As a summer replacement for our regular episode: a round-up of non-English-language Folk-Horror films (here as audio but also available as video)

The presentation was created by Mr. Ridenour’s for the Rural Gothic conference hosted by The Folklore Podcast on 9/26/2020. The focus is on European folk-horror films, including Russian productions, and a few especially interesting Turkish films are also highlighted. It’s by no means comprehensive and naturally only  includes films made in 2020 or earlier.

You’ll hear the audio component if you continue listening here, but to watch the trailers, go to the Bone and Sickle YouTube channel (here: https://youtu.be/fJm6hgzaPV4). Or just Google “YouTube” and “Bone and Sickle” and you’ll find “International Folk-Horror Films” as a video.

These are the films discussed (English titles).

ANTHOLOGY FILMS: A Field Guide to Evil – Tale of Tales.

SPANISH LANGUAGE: Tombs of the Blind Dead – Macario – Poison for the Fairies – The Witches of Zugarramurdi – Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil.

GERMAN-LANGUAGE: Mark of the Devil – Laurin – Sennentuntschi.

SCANDINAVIAN: The White Reindeer- The Juniper Tree – Trollhunter – Rare Exports- Thale- Border.

POLISH-ESTONIAN: Witchhammer – November.

CZECH-SLOVAKIAN: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders – Morgiana- Beauty and the Beast – The Cremator- Kytice – The Noonday Witch – Little Otik.

RUSSIAN: Vasilisa the Beautiful – Kashchey the Immortal – Viy – Viy: The Forbidden Empire – The Night Before Christmas – Gogol: The Beginning – Gogol: Viy – Gogol: A Terrible Revenge – The Bride – Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite – The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead – Ghouls (Vamps).

TURKISH: Dabbe films – Siccin films.

The Fates of Classical Antiquity not only survived in the form of related fairy-tale figures but also as the object of superstitions and rituals associated with newborns. In South Slavic and Balkan regions particularly, these customs represent a surprisingly long-lived and genuine case of pagan survival.

We begin our episode examining the fairy godmothers of “Sleeping Beauty” as embodiments of the Fates.  Mrs. Karswell reads a few key passages from the definitive version of the story included in Charles Perrault’s 1697 collection, Histoires ou contes du temps passé (“stories of times gone by.”) We learn how the fairies fulfill the historical role of godparents at the newborn’s christening. We also note the peculiar emphasis on the quality of what’s set before the fairies at the christening banquet, observing how a failure there leads the wicked fairy to curse the Sleeping Beauty.

We then explore antecedents to Perrault’s tale, beginning with the 14th-century French chivalric romance, Perceforest.  A peripheral story in this 8-volume work is that of Troylus and Zeelandine, in which the role of Sleeping Beauty’s fairy godmothers are played by Greek and Roman deities, with Venus as supporter of Princess Zeelandine (and her suitor Troylus) and Themis cursing Zeelandine to sleep in a manner similar to Perrault’s princess.  A failure to correctly lay out Themis’ required items at the christening banquet is again again responsible for the curse, though the awakening of Zeelandine by Troylus awakens is surprisingly different and a notorious example of medieval bawdiness.

Preceding Perceforest, there was the late 13th-century French historical romance Huon of Bordeaux, in which we hear of the newborn fairy king Oberon being both cursed and blessed by fairies attending his birth.  From around the same time, French poet and composer Adam de la Halle’s Play of the Bower describes a banquet at which fairy guests pronounce a curses and blessings on those in attendance prompted again by their pleasure or displeasure at what’s set before them at a banquet. We also  hear of the Danish King King Fridlevus (Fridlef II) bringing his newborn son to a temple of “three maidens” to ascertain the  destiny pf the child in Gesta Danorum (“Deeds of the Danes”).written around 1200 by Saxo Grammaticus. And lest listeners think such appeals to the Fates were strictly a literary motif, we hear Burchard of Worms, in his early-11th-century Decretum, condemning the not uncommon among the Germans of his region of setting up offering tables for the Fates.  By this point, the connection between how fairy godmother types are served at a banquet and offerings made to the Fates to ensure a cild’s fortune should be clear.

We then turn back to the Greek Fates, the Moirai (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) and the Roman Parcae (Nona, Decuma, and Morta). Particularly in the case of the Parcae, we hear examples of their connection to the newborn’s destiny in the celebration nine or ten days after the birth of the dies lustricus, during which offerings were made to the Fates.

We make a brief side-trip to discuss the Norns (Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld), the Germanic equivalent of the Fates.  These are more distant cousins, not strongly associated with the newborn and his destiny, though we do hear a passage from the Poetic Edda, in which the Norns are  present birth of the hero Helgi. We also hear a gruesome passage from the 13th-century Njáls Saga, in which the Valkyries weave out the fate of those who will die in the Battle of Clontarf.

The Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Fates, the Wyrds, are also discussed, and we hear how the  witches in Macbeth partook in this identity as the “Weird Sisters,” an association Shakespeare inherited from his source material, the 1587 history of Great Britain, known as Holinshed’s Chronicles.

We then turn our attention the Fates in Slavic and Balkan lands — the Rozhanitsy in  Russia and Ukraine, the Sudičky among West Slavs, the Orisnici in Bulgaria, and the Ursitoare in Romania. As these customs survived into more recent times, there is a vast body of folklore to describe —  much of it revolving around the setting up of offering tables and the communication of newborn’s destiny through dreams sent to mothers and midwives and confirmed by  marks (visible or invisible)  left upon the infant during their nocturnal visits on the third night after birth.

We also enjoy a couple entertaining folktales about Romania’s Ursitoare collected in the early years of the 20th century by folklorist Tudor Pamfile.

While such customs have since died out in Greece, customs related to the Moirai preserved into the early 20th century, as we hear in passages  of John Lawson’s Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals, written in 1900.

We end with a brief look at christening parties in modern Romania, at which costumed Ursitoare play an increasingly major role, this paired with an introduction to the popular song  “Ursitoare, Ursitoare.”

During the 15th-century, citizens of Nuremberg, Germany, experienced spectacular Carnival parades highlighted by the appearance of floats known as “hells.”  Featuring immense figures, including dragons, ogres, and man-eating  giants, these hells were also peopled with costumed performers and enhanced with mechanized effects and pyrotechnics.

In this episode, adapted from a chapter of Mr. Ridenour’s new book, A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival, we examine the Nuremberg parade, the Schembartlauf, as it evolves from costumed dance performances staged by the local Butcher’s Guild in the mid-1 4th-century into a procession of fantastic and elaborately costumed figures, and finally — in 1475 – into a showcase for the rolling hells.

We begin, however, with an examination of a historical anecdotes sometimes presented as forerunners of  the Carnival parades, and of the Schembartlauf in particular, including two sometimes put forward to support a “pagan survival” theory.  The first involves a ceremonial wagon housing a figure of the putative fertility goddess, Nerthus, hauled about by Germanic peoples in the first century and mentioned in Tacitus’ Germania.  The second, also involving a wagon with fertility figure, is described by Gregory of Tours as being hauled through farmers’ fields in the 6th-century.

A third case involves the mysterious “land-ship,” a full-scale wheeled ship hauled from Germany into Belgium, and the Netherlands in 1135. Mentioned exclusively by the Flemish abbot, composer, and chronicler Rudolf of St. Trond in his Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium (Deeds of the Abbots of Trond), it’s characterized by the abbot as a sort of pagan temple on wheels and locus of orgiastic behavior, the precise purpose and nature of this peculiar incident remains largely a mystery.

We then hear a comic incident imagined in the early 13th-century story of the knight Parzival as told by Wolfram von Eschenbach. By way of analogy to the character’s ludicrous behavior, Carnival is mentioned for the first time, or more specifically von Eschenbach use the German word for Carnival, specifically the Carnival of Germany’s southwest called “Fastnacht.”

Our story of the Schembartlauf concludes the show with a description of its ironic downfall through local intrigues fired by the Protestant Reformation. Worth mentioning also, in our Schembart segment, is the heated scholarly debate around objects depicted in period illustrations, which look for all the world like oversized pyrotechnic artichokes.

New Patreon rewards related to Mr. Ridenour’s Carnival book are also announced in this episode, along with related Carnival-themed merch in our Etsy shop, including our “Party Like it’s 1598” shirts featuring Schembart figures.

Your favorite podcast is now seven years old!  As a birthday gift to our listeners, we decided to try a super short, experimental video podcast. For your pleasure, Mr. Ridenour yesterday edited together this vide0, entitled “The May Queen”.

Mr. Ridenour introduces his new book “A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters, and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival,” explaining how the project grew out of his research for “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas.”  In this episode, he sketches out chapter themes and topics, from ancient Rome to modern Bulgaria, focusing particularly on cultural hinterlands where festivities still echo the cruel realities of the old, agricultural world and where medieval Christianity intertwines with pagan practice. The Carnival portrayed is at once beautiful, strange, and savage. Spring is welcomed by clowns waving inflated pig bladders. Stalking sheepskin monsters brandish clubs bristling with hedgehog spines, and plows are dragged over cobblestone streets by celebrants wearing masks painted with cow’s blood. Folk horror fans take heart as the Old World welcomes Spring!

Available now for pre-order.  US Publication date, May 6, 20205.

