Anna Björg Þórarinsdóttir is the manager of The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in The Westfjords region of Iceland.  We begin on the country's origins as a Viking settlement, followed by life in the traditional turf houses. From there we learn that belief in elves is still relevant today and how spirits in the land have shaped not only Icelandic legends, but the ethos. We hear of a nearby farm built over a heathen temple where an ominous Viking-era stone was discovered. In story form, Anna tells the rich history of the island's 16th-to-17th-century sorcerers: the religious temperament of the time, their persecution, and her own ancestral involvement. This opens up further synchronicities around her position at the museum & growing up in a New Age household. For the remaining time, it's an all out deluge of folklore and magic: spirit guides called Fylgja, hunting & farming folk magic, The Helm of Awe, the Yule Lads, a pair of human skin pants, and finally, a grotesque milk-stealing wool-worm known as the Tilberi!

Learn more about The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft & follow Anna on Instagram.

Reading excerpt from Icelandic Folk Legends: Tales of Apparitions, Outlaws and Things Unseen by Alda Sigmundsdóttir
 
Music Credit:

"Ragnarok" [The End of the Gods]
Performed by Ensemble: Sequentia
Courtesy of 𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞 𝔐𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔞𝔩𝔢

"Á fellr austan um eitrdala" [The Prophecy of the Seeress]
Performed by Ensemble: Sequentia
Courtesy of 𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞 𝔐𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔞𝔩𝔢

"Leikr elds ok ísa" [The song of Fire and Ice]
Performed by Ensemble: Sequentia
Courtesy of 𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞 𝔐𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔞𝔩𝔢

Untitled Kravik Lyre
Performed by Lyre of the Crossroads
Courtesy of Lyre of the Crossroads

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Kathryn Parker & Olivia Lloyd are owners of The Veiled Mirror, an online store of antique jewelry & curiosities with a penchant for the romantic, dark and macabre based out of Richmond, Virginia. To start this tour of Victorian culture [1837-1901], we begin with a crafting fad, ornate floral wreaths made of human hair. From there we touch on mourning etiquette; the comical paraphernalia of secret society initiations; The Aesthetic Movement; showing off with a pineapple; & the accessories of women's fashion as eccentric as live insects. Switching to the personal, the ladies share a handful of haunting anecdotes; one about researching a man's calling card found in a bin of 1920's clothing; another about unwittingly removing a "witch bottle" from an abandoned farm house. We end on further memories of urban exploration. 

Follow The Veiled Mirror on Instagram & check out their website's current collection at theveiledmirror.com.

Music Provided by The Library of Congress

"The Strife is O'er, the Battle Done"
Performed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina & Trinity Quartet

"War Song of the Normans"
Crusades Hymn
Performed by Reinald Werrenrath & Victor Male Chorus

"Black-Eyed Blues"
Composed by Don Kendall
Performed by Roy Bargy & Benson Orchestra of Chicago

"The Green Fields of Virginia"
Ford, Ward H., performer
Cowell, Sidney Robertson, 1903-1995, collector.

"Nina Gitana"
Composed by Reginald De Koven
Performed by Reed Miller

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Elizabeth "Beth" Morrison is a specialist in secular manuscript illumination & a senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.  On this long distance episode we begin with how medieval people made & illuminated manuscripts from the animal hides to the bone black ink.  From there we focus in on a medieval genre of book called a Bestiary, an encyclopedia of animals real and fantastic. We discuss their strange, sometimes shocking, often moralistic Christian ideas about the likes of beavers & elephants, lions & crocodiles, unicorns & dragons, including tidbits on how to hunt a unicorn or the origin of the phrase, "having a monkey on one's back." From there, Beth describes the behind-the-scenes of museum art transportation as well as a past exhibition on the medieval life of women. We end on Beth's personal story about an extremely uncanny synchronicity. 

Check out the Getty Museum & Beth's book from the Getty's 2019 Bestiary exhibition.

Reading excerpt from The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts; Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century made and edited by T.H. White

Music provided by Sibil•la Ensemble

"Douce Dame Jolie"
Written by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – 1377)
Performed by Sibil•la Ensemble

"Codex Rossi: Che ti çova nascondere il bel volto" (c.1300's)
Written by Anonymous
Performed by Tímea Daradics
Courtesy of Sibil•la Ensemble

"Tels rit au main qui au soir pleure"
Written by Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – 1377)
Performed by Kristia Michael
Courtesy of Sibil•la Ensemble

"O Rubor Sanguinis"
Written by Hildegard von Bingen (1098- 1179)
Performed by Sibil•la Ensemble

Reference Images:

• Unicorn illumination from bestiary 
• Beaver illumination from bestiary 
• Bonacon illumination from bestiary
• Dragon illumination from bestiary
• Jeanne Montbaston's tree of penises 
• Example of Maria Sybilla Merian's insect paintings

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books<

Claudia Pfeiffer is the Deputy Director & Head Curator of the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia. We begin on their recent exhibition about the art of the dog collar: a haunting cast from the eruption of Vesuvius; an ancient "Beware of Dog" mosaic; spiked collars & regal collars. Claudia describes some of the most striking paintings from the exhibition: a theatrical Amsterdam dog market; a mastiff baying a poacher; a lion hunt; & an allegory about the father of cynicism.  From there we switch from dogs to horses and hear about their anatomy & movement as captured by art, including Muybridge's famous horse photographs. To wrap up this dog-lover & art history-lover episode, Claudia tells the lore of Barry the St. Bernard and his iconic barrel flask. 

