Games From Folktales

This week a fragment of Irish folklore from Lady Jane Francesca Wilde. It comes from her book Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland. Her name, if slightly familiar, may be eclipsed a little by her more famous son, Oscar Wilde, whose writing took a rather different direction. Her book contains a lot of…

A brief one here: a demon from Herrick that takes the form of a pagan god. It aids people who want to harm themselves by destroying their own capacity for love. Love, in medieval theology, being one of the forms of God, and that humans should love being one of the commands of God, this…

This second part of the the story starts with a lengthy piece that sets the tone.   This beginning of adventures had Arthur at the New Year; for he yearned to hear gallant tales, though his words were few when he sat at the feast. But now had they stern work on hand. Gawain was glad…

Robert Herrick provides us with an Infernal aura in this poem. It may not be clear on an initial read, but the saints mentioned are from classical myths, and are suicides. The narrator is deludedly seeking his own death, which in medieval theology is a damnable offence. That he thinks it creates a sort of…

When not writing children’s fiction, Edith Nesbit also wrote ghost stories. This one has a vampire that, at the beginning, appears relatively gentle. It drains the health of its victim without the penetration and violence of Stoker’s vampires. Note, however, that it permanently damages the man. He never has a romantic relationship again, and never…

Genius loci are an idea which turned up in Ars Magica with several of us finding them all of a sudden. I used one in a fiction competition, and I believe the authors of The Mysteries First Edition had already written others up. In my case I saw an odd bit of Latin in a…