A few advance reviews of the book:

“Sumptuously illustrated and written with clarity, eloquence, and wry humor, “A Season of Madness” is one of those rare books that can pass muster as an academic study yet also provide a good read. Al Ridenour’s meticulous research exposes the subtleties and outrageous quirks of a topic you didn’t know you wanted to learn about until you picked up his book. Under his direction, the madness once again reigns, as the neglected history of European Carnival is placed center stage before the reader, in all its seedy, wild, and triumphant glory.”

—Dr. Paul Koudounaris, author and photographer of: “Faithful unto Death,” “Heavenly Bodies,” and “Empire of Death“

“A Season of Madness“ is a fantastic carnival of a book. Equal parts irreverent and erudite, it lovingly captures the depth, complexity, and subversive nature of the carnival, from its ancient roots to modern expression. Gorgeously illustrated, intellectually hefty, and also fun, it is a seductive introduction to the material cultures, legends, and history of this perennially fascinating and slippery subject.”

—Joanna Ebenstein, Founder and Creative Director of Morbid Anatomy

The Sin-Eater was a figure associated with funerals of the 17th – 19th century, mostly in Wales, and the English counties along the Welsh border. According to tradition,  he was invited by grieving families to transfer the burden of sins from the deceased to himself by consuming bread and  beer in the vicinity of the corpse, after which he might receive some financial compensation. He typically came from the fringes of society and was said to be motivated by a combination of poverty, greed, and irreligious indifference to matters of eternal judgement.

After a quick montage of clips from the generally terrible films made on the theme —Sin Eater (2022), Curse of the Sin Eater (2024), The Last Sin Eater (2007) — we review  the historical references to the tradition, which are surprisingly few in number.

The first comes from a particularly early 1686 collection of British folklore written by John Aubrey, The Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme.  His characterization of the custom  is essentially that described above and despite the early date of the text, he describes the practice using the past tense, though qualifies this somewhat later mentioning that it is “rarely used in our days.”  Mrs. Karswell, of course, reads Aubrey’s original text along with our subsequent examples.

Our next account from 1715 comes from antiquarian John Bagford (published later, in 1776) in  John Lelan’s, compendium, Collectanea. It does not mention Wales but locates the custom in Shropshire, an English county bordering Wales.  It also has the Sin-Eater remaining outside the house where the body lies as he consumes his bread and ale.  Bagford also adds a verbal formula, which the Sin-Eater is supposed to pronounce, mentioning the deceased’s soul attaning  “ease and rest,” for which the Sin-Eater’s soul has been “pawned.” These phrases are recycled in later literature on the topic.

The next text comes from 1838, appearing in the travelogue Hill And Valley: Or Hours In England And Wales by the Scottish novelist, Catherine Sinclair. It’s particularly brief, adding little detail other than specifying the tradition as one (formerly) belonging to Monmouthshire, in eastern Wales.  She also characterizes the custom derisively as “popish,” or belonging to the Catholic past.

The next and final account (not counting clearly recycled retellings of those above) was contributed by Matthew Moggridge in an 1838 journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association.  It also relegates the tradition to the past, placing it specifically in the Welsh town of f Llandybie. Moggridge removes the ale, keeps the bread, and

Aubrey’s, Bagford’s, an Moggridge’s accounts received greater attention when collected in an 1892 article by  E. Sidney Hartland in the journal Folk-Lore, the publication of the British Folk-Lore Society. Hartland’s “rediscovery” of these texts fueled the interest of the British public and corresponded with a rising fascination in such things as represented in the arts by the Celtic Revival instigated by William Butler Yeats’  1893 work, The Celtic Twilight and the ongoing publication between 1890 and 1915 of James Frazer’s evolving work on folklore, The Golden Bough.

As there are no firsthand accounts describing sin-eating as a custom still in existence a misinterpretation or garbled accounting of another tradition may lie behind the concept of the Sin-Eater. The second half of our show examines the extent to which creative myth-making formed the concept along with the role older Catholic practices may have contributed to the tales.

The earliest literary Sin-Eater we encounter appears in a chapter of Joseph Downes’ 1836 novel, The Mountain Decameron.  Mrs. Karswell reads an evocative passage or two describing a traveler stumbling into a scene of sin-eating while traveling through a haunted bog.  Along with several other quick summaries of post-Hartland novels treating the topic, we hear a sin-eater clip from a BBC adaptation of Mary Webb’s 1924 novel, Precious Bane and learn how  Christanna Brand’s 1939 short story “The Sins of the Fathers,” ended up in an episode of Rod Serling’s 1970s TV series, Night Gallery.

We then survey a number of transactional funeral customs possibly reinterpreted as Sin-Eater lore, among these: “funeral doles” and “avral feasts” at which property of the deceased was disbursed, unsavory pallbearers paid off in food and drink, and the distribution of “soul-cakes “and the custom of “souling” to assure the deceased’s heavenward ascent. Best of all, we learn  about that cousin to the soul-cake — the funeral cookie.

