Down on Penny's Farm

Avocado Art

2011-07-29T01:06:00.000-07:00

This was a birthday present made for me by Marcus. You can find all his marvelous work here: LINK

New Shadow Puppets!

2011-02-19T08:51:00.001-08:00

Faust and Mephisto

Hansel and Gretel

The Sandman

Another series of hand-cut shadow puppets! Reproductions are soon for sale at my shop.

I hope you all like it!

Theater Decors

2011-02-19T08:46:00.001-08:00

I decided to try something new for my shop... theater decors. I hope you all like it!

Reproductions are soon for sale at my shop!

Tell me a Story - Update

2011-01-24T12:55:00.001-08:00

Last week I received a copy of my upcoming book: Tell me a story.

I can not show you any pictures of the hardcover yet because I have yet to receive it.

The book is now going through the last stages of perfectionizing and then my book will finally be for sale. I can hardly wait!

Jacket Design made by: LINK

Jacket Illustrations by me :-)

DIY Shadow Theaters

2011-01-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

I have been working on some new products for my shop for the last couple of weeks. One of these "experiments" resulted in a shadow theater which people can make themselves at home.

I would have loved to play with it myself when I was a kid.... Actually I love playing with it now as well!

More exciting shadow puppetry related news will follow soon!

The Sketchbook Project!

2010-11-21T07:18:00.000-08:00

I finally have some time to tell you all about my latest project! It is a small project which I only did for fun's sake and also because I wanted to get my mind off of things during these busy months.

As usual I focused on the folklore theme, in this case Dutch folklore, but let me first tell you a bit about the project itself.

The Sketchbook Project:

The Sketchbook Project, an initiative of Art House, is a collaboration of artists who submit their sketchbook in order to create the largest traveling sketchbook library in the world. Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the USA. After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be bar coded and available for the public to view.

At the moment 28594 artists from 94 countries around the world are participating and one of these artist is me :-)

To find out more about the project and the tour dates please check out their website: LINK

About my Sketchbook:

It will probably not surprise you that I decided to work with the folklore theme for my own Sketchbook. I thus created a character: Mister Oswald who is a professional folklorist and story-collector. For his work he travels through Holland in order to collect as many folktales as possible. These tales he writes down in his journal, accompanied by drawings he makes and other things he finds on his way.

My sketchbook: Mister Oswald's journal, will thus be a collections of tales and drawings, old and new, put together in one small book. Which I hope many people will enjoy to read and view !

I will upload scans of the journal/sketchbook pages on my Deviant Art account as well as my profile on Art House.

Those of you who are not able to visit one of the exhibitions can thus still see the sketchbook and read the folktales of my country.

You can view the entire contents of the sketchbook here: LINK

Enjoy!

Witte Wieven - A Dutch Folktale

2010-10-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

'Why all these Dutch folktales all of the sudden? ' some of you might be thinking. Well, I have started a new folklore related project a few weeks ago about which I will tell you all later this week.

But first I would like to share with you my latest drawing, which is also part of the project, named: "Witte Wieven". These two small words have two different meanings. Witte can mean white or (in dialect) wise and wieven means women. Thus it can refer to white women or wise women. In this case both interpetations would actually be correct.

These Witte Wieven are always described by the people as white, ghostly, witch-like figures, often brought in connection with mist. They haunt the old burial-mounds, which can still be found in the Netherlands, dating back to the Iron Age. It is not a coincidence that these ghostly women are haunting these burial-mounds because the Witte Wieven are infact the vestiges of the old Germanic priestesses worshipped by the people. The church obviously disapproved with this sort of worship like they cursed the old burial mounds, being graveyards of heathens. And soon the two: Germanic priestesses and the burial-mounds, became connected.

The people for a long time strongly believed in the powers of the Witte Wieven. They often left food for them in order to recieve their blessings. Their favorite food was balkenhaze, which is the name for roast cat and pancakes. It was believed that if one should refuse to offer the Witte Wieven food they would take revenge. They would kill cattle by sticking long needles into the animal bodies and burn down sheds and if you were really unlucky they would kidnap you. They were especially known for kidnapping young mothers, because they needed them for feeding their young dogs. It was said that the Witte Wieven sometimes had such long breasts, because of the feeding, they could throw them over their shoulders. Hence the reason why they preferred other women to do the job, I guess. Once these women were captured they had to stay with them for 7 years, after which they were released.

The Witte Wieven were also great sorceresses; who could turn wood into gold and such. This is why the people were making offerings, in hope they would share these gifts with them.

There must be hundreds of folktales related to the Witte Wieven: stories about revenge they took on young rude boys, women they kidnapped and about women who knew how to escape. Tales about farmers who owe their riches to them and farmers who lost it all because they broke with the tradition of food-offerings.

Nowadays, the people in the eastern parts of the Netherlands no longer believe in these matters, but the tales they have survived. But if you are lucky to meet one of the old farmers they will assure you all of it is true and they still look at the burial mounds with a suspicious eye. Of course, they know better....

Shop Update!

2010-09-18T03:14:00.000-07:00

The new reproductions have arrived today and thus I am happy to announce my shop is once more filled with twenty new Shadow-Puppet reproductions. Enjoy!

LINK (my shop at Etsy)

LINK (my shop at Dawanda)

De Bullebak - A Dutch Folktale

2010-09-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

I know I said last time I would draw one of the legends I collected during my trip in France, but for some reason I just could not get to it yet.

However an image of another legend, I grew up with as a kid, haunted me for days, till I at last put it down on paper. It is the story of the Bullebak. A Dutch water spirit used by parents to frighten children and keep them away from the water. Something of which we have a lot here.

Now the word bullebak is hard to translate literally, but in means as much as bully and refers to someone or something which harasses another person because he likes to do so. This word is used in general but also refers to a terrifying water spirit. Its description is quite diverse and parents have become very creative with it as well through time.

One of these descriptions is that of a creature living in the water with the head of a bull. Others say that the creature has never been seen but has the habit of luring children with shiny little stars to the waterside and then grab them. Many of these descriptions also include a big fish.

I however grew up with the story that the Bullebak was a gigantic bullfrog. When it caught you it would drown you and eat you up whole. I can't even recall how many times my grandmother warned me for the Bullebak, but it must have been often. Even now at the age of 25 I still can recall the images I had in my mind as a kid when listening to these stories.

Well, that is the story of the Bullebak I grew up with! (And for those who are interested, prints will soon be for sale at my shop.)

Book Update!

2010-08-27T08:28:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I have spoken with you all about the Tell me a story - project. I know some of you might even have had doubts if the book was ever going to be published.

But I can assure you all the book is now almost finnished and we are very close to the publishing date.

I probably don't need to tell you that self-publishing is a lot of work if done properly and of course I wanted to do it properly. That is why I decided not to do it all on my own, instead I have been working with several people: proofreaders, editors and a most talented graphic designer. For the last couple of months we have all been working extremely hard. All texts were edited twice, after this process a couple of people have been proofreading the texts several times. While in the meantime designs for the cover and inside pages were made. The above image is just a sneakpeek of the hardcover design we are working on and beneath you can see the title page of the book. To make the whole project complete we are also working on a paperback version, for which we created a whole other design.

Albeit it has taken all of us lots and lots of work to create two beautiful books on which we all can be proud of. Still there are some minor things which need to be done but soon, very soon I will be able to show you the book; Tell me a story!

(Those of you who have participated in the project will receive an email from me within the week in which you can read your own (edited) piece once more before it will be published in the book.)

More Shadow Puppets!

2010-08-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Good Fairy

Aladin and Djini

Mary Poppins

And again I have made another series of new (hand-cut) shadow puppet designs.
I hope you all like it!

Reproductions are soon for sale at my Etsy shop: LINK

Alice in Wonderland - Shadow Puppets

2010-08-19T11:59:00.001-07:00

Again another series of new (hand-cut) shadow puppet designs!

This time I made puppets for my new Alice in Wonderland collection.

Reproductions are soon for sale at my Etsy shop: LINK

Saint George and the Dragon

2010-08-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Again, another series of new (hand-cut) shadow puppet designs !

I know I have made these puppets before, but I just love the story of Saint George and the Dragon. So, I decided to make them once more and try to improve them.

For those of you who are not familiar with the legend please check out the following LINK

Reproductions are soon for sale at my Etsy shop: LINK

Fairy Tale Shadow Puppets

2010-08-13T11:20:00.001-07:00

Rumpelstiltskin

The snow queen

Little Red Riding Hood & the Big Bad Wolf

Another series of new (hand-cut) shadow puppet designs. Reproductions are soon for sale at my Etsy shop: LINK

I hope you all like it!

Angel Shadow Puppets

2010-08-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

Reproductions will soon be for sale at my Etsy Shop: LINK

Biblical Shadow Puppets

2010-08-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

Maria and Joseph

Ark of Noah

I decided to make a couple of shadow puppets based upon the Biblical stories I grew up with as a child.

The original hand-cut shadow puppets as well as the reproductions will soon be for sale at my Etsy Shop: LINK

The Werewolf Trial

2010-08-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Last week I have made another drawing for my new werewolves series, it is called the Werewolf Trial. The drawing isn't based upon one story but more or less incorporates a whole series of stories I have read over time about werewolf trials into one. I myself am not at all an expert on the history of these trials, as history is not as much my topic as folklore is, but it has always surprised me how few people know about them. These trials are often standing in the shadow of the well-known witch trials which took place about the same time. And I can't help but to find this very odd because, in France alone, around 30,000 people were executed between 1520 and 1630 suspected of being a werewolf.

