Ireland's first known witch trial. She slew her four husbands by poison and was said to have laid with an incubus and renounced Christ. After she fled, a servant was killed in her place. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: P. Shaw

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  Most witches' familiars are remnants of the holy animals of pagan deities, demonized as people continued practicing pre-Christian folk magic and religion. Cats, for example, are holy to the Nordic "witch goddess" Freyja, and Egyptian Bast. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: D. Zemba

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  La Lechuza is a white owl who is in fact a witch, appearing as a massive raptor who preys on souls at night from the Rio Grande Valley on down. Any white owl could be her: so beware. #FairytaleTuesday

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  Modern historians have suggested that dragons were proven to premodern populations by none other than unearthed fossilized dinosaur bones. Given how close modern dragons look to these bones it is entirely possible, though dragon truthers would very much disagree. #WyrdWednesday

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  In autumn she is Sharada, the goddess of that season: Saraswati prefers this season, the goddess of learning blessing it in India and beyond. It is a time for music, for speech, for learning and art and create but also to regenerate and grow. #WyrdWednesday 🖼: R.R. Varma

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  Autumn sees an increase of kitsune sightings and with it, fox fire. As reapers take to the fields, they see foxes moving in and about them, not always a bad sign but always an auspicious one. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: Jeepster

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  Contrary to popular belief tarot began its life as a set of cards meant for playing games. It was not until the 18th century that tarot became a divination tool. Like most decks it has four suits (the minor Arcana) but adds 22 additional cards (the major Arcana) #MythologyMonday

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  The Scorpion begged the Frog to ferry it across the pond, promising not to sting him, so he agrees; halfway across, the Scorpion stung him. "Why? Now we will both drown," he asks. "A Scorpion cannot change its nature, dear Frog." So goes the famed fable. #FairyTaleTuesday

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  Aesop's Fables comments on the intelligence of crows in "The Crow and the Pitcher," which is not so much a fable on perseverance and cleverness, as it is an observable fact that crows are problem-solvers. #FairytaleTuesday

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  He lassos tornados. He brought a storm from California to solve a drought in Texas, only to create the Gulf of Mexico. He dug the Rio Grande to give his horse water. He is Pecos Bill, a giant of Southwestern storytelling and of proportion, too. #FairytaleTuesday

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  The mythologies of the Aztec peoples come to us in two sources, in the same book: the Florentine Codex, the most complete work, is written on one side in Spanish, and one side in Nahuatl, recording indigenous life, but sometimes telling it differently. #WyrdWednesday

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  Ancient Mesoamericans imagined the night's sky like that of a cave, with light glistening from each stalactite from far above. Rain is water rushing into our cave, and for that rain gods are given much prominence in Mayan and Aztec mythos. #WyrdWednesday

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  Found in Mesoamerican art until the Spanish conquest, the Olmec werejaguar motif is found in all manner of art and may have represented rain, sovereignty, or priestly help. Said to be born of women and jaguar, their power was summoned by warriors to defeat foes. #WyrdWednesday

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  Nagual are shapeshifters, human tricksters born with shamanic powers and familiars they can use for good or evil: the person must choose. Found across Mesoamerica with evidence stretching back millennias, modern Mexican naguals are often associated with brujería. #WyrdWednesday