Plan a visit to The National Sporting Library & Museum

Music provided by Ars Lyrica Houston

"Les Indes Galantes - Entrée les Sauvages"
Written by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Performed by Ars Lyrica Houston

"Fandango from Quintet No. 4, G 448"
Written by Luigi Boccherini
Performed by Ars Lyrica Houston

"Propiñán de Melyor and Si habrá en este Baldrés"
Written by anonymous
Performed by The Crumhorn Collective
Courtesy of Ars Lyrica Houston

Reference Images:

• Cast of Pompeii watch dog
• "Beware the Dog" Pompeii mosaic 
• The Amsterdam Dog Market  by Abraham Hondius [c. 1671-1672]
• Steer & Mastiff Pulling a Cart by Sid Franckett [1910]
• The Poacher at Bay by Richard Ansdell [1865]
• The Lion Hunt attributed to Paul de Vos [1590-1678]
• Alexander and Diogenes by Sir Edwin Landseer [1860's]
• The Anatomy of the Horse by George Stubbs [1766]
• The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge [1878]
• Example of improper horse gallop by George Stubbs
• Salmon and Trout on a Riverbank by John Bucknell Russell [1874]
•  Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler by Sir Edwin Landseer [1820]

Support&a

Justin Torone is a curiosities collector & the co-owner of Rest In Pieces oddity shop in Richmond, Virginia. After a reading about the historical significance of cabinets of curiosity, Justin begins with lore from the cemetery across the street for his shop.  Then we get deep into methods for preserving animal bones: dermestid beetles; articulation; degreasing, maceration, boiling, & later, wet specimens. We find out who the shop's audience is and how they acquire their vintage taxidermy & specimens. From there we leave the animal kingdom & turn to the human as Justin describes the most audacious highlights from his collection: folk art mourning mummies; an "overmodelled" skull; & a medically bisected fetus. All of which begs the question of legality, further illustrated by a university's illegal skeleton auction & a much more nefarious oddities black market. To bring this macabre feast to an end, Justin tells the story of how be become acquainted with a paranormal con-woman who asked him to jeopardize his morals. 

Check out Rest in Pieces oddity shop and their great Instagram account.

Reading excerpt from Cabinet of Curiosities: Collecting and Understanding the Wonders of the Natural World by Gordon Grice.

Music provided by Windhand

"Three Sisters"
Written by Windhand
Performed by Windhand

"Boleskin"
Written by Windhand
Performed by Windhand

"Aition"
Written by Windhand
Performed by Windhand


Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Carole Louie is a medium, past life regressionist, hypnotist, author, & director of THE CENTER-RVA in Richmond, Virginia. To ground this nearly psychedelic, often dark, most definitely mystical episode, we begin with the past-life research undertaken at the University of Virginia. From there Carole describes her own disturbing past-life memories which surfaced organically as flashbacks and became more fully realized through regression therapy. We muse on themes like earth school; inter-life visions; how we choose our life; soul groups; movies as past-life triggers; and even...incarnation as off-world entities. For her story Carole tells of her profound initiation into mediumship, starting with her granny collecting sassafras & culminating in the healing of her Buddhist father's ghost. We come to an end on a few last examples of how spirits appear to a medium & the messages they want to deliver.

Check out Carole's THE CENTER-RVA & the 2023 Reincarnation Symposium.

Reading excerpt from  Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child by Carol Bowman

Music by BAILE

"Walls"
Written by BAILE
Performed by BAILE & John Lamonica

"Grieve Faster, Heal Faster"
Written by BAILE
Performed by BAILE

"Birdwings"
Written by BAILE
Performed by BAILE

"Love" [BAILE Remix]
Written by Daughter
Performed & Remixed by BAILE


Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Tom Shipley is an antique dealer operating out of his family's 19th-century Sharp's Country Store in Slatyfork, West Virginia. Descending from one of the county's earliest pioneer families, we hear of the lives of Tom's ancestors & their many rich folkways: a Presbyterian boy orphaned by an Indian raid; beekeeping in "bee gums;" a bear trap; furs & ginseng; maple syrup camp; and making apple butter. Then Tom gets into the origin of the 1884 store, describing the wares of its day. A plethora of stories are evoked from the eccentric taxidermy still hanging from the walls including one about a visit from the American Museum of Natural History. Towards the end, for his formal story, we get into the realm of the southern gothic, with tales about an orphan of the flu pandemic followed by visions surrounding the dead & near-dead. This episode, like the country store itself, is a true time capsule of Appalachian life.