Apart from people being executed, commonn wolves which were seen near the villages got caught by the people and killed on the same accusations. But it was only on rare occassions that an animal was actually put on trial and had to show up in court. But it did happen every once in a while.

Though less commonn, I found the subject of the wolf being the one executed a lot more interesting for my drawing, and that is why a wolf instead of a man is being burned at the stake. However the soul which leaves the body is that of a man and hereby reveals it's true identity to the crowd gathered around the stake. This actually refers to a well known folk belief concerning werewolves in which it is said that by injuring the werewolf the spell would break and it had to transform into its human shape again. In other stories the injury only leads to the werewolf running away. The wound, however, would stay on its skin, also when it finally turned into its human form again. When the person could not hide its wound this sooner or later lead to recognition as well.

How one could injure a werewolf succesfully differs per country, the silver bullet is one of them. In the Netherlands this had to be 'erfzilver': silver inheritad by some deseased family member. In other coutries it had to be silver from the church, especially silver dedicated to saint Hubert which was believed to be very efficious. In Normandy, France, it was believed one had to stab the werewolf three times with a knife in its forehead though others said that three drops of blood drawn by a needle would be enough. Fire was also considered by many as a most potent weapon to battle werewolfs.

This last belief is the one depicted in my drawing where fire forces the soul to appear in its true form.

For those of you who are disgusted by all these violent measures, which I completly understand, it might be a nice thing to know that there were also less shocking ways to make a werewolf appear in its human form. One of these examples was to call its human name three times. This of course was only possible if you already knew the identity of the werewolf. Another method was to throw a piece of clothing to the werewolf. It would then be so occupied by tearing the piece apart that there would be enough time to escape. The following day, one could easily recognize the werewolf, because once changed into its human form again one could still see small pieces of clothing between his or her teeth.

Next time I will share with you all a drawing based upon a werewolf tale I came across in Southern France! One of which I don't think many of you have heard of....

Back from France and something about werewolves...

2010-07-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have returned safely from my trip to France! I have had such wonderful time and you wouldn't believe how many legends I have found during this trip. By coincidence we, me and my best friend, came in contact with a writer who knows all about the legends and mysteries of that area and for four days he drove us around -ours managed to break down- and showed us many places connected with these tales. Through the years he has written three books on the subject and of course I wanted to have these books!

Before I left I told you all I planned to keep a diary, make illustrations and of course tell you all about these legends. Because of the many, many legends I found I haven't been able to finish the drawings before my return. As it is simply impossible to show you all my work at once I will post a new drawing and legend once a week. Eventually I will combine all these drawings and stories and make one webpage for it so you can read them all if you like.

Another thing which has kept me busy lately are werewolves......

(please visit this link for a better view!)

Just before I left I made a drawing called, the Werewolf-Apocalypse, or something like that. To tell you the truth I haven't yet figured out how I would entitle the drawing. But a title is always better then no title I guess. The drawing is based on Dutch folk believes concerning werewolves. In Holland, unlike some other countries, the werewolf was strictly related to the devil (there were a few exceptions that I know of but this was the general belief amonsgt people). Only by complex rituals, in which the devil usually got invoked, one could gain the capacity of transforming itself into a wolf. About these rituals I will tell you all later when I have finished my second drawing relating to this subject.

Because of its close connection with the devil you can see demons 'leading' the pack of wolves in my drawing. Another Dutch folk belief I read about tells werewolves can't enter buildings, especial churches, which were safe havens. It was said that in Heteren, a small village in the Dutch province of Gelderland, it was quite common that these beasts used to pass the houses at night and could do nothing but stare, with their red fiery eyes, across (what we call in Holland) the "onder-deur" (literally translated 'under door'). This was a specific kind of door often seen at farmhouses which existed out of two separated parts. Often the lower part remained closed while the upper part of the door was left open. I'm not sure if I am being clear but here you can view an example of such door: link

If you were on the road and there wasn't a building near to keep you save you could simply draw a line on the ground with a stick and say : "Als je van God bent, kom dan nader!" translated: 'If your from God, aproach!' In which case the werewolf could not cross the line or would run away out of fear for hearing God's name. This is just one way to keep these creatures away, there are of course many more methods to achieve the same. If these creatures were so easily to scare away, it makes you wonder why people were that afraid..... Maybe it was because they told each other werewolves killed entire floks of cattle and this would of course have been a great loss.

Based on these believes, and some other legends I found about werewolves terrorizing local villages and there people, I made this drawing. I find the whole subject to be most intriguing so I do intend to make more drawings in the near future .

But for now I will have to try and catch up with everything before starting on a 'new project'!
Also some news about the Tell Me A Story Project and the book will follow later this week. No, I haven't forgotten about it :-)

Hunting Legends in Southern France

2010-06-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

This is just a small post I am writing to let you all know I will be leaving Holland and spend the next two weeks in Southern France. It is going to be a trip filled with legends, myths and mysterious cults!

I am taking my journal and drawing tools with me so I can make illustration of the stories I find during this trip and keep a journal of all the things I have seen and heard.

So, do come back and take a peek after a week or two, because I will be putting fragments of my travel-journal on my blog and you can read about the many legends I encountered and see the sketches I have made.

Also, an update of my book will follow and maybe I can show you all some tiny details of the cover design.....

But for now, Au revoir!

Fairytale Papercuts and some other things

2010-06-01T13:05:00.001-07:00

About three weeks ago I started making a series of handcut papercuts based upon the fairytales of the brothers Grimm. I have done four fairytales so far: Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Rumpelstiltskin.

As a child I was always very fond of these tales and I could dream away for hours while looking at the illustrations I found in the fairytale books my mother kept in the attic. The idea of making my own illustration of these tales some day has ever since been haunting me, but I never had the time for it untill a couple of weeks ago.

Though the original plan was to make the illustrations with ink, I ended up making papercuts!

For those of you who wish to see the other three papercuts as well, please visit my papercut gallery to the left or visit my Etsy shop: Link

Currently these original papercuts are for sale, for a small price, so if you happen to be interested just send me a message or visit my shop at Etsy.

Also new at my shop are Custom gift vouchers. With these vouchers you can surprise someone with a custom, handmade shadow puppet or papercut based upon his or her own wishes.

Thus, lots of new things have been uploaded at my shop and many more are about to come!

Winner of the Shadow Puppet give away!

2010-05-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Cat Mallard, from the Darkling Woods Studio, you won!

I will contact you as soon as possible!

SHADOW PUPPET GIVE-AWAY!

2010-05-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

I know my blog isn't finished yet, but the main adjustments are made so I thought it was time for a give-away to celebrate this 'new look'.

I will be giving away a shadow puppet on May 29. To participate just leave a comment on the bottom of this page and tell me how to contact you, by giving me your email address or a link to your own blog.

The winner can pick out any puppet he or she likes!

Under Construction

2010-04-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

As some of you might have seen I am currently 'redecorating' my blog. It is far from perfect right now but during this week, many new sections, galleries and such will be added to this blog.

The blog is not the only thing which is redone but the packaging of my shadow-puppets as well. Once everything is finished I will do a shadow puppet give-away to cellebrate!

A small preview of the new packaging.

Tell me a story; Maria Karamot

2010-04-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

Here it is; the last drawing I made for the Tell me a story-Project. It feels a little bit strange this project is now comming to an end after all those weeks of hard work and collecting tales.

However, this also means that within two months or so the book will be ready for publishing!

During that time I will still keep all of you updated on the progress and I might be giving away some books once the book is published.....

So stay tuned and I hope you will all enjoy reading the following tale!

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: Maria Karamot
Submitted by: Russel Quinto
Country: Philippines

Once there lived beside the sea a couple named Juan and Juana. For a long time they were childless. When Juana was at last with child, they were quite happy. But in her pregnancy, Juana would become very restless if she did not have milkfish to eat every day. So one afternoon, when Juan failed to catch any milkfish, he became very sad. Suddenly, Juan heard his name called. He was greatly surprised when he looked down and saw a shiny milkfish wearing a crown. The milkfish identified himself as the King of Fishes and he asked Juan: "Why do you fish only for milkfish?" Juan told him the reason, and his sorrow at the moment.

The King of Fishes pitied Juan and promised "I’ll give you plenty of milkfish everyday. But in return, you are to deliver your coming child to me when it turns seven years old." Because it was already getting dark and since milkfish was becoming scarce that season, Juan finally agreed. The King of Fishes was true to his word. Even after Juana had given birth, Juan continued to bring home milkfish from the sea. Their child was a lovely girl with very black hair. They loved her and were very happy with her. They called her Maria. When Maria turned seven, Juan went to see the King of Fishes and begged him: "Have pity on us. Can’t you possibly release me from my promise? We love Maria very much, and we can’t bear to part with her." But the King of Fishes was firm, saying "A promise is a promise." With a heavy heart, Juan went home. Since that day, the couple and Maria never went near the sea.

But one day, while Juan was on the farm and Juana was doing the laundry in the river, there came a big wonderful boat. The people immediately flocked to the shore to see it. Maria was alone at the time and was looking out the window. She became curious and joined the rest on the shore. While she was watching the wonderful boat, a big wave rushed up and dragged her to the sea. Immediately, the neighbors told her parents of the incident. Juan and Juana ran to the shore but they were too late. Maria was gone! Every evening after that, the couple would stand by the shore and stare at the deep. They kept hoping that Maria would return. Years passed and still they failed to see her. But one moonlight night, there appeared before the old couple a lovely creature. She had very long black hair, but — while half of her body was that of a beautiful girl, the other half was that of a milkfish. Then they knew that it was Maria, now a mermaid.