Mélusine is a female fairy of medieval legend. who suffers under a curse transforming her once weekly into a monstrous form. In various tales she becomes either a serpent or fish from the waist down, or fully transforms into a dragon. Mélusine can only break this curse via marriage to a mortal who is obliged to allow her certain secret freedoms.  In return, her husband enjoys magical assistance and sees his fortunes flourish, at least until that day pact is broken.

The most famous version of this story, and the one to which we devote the bulk of the show is a French tale set down in 1387 by Jean d’Arras, Mélusine or the Noble Story of the Lusignans. The patron for whom he wrote, Duke Jean de Berry, belonged to the House of Lusignan, whose ancestral claims to the lands around Poitiers were portrayed by Arras as a matter of supernatural destiny involving the fairy.

We learn how Jean de Berry’s ancestor, Raymondin (Raymond) became engaged to Mélusine after a meeting at an enchanted fountain. Raymond is unaware that this encounter, and all that follows, is the subject of a prophecy set in motion by his accidental killing of his uncle. We hear the curious way in which this transpires, of Raymond and Mélusine’s wedding attended by a multitude of fairy folk, and of the building of Château de Lusignan through a sly collaboration of fairy magic, ingenuity, and human agency.

We then learn of  Mélusine’s and Raymond’s offspring, all of whom are  handsome and strong yet also betray their supernatural parentage via certain disfigurements —  strange birthmarks, enormous stature, huge jutting teeth, or additional eyes.  Much of Arras’ narrative is devoted to the sons’ heroic exploits, particularly as Crusaders in the Middle East, where the historical Lusignans gained lands and reputations, but our episode, focuses only only two sons, “Geoffroy Big-Tooth” and Fromont, whose stories are more intertwined with that of Mélusine herself.

Next comes the central drama, the breaking of the secret pact between Raymond and his fairy wife, which I’ll leave for you to enjoy without spoilers. Mrs. Karswell delivers a fine dramatic reading of this lengthier passage.

While that  situation simmers, we hear how Geoffroy has returned from a giant-slaying adventure to discover that his brother, Fromont, is about to enter a monastery rather than devote himself to expanding the Lusignan empire.  This doesn’t sit well with Geoffroy, whose disproportionately wrathful response is at once horrible and comic.

Reacting to the tragic fall-out of Geoffroy’s rampage, Raymond himself flies into a rage, accusing  Mélusine of producing offspring supernaturally inclined toward evil. Cruel as his words may be, Mélusine seems to validate them, assuming a diabolical presence as she abandons their marriage,  flying away from Castle Lusignan in the form of a dragon.

Finally, we  examine the origins of the curse upon Mélusine, a strange backstory revealed through the discovery of a tablet in fantastic subterranean tomb, one which relates how she imprisoned  her human father inside a mountain and installed  there a giant as jailer.

Our episode then considers some folkloric parallels to the figure of  Mélusine, a possible kinship with the Irish Banshee, the Scottish Bean-nighe or the Lavandières (“midnight washer women) of Brittany as well as earlier 13th-century literary sources for Arras’s tale including works by Gervase of Tilbury, Marie de France, Walter Map, and others.

By the late 15th century, the story by Arras had been retold by the French author Coudrette in a version that became broadsheet fodder for German publishers.  We also hear how the tale  was embraced in Luxembourg, where it attached to Siegfried, Count of the Ardennes, and the magical construction of Luxembourg Castle.

Finally, we look at some  19th-century retellings of the legend as German folktales, some of which made their way into Czech lands, where Meluzina’s doleful howling at her fate is heard in the moaning of winter winds.  The show closes with a snippet of a modern Czech children’s song mentioning Meluzina, as an embodiment of the wind –“Vitr fouka do komina”  (The wind blows in the chimney).

Unfortunately, release of the episode scheduled for this month has been delayed thanks to the Eaton Wildfire in California.

Your hosts are safe and sound, but complications from the fire temporarily halted production.

The episode in question should be available in February.

Thank you for your patience!

The Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas has been celebrated by Bone and Sickle since 2018.  This year is no exception as we share two stories in this episode, one comic, and one frightening. We begin with the Introduction to the 1891 anthology, Told After Supper, by the British writer, Jerome K. Jerome, following this with “The Old Portrait” from  Scottish writer Hume Nisbet’s 1900 collection Stories Weird and Wonderful. Pour a brandy, douse the lights, and enjoy!

A short extra episode on Befana, the gift-bringing Italian witch associated with Twelfth Night, the end of the Christmas season.  Included in the show is material from the book, “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas,” traditional music of the season, audio from actual celebrations, and a few pop songs associated with la Befana.