Check out Sharp's Country Store for more information.

Excerpts read from Tales of Pocahontas County by G.D. McNeill

Archival recordings from Tom's private family collection.

Music provided by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

"Barbara Allen"
Henry Reed Collection (AFC 1999/016)
Collected by Alan Jabbour
Performed by Henry Reed

"Farewell My Dear Brother"
Henry Reed Collection (AFC 1999/016)
Collected by Alan Jabbour
Performed by Henry & Gene Reed

"John Brown's a-Hanging on a Sour Apple Tree"
Henry Reed Collection (AFC 1999/016)
Collected by Alan Jabbour
Performed by Henry Reed

"Fare Thee Well My Dear Brother"
Henry Reed Collection (AFC 1999/016)
Collected by Alan Jabbour
Performed by Henry Reed

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Mary Kate Claytor is the Associate Director of Interpretation at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. After a bit of background about this unique living history museum, Mary Kate describes in detail wool production for a yeoman farmer in the 1600-1800's: starting with sheep shearing, wool washing, stale urine and lanolin, through to carding & combing, drop spindles & spinning wheels, historical & natural dyes, and finally ending on a fabric called linsey-woolsey. From there we move on to another category of historical clothing, buckskins. Mary Kate recounts learning how to hide tan while working at Natural Bridge's Monacan village. Then we switch from clothing to foodways by reflecting on both profound & disturbing experiences while taking part in hog slaughters & fowl processing. We end on hearing of how Mary Kate's historical hobbies connect her to her great-grandmother.

Follow Mary Kate on Instagram  & check out the Frontier Culture Museum. 

Music provided by Carla Sciaky

"Sheep Shearing"
[English folk song]
From the album Spin the Weaver's Song
Performed by Carla Sciaky

"The Band of Shearers"
[Scottish folk song]
From the album Spin the Weaver's Song
Performed by Carla Sciaky

"The Weaver and the Chambermaid"
[English folk song]
From the album Spin the Weaver's Song
Performed by Carla Sciaky

Reading segment from Folklore of Sussex by Jacqueline Simpson

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Mackenzie New-Walker is the Executive Director of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, West Virginia. Having descended from a long line of miners, Mackenzie describes what life was like for the men, women & children in the oppressive coal company towns of the early 1900's: from how they recruiting their immigrant labor force to paying miners in substitute money called scrip; the private company guards aka "gun thugs" known as the Baldwin-Felts agents; to child labor and laundry day. From there we hear of 1921's Battle of Blair Mountain [the largest labor uprising in US history] where the fed up striking miners transformed into the "Redneck Army."  Mackenzie then recounts the story of The Matewan Massacre, an earlier train station skirmish that has left bullets lodged in a brick wall across from the museum. After reflecting on how this all relates to the present & a sense of coal miner pride, we wrap it up with highlights from the museum's collection, including one about "a canary in a coal mine."

Check out the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum & help them fundraise to buy the museum building. Watch the PBS documentary American Experience: The Mine Wars. 

Music provided by The Tillers

"Which Side Are You On" [Labor Union Song]
Collected by Pete Seeger
Performed by The Tillers

Reading segment from On Dark and Bloody Ground: An Oral History of the West Virginia Mine Wars by Anne T Lawrence

Special thanks to West Virginia Archives & History for archival recordings:
- Price Williams on the Cabin Creek 1912 Coal Strike
- WSAZ Coal King on a Tottering Throne ca 1962

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]

Matt Frame is a coal miner, avid outdoorsman, & son of a Baptist preacher in Nicholas County, West Virginia. After a folkloric intro about mine-rats, we get into what life is like for both miners today & in Matt's grandfather's time: the machines; depression from the darkness; dogs hauling coal; the quiet killers "black damp" & "black lung;" losing three fingers & narrowly missing a ceiling collapse; the job-site latrine; finding fossils as large as trees; & a miner's soul. For the last third of the conversation, we surface from the coal pit to the light of day guided by folkways & The Bible. First Matt tells of heartbreak while digging ginseng; fox trapping, his grandma's rabbits, a pie crust signature, & making medicine from river yellow root. Then we get into his faith with his salvation, preaching revival, & lessons learned about the sin of pride. We end this slice-of-West-Virginia-life on a story about a haunted moonshine still & pig worms. 
 
Music provided by Jim Cook

"Big Bad John" [Cover]
Written by Jimmy Dean and Roy Acuff
Performed by Jim Cook

"Dark as a Dungeon" [Cover]
Written by Johnny Cash
Performed by Jim Cook

"Call Daddy From the Mine" [Cover]
Written by Johnny Cash
Performed by Jim Cook

Reading segment from A Journal: Traditions of West Virginia Folk Culture and Educational Awareness; Volume 9 - 2004 by the West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State.

Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.

Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on Instagram

Check out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my art

Contact: [email protected]