Maria grew up to be a very beautiful woman with long black hair and expressive set of brown eyes. She cannot remember that she once was human for the King of Fishes took away all trace of her memory when she was taken suddenly many years ago. She grew up with other mermaids of her kind at the bottom of the sea who took care of raising her as their own. But every full moon she would rise up to the surface to admire the beauty of the earth which she found herself unexplainably drawn into.

The King of Fishes noticed Maria's restlessness and tried to cheer her up by promising to grant whatever wish she wanted. "I would like to be able to walk like the humans," she asked in earnest. The King of Fishes replied, "I will grant your request to walk like the humans but only while the moon is full." And so it was that Maria was able to walk on the "pampang" during full moon. It was during one of her walks that she stumbled upon a young man who was walking alone in the night. She was not aware of her nakedness and the man was surprised to see her. He didn't seem to mind her nakedness too but instead asked her who she was and where she was going. That was the start of the friendship between Maria and her male acquaintance whose name she later discovered as Ramon. Unbeknownst to her, he was in fact, a siokoy - a male sea creature sent by the King of Fishes.

Their friendship quickly blossomed into a romantic relationship and not long afterward Maria conceived and gave birth to a healthy baby boy who looked very much like his father. They were very happy and would often swim together especially on bright moonlit nights. Maria forgot her sadness and was completely happy. One night when the full moon was incredibly bright yellow in color, Maria was aghast to see a crowd of fishermen gathering around a huge fishnet where to their surprise they have caught a most amazing creature - a boy covered with fish scales and terribly distraught. Maria hid herself behind the bushes where she saw the fishermen lift their prize catch to the shore. To her great shock and horror, they started to hit the creature with their paddles and sticks until the poor thing stopped moving. Maria saw everything but cannot believe what happened. They killed her little boy.

Sometime at midnight, the people of the small fishing village were awakened by an eerie wailing coming from out of the sea. It was so haunting and spine-tingling that nary a soul was able to get to sleep for the rest of the night. The following morning, the villagers were shocked to discover the lifeless body of one of the fishermen along the seashore. His body bore scratch marks all over. He apparently drowned the night before while relieving himself after a drinking session with his friends.

Thus the legend began of Maria Karamot as she was henceforth known because her victims bore scratch marks in their bodies. Every now and then, the sea will claim its next drowning victim for no logical explanation. Sometimes, excursionists and out-of-town vacationers will for no reason become the next unwitting victim of the pristine and inviting sea that carries with it the sorrows and pains of a grieving mother still trying to understand why her child was taken away from her.

Tell me a story; El Silbón (The Whistler)

2010-04-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

You'd better not read the following story if you are alone at night. For the tale which I am about to share with you now is most certainly one of the scariest folktales I have ever read.
For those of you who would like to listen to the whistling sound please follow this link:

link
(But do read the tale first!)

Note: If you are not familiar with the project, please check out my previous blogpost here.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: El Silbón (The Whistler)
Submitted by: Jose
Country: Venezuela

This is story of The Whistler, perhaps the most famous and feared ghost in Venezuelan folklore. As with many folk tales, this one is preeminent in rural areas, specifically in the vast plains of the midwest of Venezuela.

There once was a man who killed his father. There are at least two main versions of how this came to happen. One says that the man had a beautiful wife and one day he came home to find his father behaving abusively towards her. The man exploded in rage and killed his father. Another version has it that the man was very spoiled, and one day he started craving deer heart and liver for supper. His father went out hunting so that his son could have his meal as requested, but he had no luck in finding deer. As it was becoming late and the father had not returned home, the son decided to go fetch him over at the hunting grounds. Once there, seeing his father as-of-yet empty handed, he burst into anger and killed him. Then he extracted the heart and liver from him, and took them home to his mother so she could prepare them for his dinner. The meat was too hard and wouldn't soften no matter how long she cooked it, so she started to suspect that these were in fact her husband's innards, and so cursed her own son for killing his father.

Independently of which "murder version" is told, the story always becomes consistent when it arrives to the point of punishment. The man's brother, hearing the news of his father being murdered by his own kin, set out to hunt and find the man, and when he did, he punished him with a whip until all his body was covered in wounds. Then, he sprayed burning flakes of red hot peppers onto his open wounds, and lastly, he unleashed a great, vicious dog and ordered it to go after the man and hunt him down.

Now the man is forever doomed to wander the vast rural plains of the midwest, carrying on his back a large sack full of bones - some say his father's bones; some say they're the bones of his victims. He prefers to haunt cruel, un loyal men who cheat on their wives or treat them badly, but it has been said that he also attacks drunks when they're fast asleep.

Sometimes The Whistler ventures into homes at night, and lays open his sack over the floor and starts counting the bones it carries. it is said that if nobody hears him counting, or if nobody notices his presence, then the next day one of the inhabitants of the house will die.

The image of The Whistler is a terrifying one. He is said to be disproportionately skinny and tall, about 6 meters in height, towering over the tree tops with his sack of bones slung over his back. The vicious dog still chases him, and bites his heels over and over again, until the end of time. He wears a tattered white suit and a wide-brimmed hat of the kind used in the Venezuelan plains (wider than an American cowboy hat, but not as wide as a Mexican sombrero). Very few have seen him and lived to tell about it.

In fact, the most distinct sign of the presence of The Whistler is... his eerie whistling. He whistles while we haunts the plains at night, a simple yet bone-chilling sound consisting of the seven notes, in order: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti... whistled rather slowly and extending a bit each note at the end. It is said that when the whistling is heard to be close, The Whistler is in fact far away, and there is nothing to fear. But if the whistling seems to come from afar, then it means that The Whistler is near. Some people barely notice this seemingly long-distant whistling, and when they do, it is usually too late.

However, as with many ghosts and creatures of this kind, there are ways of being saved from their evil intentions. if someone happens to encounter The Whistler, it might be a good idea to remember him what happened: his horrid crime, his punishment, his eternal curse. Other people prefer to have a whip around the house, or carry some hot peppers, or even have a dog around, as it is said that these are the three things The Whistler fears the most.

Tell me a story; The origin of stained glass

2010-04-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

A most curious story was send to me some time ago. When I first read it I wasn't sure if the story was suitable for the book as it was very modern and in a way it was more a fairytale then a folk tale. For some time I laid the story a side, but for some reason my attention was constantly drawn to it. Yes, it was a little bit too modern and yes, it wasn't a 'real' folk tale, but it was so beautiful and unique but above all it was something I never heard before.

So, I contacted Nicholas and asked him how he had heard of the tale. As it turned out his girlfriends father is a marvelous storyteller and the tale about the origin of stained-glass was just one of the many tales he had told his daughter. He also told her that when she was born she was so small she had been the size of a mustard jar.
As far as Nicholas knew, the tale has never been put on paper before and I do not doubt his words for I am certain of it that I would have heard of it if so.

This tale may not have a very long tradition but perhaps now it will be passed on and who knows, it might become a real folk tale someday.....

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The origin of stained glass
Submitted by: Nicholas Corcorran
Country: Main (USA)

Once, there was a compact little princess with golden curls. Hair softer than silk that shone brighter in the sun than any of the diamonds or golden necklaces sold in the goldsmith’s shop. The people of the castle and surrounding town all loved this princess because despite her beauty she was not vain. She never spent a single dollar on herself. Of course she was so beautiful she needed no jewelry to boost her image. She spent the money improving the town and investing in its development. She paid for the roads to be paved and bridges to be built. To protect the townspeople she built a tall and thick wall. It was taller and wider than any wall. And the people of the town were happy because they were safe.

This princess threw a giant Feast at the change of each season to celebrate all that was healthy and vibrant in music and food and art and drink. And these were no paltry fairs or fly by night parties. They were well organized and extravagant. The princess had musicians and chefs and artists from all over the world visit the town to perform, and share their delicious creations and put on display the beauty of their works.

One particular year, at the Feast For Spring, a young band of street gypsies appeared in the court to perform for the princess. These gypsies were dressed in vibrant colors of cloth, and both the men and women in the troupe wore make up on their faces. The leader of the gypsies was a smooth-tongued man, vocalist, dabbler in magic, and an accomplished poet. He could recite in full, the great tales from the Far East, The Amazon, and The Outback in their native languages. The gypsies performed amazing feats of balance, played tricks with fire. They took over the evening and after several encores, their performance lasted until morning. Then the townspeople stumbled home to their beds, and the princess took this well spoken gypsy up to her room to hear more of his stories.

Later, while he was sleeping, she discovered a small folio. On the parchment were written all the words he had spoken to her. Words which he claimed to be professions of love, but which she now realized were merely lies told to seduce her. Quickly, before he woke and could again beginning spinning his love words and tales of lies, she ran high up to the vault tower. It was the safest place in all of the kingdom - a tower so tall its views looked out upon the surface of the clouds, too tall to ever climb.

In the vault tower, she opened a golden chest, and placed her heart inside of it, so that no one, not even the gypsy could ever again try to steal it from her. Upon returning to her chamber she immediately had her guards banish the gypsy and his troupe from the castle, hoping it was the last time she would ever see or hear from him again. Just in case, she had the walls built higher and thicker to safeguard her heart and prevent him from seducing any of the other eager hearts in her kingdom.

At first the gypsy beat upon the giant oak doors to the castle, first with his fist and then with his open palm, hoping that the loud smacks would resonate and carry up over the walls. He beat out different rhythms he had learned from deep in the bush of Africa, ones that mimicked the language spoken between two lovers… heartbeats.

He gathered his fellow gypsies and called upon others. He acquired orchestras and musicians. Every man, woman, and child he’d ever known to strike a chord he asked for help. Day and night he sent songs up into the air, pleading for the princess to just let him explain. But she heard none of it.

He tried throwing up rope and building a ladder but the walls proved too tall.

One night, as he rested beneath the stars he looked up into the skies asking the gods for a sign. It was then that The Great Bear shone brightly in the sky. Many people today refer to this constellation as the big dipper, but in ancient times it was the inspiration for an invention that went on to become revolutionary. Not coincidentally it would go on to be used in war, but in this case it was built for love, which many great philosophers have considered to be the same thing.

The gypsy sent for great minds, mechanics and engineers. With the help of a very old man from what is present day China, the world’s first catapult was constructed.

(For reasons that have never been properly explained, the catapult was never tested. Why these great engineers would never have tested the invention before allowing the gypsy to use it has befuddled historians for thousands of years. Perhaps the gypsy just couldn’t stand to wait any longer.)

So, the moment the construction was finished, the gypsy, holding the folio which had began the whole mess in the first place, climbed inside the cup of the catapult, and told his men to aim for the tower. He knew that a great haystack sat at the base of the tower, which was near the royal stables. He was convinced destiny would provide him a safe landing.

The engineers ratcheted back the catapult, and with no one wishing to pull the lever, the gypsy picked up a stone and threw it at the lever, thus literally launching himself into history.

It should come as no shock, that an untested catapult will provide unexpected results. The catapult was too powerful. Some say this was caused because his love for the princess was too great. It shot him high into the air. Higher than the birds fly and up among the stars, leaving what is now known as the atmosphere. Upon his decent back to earth, he came down as a flaming comet crashing directly on top of the vault tower.

(One other piece of information that has been lost in the centuries of history is why the ceiling of the vault tower was made of glass. Many think the princess would climb up the tower at night in order to feel closer to the stars. In fact many people believe she was a fallen star and this was where she actually slept because sleeping that high helped her feel less homesick. Nevertheless, the ceiling was made of a thick glass, which had been crafted to be unbreakable of course, for it was a vault tower.)

The princess raced up to the vault tower along with her most trusted guards. What she saw gave her a great shock and caused her a shortness of breath. The dye from his clothes and the blood from his body had soaked into the glass ceiling. Which is where stained glass comes from.

The guards removed the body from the ceiling very carefully and when they set him upon the ground the princess noticed a giant hole in his chest. At first she took this as a sign that her suspicions were confirmed. That the man in fact had no heart. But another guard, concluding that none of the other valuables in the tower had been disturbed told the princess she must take a look at something.

Sitting inside of the golden chest, right where the princess’ heart was kept, was the folio which had started this whole mess. Each page was stained the deepest colors of crimson. When the gypsy landed he had held out the folio to break his fall. The impact of the fall had been so great that his aching heart had exploded out of his chest and been pressed into the pages of the book.

The princess flipped through the book until she reached the last page. Which was left blank. Using white ink, she wrote these words:

I have been waiting my entire life to speak these words.
I have traveled this far
to find your heart.
Spent all of my days to know your face.
I was born to love you,
and that is what this book was intended to prove.
So that whenever you look upon these pages you can see my heart.
For it was intention forever and always to give it to you.

New Shadow Puppets!

2010-03-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

New reproductions and original hand-cut shadow puppets will arrive at my shop during next week. Here you can already have a glimpse of a couple of new designs!

Baba Yaga

Peter Pan

Fairy Coach

Dragon Rider

LOOKING FOR AN EDITOR AND DESIGNER FOR BOOK COVER!

2010-03-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

The 'Tell me a story - project' is soon finished and being published. There are just a few more stories left to illustrate but after that I can take the next step; to compile all the wonderful stories and illustrations and end up with a book.

Now, to make this book a good one I will need some help from a few people as I am of course not able to do everything by myself to the highest standards: English is not my first language and if I would design the cover as well that would be a bit of an 'overkill'. As this project is more a work of love then meant to net me a lot of profit I won't be able to pay the regular salaries but.....

Thus there are two kinds of people I am looking for:

- Designer for Book Cover:

You will design a stunning looking front/back cover for the book. You are free to use your own creativity, but the design must include illustrations or fragments of the illustrations I made for the book. The whole should of course connect to the folklore theme somehow. I do not have a clue what it should be yet so surprise me with your ideas and creativity! Anyone who thinks he can do the job is free to react on this call.

Payment: 110 EURO/ 150 USD(approx)
Please note: Payments outside Europe can only be made through Paypal!
Next to this the name of the designer will be mentioned in the book (and won't it look great on your resume!).

If you are interested, please send me a private message. Please include a link to your portfolio or send some of your best work and tell me about your ideas for the book cover.

- An English Language Editor:

Your job would be to read the manuscript of the book and correct wrong spelling and incorrect grammar.
Of course your English must be PERFECT. It does not have to be your first language nor do you have to be a graduated English student, but you must have enough experience with the English language to clean up the text.
Preferable I am looking for someone who has some experience in editing/writing texts, this is not mandatory however.

Payment: 180 EURO / 240 USD(approx)
Please note: Payments outside Europe can only be made through Paypal!
Next to this the name of the editor will be mentioned in the book (and won't it look great on your resume!).

If you are interested, please send me a private message and we will talk about it in more depth. Please, also state if you have any experience with this kind of work and if so what kind of work it is you have done.

You can find my email address at the top of this page on your left :-)

Right now I am keeping all options open, so tell me what you think and would like to do and I will contact you as soon as possible.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE PROJECT CAN BE FOUND HERE: [link]

Tell me a story; Die Sechs Steine

2010-03-21T02:50:00.000-07:00

Finally I have some time to update my blog! Due to some problems I had with mail-deliveries (which caused an email explosion from "unhappy"customers) and some technical problems with my computer I just did not have any time to write new posts for quite some time.

But enough about that! Let's continue with the Tell me a story project, which is slowly coming to its final stages. Yes, there are only a few more stories to go before the book will be put together and published.

So, enjoy reading the following tale!

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: Die Sechs Steine (The Six Stones)
Submitted by: Julia Hecker
Country: Germany

'The Six Stones' are placed in my hometown Ilberstedt. They are the remains of medieval stone crosses. Nobody can tell why they are there. Maybe they are the remains of a cemetery. The oldest cross is from the 13^th century. At the cross is an inscription saying: Jacobi Albrecht Weller Famulus 1363.

In front of these Six Stones is a huge stone tablet. There is a rhyme on it that describes the legend. The stone crosses are supposed to represent four bandits, one butcher and his dog. The bandits attacked the butcher at this place and the dog killed the bandits. By mistake the dog killed his owner the butcher too. The sorrow and sadness, resulting from killing the butcher incidentally killed the dog a few days later.

This is the rhyme:

'Ein Fleischer kommt hier von der Stadt,
einen grossen Hund er bei sich hat.
Von Räubern ward er angefallen,
doch bracht der Hund den Tod Ihnen allen.
Dann ach, er kennt nicht mehr den Herrn
Erwürgt auch ihn von hier nicht fern.
Alsdann legt er sich zu ihm hin,
Nicht kommt ihm Nahrung in den Sinn.
Vier Räuber, Fleischer und der Hund,
macht dir die Zahl der Steine kund
und will du meinem Wort nicht trauen
So lies, du kannst es an den Steinen schauen.'

(translation)

'A butcher came to here from town,
a big dog he had at his side.
By robbers he was attacked,
but it was the dog who brought death to all.
Alas, he did not recognize his master
and kills him as well, not far from here.
Then he lies himself before him,
A craving for food never again on his mind
Four robbers, a butcher and his hound,
judge yourself from the number of headstones
And if you will not trust my word,
read the inscription and you will know.'

A picture of the six stones can be found here.

And the winners are....

2010-03-06T02:22:00.000-08:00

The winners of the give-away contest are....

Winners from my blog:
- Karla Hardersen
- Sara
- PJ

Winners from Deviant Art:
- *luciediamonds
- *Mulle-chan

Congratulations! I will contact you as soon as possible!

Tell me a story; The Kelpie's Wife

2010-03-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

There are some tales of which you have heard many versions, so many you think you must have heard them all. This was my first thought when I received the tale about the Kelpie's Wife. But I was wrong. Again it was a tale I did not know and one which caught me by surprise. It sure makes you wonder how many tales about the Kelpie are out there. Probably hundreds and even then they can still surprise you and tell you some new things you have never heard before......

For those of you who are not familiar with the 'Kelpie-Myth': "The kelpie is a supernatural water horse from Celtic folklore that is believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. (WikiQuote)".

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Those who still wish to submit their story, please be quick because the final deadline is set on March 14th, 2010.)

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Kelpie's Wife
Submitted by: Anonymous
Country: Scotland

There once was a Kelpie's wife, who lived beneath the loch with her baby son, whom she loved dearly. The Kelpie's wife loved her husband but she missed the warmth of the sun and her family, for the Kelpie had stolen (this is the custom of Kelpies who steal their wives) her away from them without so much as a farewell.

One day, when her husband was out hunting victims, the cold and the darkness became unbearable and she fled to the surface, leaving behind her baby son, for she knew the Kelpie loved his son and would care for him. Once at the surface she basked in the warmth of the sun and soon made her way to her parents cottage. Her family were overjoyed to see her, for they thought she had died and so they held a great Celidh.

The Celidh dragged on into the night and the Kelpie's wife soon forgot her husband and child with the joy of being reunited with her family. During the night there came a great storm and suddenly, from outside the cottage, they could hear the champing of a horse's hooves.

Her husband had found his wife gone and was furious, for he loved her so greatly that he viewed her escape as the ultimate crime. Taking the form of a black stallion he banged on the cottage door but he could not enter, for he had not been given permission to enter and cross the threshold. He called for her in rageful screams. The Kelpie's wife was frightened and also sad for she loved her husband but wished to stay with her family. Eventually, during the night, they heard a great 'thud' as something hit the door. After this, there was silence.

In the morning when the Kelpie had returned to the loch, they found lying on the ground, the decapitated head of the Kelpie's son. In revenge for his wife's betrayal he had slain his only son. This was the price to pay for breaking a Kelpie's heart. The Kelpie's wife lived contently and was never again bothered by the Kelpie, who had learnt his lesson of love.

Tell me a story; The haunted swamp

2010-03-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

How I enjoyed illustrating the following tale! In a way the tale does not make sense at all, maybe you might even call it a little crazy. Never have I heard of a swamp where this many magical creatures and monsters live, but Carina could tell of one such and it was just around the corner of her father's house!

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Those who still wish to submit their story, please be quick because the final deadline is set on March 14th, 2010.)

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The haunted swamp
Submitted by: Carina
Country: Denmark

Where my father lives, there's a swamp, and my mother once told me this tale:

When there is fog in the swamp, the bog woman is brewing her ale, and the elves are dancing. Any human who passes by the elves, will be offered some of their wine and asked to dance with them. If he accepts, a beautiful elven woman will dance with him. When he puts his arm around the elf's back, he will notice her back is hollow, but by that time, it'll be too late for him to run. The elves will kidnap him, and bring him to their underground city, where they will keep him as a slave until the day he dies. No-one has ever escaped the hands of the elves.

Apart from the elves, there is also the Nixe, who lives in the lake and lures you to him with his beautiful Violin music. When he catches you he brings you to his underwater-house and eats you. There are the trolls who turn to stone should they be hit by sunlight and the wights who'll keep you as a pet. And every time she told me the story she would always, when the story ended, tell me this: "Don't ever go into the swamp alone, and don't even LOOK over there when its foggy, so they wont take you away." Thus I was scared to death by the swamp when I was younger.

Tell me a story; El perro negro de El Escorial

2010-02-25T12:11:00.000-08:00

The following story tells us about an extraordinairy happening at The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial in Madrid. What makes this tale so special is that it has its roots not only in folklore but also, for the main part, in history. The lady, who wishes to remain anonymous on my blog, came in contact with this tale first at the age of 9. Because her godfather was one of the historians working at the Royal Monastery, she had the chance to read many of the historical records.Thus this tale has become an interesting composition of facts and folklore, which I am sure you will very much enjoy.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

+ CURRENTLY I AM HOLDING A GIVEAWAY CONTEST, PLEASE VISIT MY PREVIOUS BLOGPOST HERE, IF YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE!

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: El perro negro de El Escorial
Submitted by: RdT Studio
Country: Madrid, Spain

Special places always hold many stories. That is why special places are always misunderstood. But extraordinary things happen at those places, and that is why they have many legends and unusual records. I like to talk about those, so be my guests for this tale.

The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, in Madrid’s mountain range, is a very special place. The Good King decided to build it to thank God for a victory in battle and enigmatic things happened from the very beginning.

The chroniclers say that when the architects were wandering through the mountains trying to find the most suitable place for the building a terrible storm started. Instead of taking shelter, the architects decided to go on with their duty. Then, a ray struck the ground just in front of them, and that is how the location of the monastery was decided.

Many stories are told about this amazing place; a curious one is that of it being a Hell-Gate. This belief started when the Monastery was in early construction. The first thing to be built was the church and the convent, since the monks of the order of Hieronymus took residence there from the very beginning. One day, a sudden stormcloud came down from the mountain hiding the sun; a thunder deafened the valley and a ray struck the building, into the sacristy, causing a big fire that lasted for several days. After the thunder, the cloud vanished and the sun came out again. Some people said then that the Devil had visited the place that day in complaint for the holy building. This thought was strengthened when some months later, the first monk who attended to suffocate the fire, the clock maker, died of an unknown sickness.

But my favorite story is that which took place just a little after that.

About a month after the fire, the monks began to hear terrifying howls in the night, and the howling happened every night and could be heard from everywhere in the Monastery. As days passed, some of the monks also said that in the moonlight they have seen a huge black dog dragging a thick noisy chain that gave impossible jumps on the scaffoldings. People in the town grew uneasy and began to wonder about the dog, saying things like that it was an adversity omen, the Cerberus set free by the Devil after his failure in destroying the temple by fire, or the Devil himself that, in the shape of a dog, tried to scare away the monks by keeping them from sleeping. The story grew so famous that reached the capital, where opportunistsicpeople took the chance to spread the story the dog was a vengeful spirit send to complain on the taxes imposed to build the Monastery. All this talking worried the King, who decided to investigate the matter by himself.

On the night of June the 21^st, the terrible howling of the dog coming from undergrounds of the construction, under the King’s chamber, reached such an intensity that the monks took refuge in the Sacristy to pray. One of them, however, bravely went down and, aided by other three monks, caught the dog by a leather collar it wore. It was a big animal, yet thin, as if it had not eaten properly in a while. It was wearing a collar from which it hanged a thick chain, as if the animal had escaped from his master’s house by breaking it; the collar showed that the animal belonged to a member of the court but not which member, and no one ever claimed for it.

When the dog was shown to the King, to calm his people, he decreed it to be hanged from one of the convent’s windows until it rotted away, so everyone could see that it was nothing but a regular stray dog. This stopped the gossip, and nobody ever heard the dog howling… but, apparently, the King himself.

When the good King was about to die in terrible pain, he asked about the dog to his last adviser. When the man said that the dog had not been seen since it was hanged the King told him: ‘I see it and hear it everywhere, its barking wakes me up in the middle of the night. We must make spells to keep it from returning; it scares me.’

Almost three centuries later, a writer would say, without mentioning his source, that the King also saw the dog several times during his life, when someone close to him was about to die.

GIVE-AWAY CONTEST !!! / An update of the Tell me a story project.

2010-02-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

finally an update of the Tell me a story project!

ABOUT THE PROJECT:
For those who are not familiar with the Tell me a story project yet: the project's goal is to collect fascinating, known and unknown, folk-tales from all over the world. Illustrate them and share them.
Instead of just taking stories from books, the aim is to 'collect' these stories directly from the source, the people; you. Isabella Baudelaire (that's me), a 24 year old Dutch artist who specializes in portraying folklore, myths and legends, will illustrate these wonderful stories. Eventually all these illustrations combined, of course accompanied by the original stories and background information will be published as a book.

For more information on the project, and how to participate, please check out my previous blogpost HERE.

THE FINAL DEADLINE:
The submission deadline is slowly aproaching.... Those who still wish to submit their story, please be quick because the final deadline is set on March 14th, 2010.
If you would like to submit your story but you are not able to make this deadline, don't worry, just send me a message so I will know and you can submit your story a little later. But please do send a message beforehand!

A SHOP:
In the course of this week prints of the illustrations will become available at my website! These prints are a limited edition of twenty and are sold for 13 dollars each (including shipping). Every third print is for free.
If you like to have a print you can also send me a message here, on my blog and I will contact you. (please note, I can only accept payments outside of Europe through paypal).

And finally........ THE GIVE-AWAY CONTEST!!!
Because I have reached the halfway-point in the project, I thought it is time to celebrate this little "victory". And thus I will be giving away 5 sets of prints. These sets will contain six small prints of illustrations made for the Tell me a Story project. Best of all you are allowed to pick your own six favorite prints! Here is a link to the illustrations you can choose from: LINK
In the course of next week more will be added to this gallery, so perhaps wait a while before making your pick. To participate just leave a comment on the bottom of this page and tell me how to contact you, by giving me your email address or a link to your own blog. I will then, Friday-night (CET), March 5th randomly pick out five names and contact the winners. GOOD LUCK!

Tell me a story; The Skogsra

2010-02-14T03:02:00.000-08:00

The following tale is of the kind I like the most. It is not from a book and neither is it a story one has heard once from a friend of a friend. No, it is a story Brett Williamson heard from his own grandmother and she heard it from her father, who ensured her it was all true. After all he had a scar as proof.....

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Skogsra
Submitted by: Brett Williamson
Country: Corona, CA

The Skogsra, or more easily pronounced Sjora, is a Swedish water spirit that lives in the woods and is known to either help men with good hunting or lead them astray. It is always seen in a forest and always by a body of water most usually looking like a beautiful woman brushing her hair and sometimes having a tail.

There was something I was told by my mother's grandmother about a story that she was told by her father.

From the time he was little he went hunting with his father, the boy became an excelent marksman, and by the time he was 16 he had the skills of a veteran-pro twice his age. One day he went out to hunt by himself with his dog Kysa and as the dog went for something to drink, it was a beautiful young woman he saw. All he could do was stare for the longest time until he was noticed so he went over and introduced himself to the young woman, she never gave him her name.

So the days went on and the boy, who was slowly becoming a man, fell in love with this woman. Until one day, as he went into the woods, he saw her with someone else. The man became furious and confronted the woman, then she became furious and suddenly disappeared. On his way home it became extremely dark and he lost his way and his dog, Kysa. Two days past and still he found no way out of the woods, then something caught his eye; 't was the woman he had fought with and thought he loved.

He goes to talk with her and apologizes about his behavior but then he sees a tail out of nowhere. Well actually out of the back of her dress. So he askes her and she, once again, becomes very angry and attackes him. He yells at her and runs off. Three more days went by and still he could not find his way home out of the woods. Finaly home at last, he runs inside and tells his father about what has happened and his father explained him about what he had met. He understood.

Years later he fell in love with a Romanian girl and lived a long and happy life in America. But he could never forget the face of the woman he almost gave his heart to. And of course there was a scar he could not forget.

Tell me a story; The Iele

2010-02-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

The following story was send to me along with some touching words. Iulia told me how much the following myth meant to her as it was one of those tales she was raised with. She also shared her "concerns" as she noticed how the stories of her people are less and less well known among the younger generations.

Unfortunately this is not only true in Romania. It is a shame. But we must recognize our oral heritage is declining, and worst of all we are responsible for it ourselves.

I do not want to sound overly pessimistic but I am often disappointed in the lack of interest people have in their own culture. On the other hand I am also often pleasantly surprised to see how a myth survives in modern times. And this, luckily, happens often as well.

Like Marie, who submitted the story of the Breton Ankou, Iulia did not wanted me to give her credit for the story as she said the story did not belong to her but to her people. It is always very touching to hear these words, because this is the true nature of folk tales. It is not the voice of one person but those of an entire people. And as long I am hearing these words I am not at all that concerned, because I know there are people out there knowing the true meaning of the words.....

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Iele
Submitted by: From the Romanian people
Country: Romania

Not so long ago, living anywhere in the countryside, you could often hear words such as “Oh dear, such a pity of this boy! He must have been charmed by the Iele”.
Ielele are often described as very beautiful girls with charming powers, extremely talented dancers (usually in groups of three, seven or twelve), and living in nice and isolated places; small flowering meadows, in the forests or sometimes at abandoned crossroads or homes. The life in the forests gives them all they need; feeding themselves with the fruits and herbs and drinking clear water from the cold mountain springs.

Some say they are protectors of nature and their place of living is a sacred one, others say they are just mischievous spirits, taking revenge on people for having seen them or interrupting their ritual.

One thing is for sure, they do like dancing and singing! The beautiful girls have twinkling bells on their ankles and go dancing in the forests at night, when the moon is high. Their dance is light; some even say they dance in the air, flying. Oh, and when they dance…they do dance charmingly, with yellow flowers in their hair, holding hands in a fast hora (a very fast traditional circle dance from the Carpathian – Balkan region, encountered mostly in Romania and Bulgaria). Many say that where they have danced, next morning, you can see the burned ground and grass in the form of a circle. In this place, there will hardly be any vegetation growing again and if it grows, no animal would want to eat it.

Many legends in many different regions in Romania speak about young boys and men who have been caught spying on them. The Ielele took their revenge by charming, seducing and taking their minds away (making them crazy). If you hear them singing you will turn deaf, and if you answer to them when they call your name, you will lose your voice. This is the punishment a human receives when interfering with the natural course of a sacred ritual performed by the Iele.

There are many folk songs, poems and “zicatori” (popular sayings) about common people’s encounters with these beings, some good, some bad, some as the people’s heart.

(* grammar note: “Iele” – always used in plural. There is no singular term, since they are always seen as a small collectivity. “Ielele” is the articulated form.)

Tell me a story; La Llorona

2010-01-31T09:05:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I have invited the hosts of Hometown Tales, Gene and Bryan, to submit a story for the Tell me a story-project. For those of you who are not familiar with Hometown tales please check out their website and blog. They have the most wonderful podcast in which they share strange news, history, urban-myths, legends, ghost tales and folklore with their listeners. I am hooked on this podcast for quite some time now and I have always listened to their show with much pleasure. Thus I was thrilled when they told me they wanted to participate in my project!

Here is Bryan's tale. I hope all of you will enjoy it and if you haven't already, check out their podcast. You will love it!

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Legend of La Llorona
Submitted by: Bryan (Hometown Tales)
Country: Santa Fe, New Mexico

I was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1598 it is the oldest continually-inhabited town in the United States. That's a lot of history. That also means a lot of people have been dying here - leaving behind ghosts and ghost stories - for over 400 years.

Growing up in a town where every night feels haunted - where a child believe that looking out of a bedroom window at night means you might see something else staring back at you - makes you afraid of the dark. And no other tale has had a more chilling effect on my friends and I than the Legend of La Llorona.

There seems to be several versions of the tale, even in modern day New Mexico, where the "wailing woman" is said to still haunt the hills around Santa Fe.

There are too many versions to list here, but they all share a common thread: a cautionary tale of consequences to making a bad decision.

One version says that La Lorna was a widow woman of the 18th century, living near the village of Santa Fe. La Lorna was so intent on finding a new husband, that she neglected her children and her family duties, spending most of her time in the saloons and gambling halls of Santa Fe, intent on finding a man to care for her. She didn't seem to care that, lately, Apaches from the nearby the hills, who often raided homesteads, had been seen. It was during one of her night on the prowl for a man that her children were brutally murdered in an Apache raid, drowned and dumped in a nearby irrigation ditch.

Another version of the story has it that La Llorna was a young beautiful girl who fell in love with a bad man. After giving this man two beautiful children, he turns and find another young girl to run off with. Knowing how much her husband loves his children, La Llorona herself drowns her children to spite him.

Either way it happens, the children die and La Llorona drowns herself in despair. The tormented soul of La Lorna now forever walks the river beds - arroyos - of Santa Fe to, wailing in anguish over the loss of her children.

"Mis Ninos! Donde estan mis ninos?" ("My children! Where are my children?")

Alone at night, of course, before you see her, you’ll always hear that terrifying wailing. Is she looking for her children? What we were told was that she would be happy to find simply any child alone in the arroyos. So we almost never walked to dry river beds, especially at night.

Ironically, it was this centuries old tale of death that kept so many children alive. The legend could have began as a very practical method of keeping us kids out of the arroyos. In the rainy month of August, arroyos could fill up in seconds with a flash flood, leaving anyone in them doomed. It's a classic Boogeyman tale: be good or the boogeyman will get you. Instead, we were told stay out of the dry riverbeds during flashflood season of you'll be swept away by the Wailing Woman.

Tell me a story; The Selkie

2010-01-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

The following story was presented to me as a ballad. Although I do not want to fill the entire book with ballads or poems I am glad to make an exception for this one as it is so true to the original story.
This ballad reflects the style of old, a ballad sung at the hearth. And thus this one is more then perfect for a folk-tale book, as you have to keep in mind; these stories were passed on as music and poems as well.

The ballad's writer; Kiera Tauro first heard of this story in the beautiful Irish film; the Secret of Roan Inish. Kiera herself is from Canada but her mother hails from Ireland and as she grew up with many a story from her mother's motherland the story of the Selkie was one to return now and then. Perhaps even more then the other tales this one was often on her mind. "I had wanted to try my hand at writing a version of the myth for ages," Kiera told me "and when I had to write a ballad for a creative writing class at school this was the first thing that came to mind". And thus she transcribed it into this ballad which I hope all of you will enjoy.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Selkie
Submitted by: Kiera Tauro
Country: Canada

Walking on an island, on a day both bright and clear
He spied a creature on the rocks and quickly wandered near.
The seal had not yet seen him and he saw it shed its skin
And like butterflies from the cocoon, a lady stood within.

The skin it lay abandoned like yesterday’s disguise,
And careful not to startle he stood and met her eyes –
As black as the ocean and as wild as the sea,
Full of wonder, like a curious child she gazed back at me.

A whisper brought him closer and a touch to her side
Their voices rose and fell, matching the pounding of the tide.
Conversation faded and love grew in its place,
She said “I must go,” with a smile upon her face.

“I will meet you on the morrow, but to the sea I must go.”
And skin in hand, the lady left for the water down below.
He came back every morning and she left him every night,
But soon he had an idea that would keep her in his sight.

Reluctant to consider it, but more to see her leave
The skin would be stolen, was the plan he would weave.
“For without the skin she could not go back to the sea,
And thus would be content to stay ashore with me.”

And so one day while she slept, her head against his chest
He slipped out from beneath her and stole it from her breast.
Carefully it was hidden and he was back afore she woke,
But soon her eyes had opened and softly she spoke:

“My skin you have stolen, and the sea that was my life,
I am damned to live on land, and this can only lead to strife.”
The days seemed to last forever, and she wandered as if lost,
But she vowed to find her skin, no matter what the cost.

Long she searched to no avail and soon she gave up hope,
For without the comfort of the waves she found she could not cope.
Little more than a shadow she sat above the tide,
Watching the place once called home as quietly she cried.

Her silence did not please him and he loved her less each day,
His beautiful wild selkie girl had begun to fade away.
Not a word was spoken but still she seemed to plead
For the skin long since taken, for his avarice to recede.

And though he loved her less, he refused to let her go,
For she was his and did not belong to the sea down below.
The seasons kept on changing, and all fondness seemed to fade,
When the lady heard a whisper coming from the glade,

The forest spirit had seen her and noticed her distress,
And knew that to make her smile, her skin she must possess.
So he had searched and he had found the skin that she had worn,
And presenting it to her, he saw that she did no longer mourn.

Eyes aglow, a whispered thanks, and quickly she did go,
As she often did in dreams, to the sea down below.
Never thinking to return and never looking back,
She slipped between the waves into water deep and black.

It wasn’t until she was gone that he finally he saw,
As wonderful as it had seemed, his plan possessed a flaw.
He had loved her because she was beautiful and because she was free,
But the only lover that she could know was the loveless sea.

More of Kiera's poems and photographs can be found on Deviant Art.
Also, you can read more about the Selkie here.

Tell me a story; The Xocoyoles

2010-01-17T03:27:00.000-08:00

Again, I would like to share another story with you all!

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Xocoyoles
Submitted by: Juan Ruben Juarez Macias
Country:Mexico

Those who lived a long time ago will tell you about a man who did not believe in the word of his ancestors. They told him storms with thunder and lightning were created by young children up in the sky; the so called xocoyoles.

Xocoyoles are the very young children who die at birth or before being baptized. Wings sprout from their shoulders and they are sitting on the hills and the crags. The legend tells that these pequeñitos (the small children) were doing various kinds of work: some poured water from big pitchers so rain might fall upon the lands and make crops grow. Others created hailstones and threw them down from the clouds, and still others created mighty thunderclaps and lightning by slamming their ropes on the clouds.

But one man did not believe the legend. One day, after a great tempest had passed over the countryside, he went to a hill planted with ocotes-trees (Pinus montezumae) to cut firewood. When he arrived there he saw a naked child, its two wings were stuck in the branch of an ocote.

The man was very much surprised, especially when the child said to him: "If you give me my rope that has fallen on the ground, I will cut up this entire tree into firewood, so you can take it."

"Really, will you do that?" the man asked.
"Yes, I will do this for you."

The man soon joined several sticks and branches with which he could reach the top of the tree and thus give the rope to the stuck xocoyol. The child, having his rope again in his hands, told the man he should leave and return the next day to collect the firewood. The man thus went and when he was gone the xocoyol used his regained rope to create thunderclaps and lightning. Because of the force the ocote-tree splintered and broke, a perfect pile of firewood was the result. When the small child finished his work he flew away to his place in the sky and his brother xocoyoles.

The following day the man returned to the hill and found the huge pile of firewood, he looked for the xocoyol but did not see him anywhere.

From this day onwards he believed all the stories his grandparents told him.

PS: Juan Ruben Juarez Macias is also a very talented artist himself. If you like you can take a look at his gallery here: LINK

Tell me a story; Mae Nak Phra Khanong

2010-01-07T11:52:00.000-08:00

Is there a better way to start the New Year then with a great story? I don't think so.
The following story was send to me quite some time ago and all those time it has been one of my personal favorites. It was such a special and detailed story that I thought it would be a perfect one to start the New Year with.

Virginie-Pairaya Pithon, who submitted the story told me that this ghost - tale is very popular in her own country (Thailand) and that it has been made into countless films and TV series. It has even been made into an animated movie and an opera. But more interesting might be that Mae Nak, the main character of the story, also became a popular figure in folk belief. At the place where she was supposedly buried a shrine was build. Virginie mentioned: "People visit this place everyday, and make offerings. Usually they will ask Mae Nak for luck with the lottery, but women expecting to give birth are told not to ask for Mae Nak’s help."

Why that is, you will find out while reading this marvelous and classic ghost-tale...

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: Mae Nak Phra Khanong
Submitted by: Virginie-Pairaya Pithon
Country: Thailand

"Long ago, when King Mongkut reigned over Thailand and when Bangkok was still known as “The Venice of the Far East” a young woman known as Nak lived with her beloved husband Maak near the Phra Khanong canal. The young couple were very much in love and believed that nothing would ever tear them apart.

One day all of this changed. Thailand was at war, and she needed all the soldiers that she could get. Maak was conscripted into the Royal Army, and had no choice but to leave Nak and their unborn baby behind. In the subsequent war Maak was very badly injured, and while he was being nursed back to health Nak and her baby son died in childbirth.

Months would pass before Maak was able to return to his home near the Phra Khanong canal. When he did finally return, he went home to find his wife and son waiting there to greet him. Nak looked even more beautiful than he had remembered, and his baby son was healthy. Maak was very happy. Unbeknownst to him, the ghost of Mae Nak had enslaved him with a spell. Her love for him was so great that she wanted to create the illusion of a normal life, an illusion so perfect that he would stay with her forever.

When the neighbours realized what was happening they all tried to warn Maak that the woman he was living with couldn’t be Nak – that Nak had died in childbirth and that the woman he was living with had to be a ghost. Maak scoffed at these stories, unable to believe that his Nak was anything else than what she presented herself to be. Although Maak hadn’t believed any of the people who had come to warn him, the ghost of Mae Nak was not going to let them get away with it – or give anyone else the opportunity to take her husband away from her. Every single person who had warned Maak about his wife met with a macabre end… all of them suffered strange unexplained deaths. Some of them went through grisly fatal accidents, while others were found with their bodies drained of blood. Despite all these strange occurrences, Maak refused to believe that there was anything wrong with his wife.

One evening while Mae Nak was cooking for her husband, she dropped a chopped up piece of lime. It fell through a hole on the floor, rolling onto the ground below. Wanting to finish her cooking quickly Mae Nak neglected to be careful. She extended her arm to an unnatural length so that she could retrieve the piece of lime – but what she had not realized was that her husband Maak had seen everything.

With the sickening realization that his neighbours had been right, Maak plotted his escape while at the same time struggling to maintain the pretence that he was unaware of her true nature. One night, Maak tells his wife that he needs to go outside to urinate. Mae Nak, suspecting nothing wrong, did not try to stop him. Once outside Maak broke a little hole in an earthen jar filled with water so that Mae Nak would hear it and think he was urinating. As soon as he was sure that Mae Nak had fallen for his trick, Maak ran away from the village.

When Mae Nak discovered what had happened she became incensed. She set about hunting Maak down, but it was too late. Maak had sought shelter in the temple Wat Mahabut, and no matter how much Mae Nak tried, she could not enter this holy place. In her grief and fury Mae Nak terrorized the villagers that had helped her husband escape.

The villagers who lived in fear of Mae Nak searched far and wide for an exorcist powerful enough to get rid of Mae Nak. When they did, the exorcist trapped the grieving ghost in an earthen jar which was then thrown into the canal in the hopes that the ghost would never haunt the villagers again.

Unfortunately this was not to be. A fisherman and his wife further down the canal came across this mysterious jar one day while fishing and accidentally released the angry spirit within. Mae Nak was soon terrorizing the village just as before, when a venerable old monk was called forth to help them. This monk foretold that Mae Nak would be reunited with her husband in their next life. Upon hearing this, the ghost voluntarily agreed to stop killing and to pass on to the afterlife where she waits for her one and only beloved.

Another version states that the monk instead of telling Mae Nak that she’ll be reunited with her husband in her next life, exorcises her and then traps her spirit in a bit of bone from her dead body’s forehead. This bone he carried around with him until the day he died, and supposedly it is currently in Royal possession."

Words of appreciation...

2009-12-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

I just want to thank all of you who has supported me during this marvelous and exciting year. I know it is a cliche, but I could not have done it without you. Through time I have received so many lovely messages and comments and they really helped me through times when I felt insecure or when I was tired and had my doubts about continuing this work.

Also I want to thank all of you who submitted their story for the "Tell me a story- Project". Thank you so much! I will continue the project in the New Year, so for those whose story was not illustrated yet, don't worry, I will get back to those stories very soon.

To show my appreciation I would like to give you all a fairytale as a Christmas gift. It is one of the most beautiful Christmas tales I have ever read. I hope you will enjoy reading it:

The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen

And for now, Happy Holidays to all of you and see you in the New Year!

Tell me a story; New Website

2009-12-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

I am still very busy due to the Christmas sales and also because I am currently redecorating my house.... However, I just wanted to have the website, for the Tell me a story - project , finished before the end of this year. So, here it is.

For those who are not familiar with the project, please check out my previous blog post here: LINK

Click picture to see the new website.

It is not entirely perfect yet but I will work on that during the coming months. Nevertheless I hope you will all enjoy it!

Yours Truly,
Isabella

PS: Many new things are coming; paper-cut art, amulets, sculptures, drawings and lots more. Also, I will be giving away some items in the new year; so stay tune!

Tell me a story; The Green & The White Lady

2009-12-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

As happens with most stories we have heard when we were young, they slowly fade away. Only small bits and pieces remain and altogether they form a whole new story which has never been told before. This is, in fact, the destiny of all folk tales. After all, not one story will ever be told the same a second time.

The same counts for the following story, or better said, stories. The title is; The Green Lady & The White Lady. Eilidh Ellery was told these stories as a kid and wrote them down from her memories and as she declares; "I'm still not entirely sure I've got it straight...." But that did not matter in this case as they are after all still wonderful stories!

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Green & The White Lady
Submitted by: Eilidh Ellery
Country: Fife, Scotland

White Lady legends are a common theme in the folklore of many countries. A female ghost haunts the scene of a betrayal, usually they have been wronged by a husband or lover. However, sometimes the Lady is the one who does the betraying. The White Lady of Kemback is believed to be the Widow of Myles (or Malise) Graham, a 15th century Scottish magnate. It is said that she gave up her husband under torture for the assassination of King James I of Scotland at Perth in 1437. Many a prayer was said, but still she wanders the woods of ash, oak and gean (wild cherry) around what once was her estate...

Besides The White Lady there also is The Green Lady of Dura Den. Green ladies - called Gruagach in Scots- are ghosts associated with water, much akin to Banshees. Often portrayed as a woman under enchantment; more fae than ghoulie (ghost/ghoul). Usually they protect a home or area, but they can also be malevolent depending on the story or storyteller. A young woman dressed all in green can be found in Dura Den down by the waters of the Burn; soaked to her pale, death-tinged skin with water weed for hair. It is said that she died when she flung herself from a window to escape a fire, but tragically fell into the swollen stream and drowned. On some nights you can smell the smoke and hear the crackle of the flames whilst faint, ghostly images of that flaming tower flicker and fade as she plummets to her doom, screaming. Others have seen her swinging from the brig (bridge) as if hanged.

Note: Eilidh added to these stories that ; "The Green Lady is sometimes called The Grey Lady, so she may not actually be a protective spirit. The two ladies may be linked and could in fact refer to the same apparition".

She also has written a lovely poem which I would like to share with you:

" The Grey Lady & the Green

In the woods of Dura Den and Kemback up the hill,
There roams a maid of grey and white or green.
Sometimes from the brig she is hanged,
Sometimes by the river weeps.
Her dress is white or grey or green,
Her hair is waterweed.
Behind a tree she may appear
Or from flaming tower fall,
Into the swollen stream;
Hanged and tortured,
Burned and drowned,
Her death it was untimely,
But still she wanders upon the earth
This lady white, and grey and green. "

The Morskoi Tsar; A shadow puppet based upon a Russian folk tale

2009-11-23T14:00:00.001-08:00

This weekend I finaly had some time left to work out one of the shadow puppets I had in mind for a very long time. Below you can see my version of the Morskoi Tsar, who was in former days known as the water king in the folklore of Russia.

He appears in many Russian folk tales and it is said that he lived underwater in beautiful crystal halls together with his daughters. They are the well known Rusulkas, maidens of extraordinary beauty who can shape shift in the form of an animal if they wish. They are mostly seen in the form of water birds such as swans , geese or ducks.

Most people were afraid of the Morskoi Tsar as it was believed he hunted on humans and drowned them if he managed to catch one. It is also said that sometimes he would seek for boys to marry his daughters.

What the Morskoi Tsar is doing here? Is he hunting for a groom or is he hunting humans? Well, you have to seek that out yourself.....

The original hand-cut puppet is now for sale at my Etsy Shop!

Short update on the Tell me a Story Project

2009-11-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a short update on the project as I want to keep you informed why I am not posting new stories and illustrations as often as I used to.
Due to the large amount of custom-orders and a lot of regular sales I have a lot on my mind and as I don't want to rush my drawings I think it is best if I just take it easy on the project for a while. This does not mean I won't be posting new stories at all, just not as much as I used to.

I will however launch a dedicated website within two weeks, just need to do some finishing and then it is able to go live. The focus will thus be on PR during November. But once the Christmas-rush has passed and we are all sitting at home near the tree, watching the chimney for Santa, I will pick up where I left and illustrate a new story every week.

Thus, if you have submitted a story which I haven't illustrated yet, I will come to it and appreciate it a lot. Of course if you haven't you can still send in new stories! They are always welcome and very much appreciated.

For those who are not familiar with the project, and would also like to see their story get illustrated, please check out my previous blog post here: LINK

The Little Prince Shadow Puppet; A tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

2009-10-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

The hand-cut, shadow puppet shown above is my tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the writer of 'The Little Prince'. I carry this book with me, every day, in my handbag. Even more, I treasure it like some kind of crucifix, holding on to it whenever I am in need of consolation. This book has been part of my life for such a long time that it has become a true friend to me. And thus I wished to do something back for the little prince and his creator.

To show my appreciation and admiration, I thought there could not be a better scene to depict then the scene in which the little prince meets the fox. It is a story about true friendship as the following piece will show us....

It all starts when the fox, who is at first a stranger to the little prince, asks the boy to tame him. The little prince puzzled by these words asks the fox what 'tame' means, on which the fox answers:

"It is something which is too often forgotten, it means to establish ties....

To me, you are still just a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. To you, I am just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we shall need one another. To me, you will be unique. And I shall be unique to you.....

If you tame me, my life will be full of sunshine. I shall recognize the sound of a step different from all others. The other steps send my hurrying underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like the sound of music. And look yonder!Do you see the cornfields? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. Those cornfields don't remind me of anything. And I find that rather sad! But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be marvellous when you have tamed me! Wheat, which is also golden, will remind me of you.And I shall love the sound of the wind in the wheat....

The fox became silent and gazed for a long time at the little prince. I beg of you..... tame me! he said."

The little prince, not aware of the important lesson he is about to learn, tells the fox he hasn't got time to tame him. As he has many things to discover and a lot of things to understand. But then the fox replied:

"One can only understand the things one tames"

Thus the little prince is tempted and finally agrees to tame the fox. From then they meet one another every day at the same spot and at the same time and through time they become close friends until eventually the day came for the little prince's departure.

But if you would like to know how the story continues, you should read the book for yourself. Trust me you won't regret it and it is most likely you will read the book over and over again.
I know I do, I must have read it about thirty times by now.

There is just one other thing I would like to say:

Thank you Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, thank you....

(Soon, this puppet will be for sale at my Etsy shop)

Tell me a story; The Old men of Painswick

2009-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

According to Tabitha her own town did not have any tales. Though it once had a black dog, she said, it is no longer anything special. Luckily a relative of her told her about the "Old men of Painswick" and thus she was able to make a submission and I am very glad she did! I know, and I say this every time, but really, this legend is unlike any tale I have shared with you before.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: The Old men of Painswick
Submitted by: Tabitha
Country: Gloucestershire, England

A pilgrim was travelling across the Cotswold Hills when he reached the village of Painswick, which is well known for its pure air and the tall yew trees in its churchyard. As he was climbing along the hill towards the village, he chanced upon an old, old man sitting upon a stone and crying his eyes out.

“What’s the matter, father?” asked the courteous young pilgrim.
“Why, my old father’s given me such a lathering!” came the reply. “He’s beaten me so hard I can’t hardly stand upright.”

The pilgrim, naturally, thought the old man a little mixed in the head. But understanding the old fellow to be getting a little too elderly for his good, he said “You oughtn’t to be out be yourself on your lonesome. I’ll help you get back to your home.” And the pilgrim hoisted the old man up onto his back and carried him off over the hill to Painswick.

Presently they reached a neat little farmhouse. The little old man squirmed uncomfortably upon the pilgrim’s back. “This would be my home,” he said uncertainly. “But I’m most afeared of father.”
“I’m sure your father won’t hurt you,” replied the pilgrim, certain that fathers surely dead can’t hurt their old children, and he knocked upon the door.

Almost instantaneously the door was opened, and who should open it but an even older old man, with bright black suspicious eyes and a beard longer than his arm. He held the doorknob in his hand, and a big ash stick in his other, and the little old man upon the pilgrim’s back flinched in horror. The pilgrim felt his passenger stirring, and said, to smooth the situation and bring the world to order: “Why, grandfather, surely you mean this little fellow no harm? He’s been running away from home, and crying something pitiful upon the hills, saying his father’s lamming him.”

“Why should I not lam him, dreadful creature that he is?” cried the old man. “Look into our garden and espy his poor old granfer up there in the tree, risking his old tender neck to get us cherries, while this rascal here tosses stones at him! And all in some manner of fun…this ash stick has some words to say to this delinquent!”

With that the old fellow leaped from the pilgrim’s back and took off fast as a galloping hare, with his old sire in hot pursuit. The pilgrim stood, left alone, not daring to peer into the garden to find the cherry tree, or its ancient harvester, before setting quickly back on his way. “Surely,” he said to himself as he tried to ignore the bellowing father and his son speeding away into the distance “they must live forever at Painswick.”

Tell me a story; Mula-Sem-Cabeça

2009-10-11T01:53:00.000-07:00

So far we have had stories from Portugal, Hungary, Germany, Chile, Brittany, the Netherlands, California and France. Thus the stories are really from all over the world. Once more we cross the ocean (from my perspective) and go to Southern-America, as the next story is from Brazil. This story is a rather peculiar one as it feutures a headless-fire spitting-mule, yes it really does;the 'Mula-sem-cabeça'.

Though most stories are submitted sometimes I come across a very interesting story myself which I just love. In these cases I ask the writer/teller if it is ok for me to use the story. This story is one of these. And though the writer of the story wishes to remain anonymous I want to thank her again for enabling me to use her story.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(Please, click picture for bigger and better view)

Story Title: Mula-Sem-Cabeça
Submitted by: Anonymous
Country: Brazil

The mula-sem-cabeça, translated to English as: mule without head, is a legend in Brazilian folklore. Its origin is European, but very evident throughout Brazil.
It is similar to a mule in size and shape, but for one peculiarity, it is without a head and it spits fire by its neck. It's hooves are shod with horseshoes which are silver or steel and the mule is most commonly a brown or black color.
According to the legend, any woman who is dating a priest would be transformed into this monster. Thus women should see the priests as a kind of "holy" instead of as a man. If committed any sin with the thought of a priest in their mind or with the priest himself they would become a 'Mula-sem-cabeça'.
This curse can only be broken if someone removes the bridle, and the woman will reappear, sorry for her "sins."

Folk Magic

2009-10-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

Having made so many drawings for the tell me a story project, I thought it was time for something else. Not that the project is boring me, infact, quite the opposite, I am pleasantly surprised by all those wonderful submissions, but I do miss it sometimes to pick a subject myself. One of those subjects which are close to my heart is folk magic. Being it an old way of fortelling the future or invoking a catholic saint to find something back which is lost, I love it all just as much.

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Divination with lead

The drawing shown above depicts a scene in which two girls are trying to predict their future. They do this by pouring hot, liquid lead into a bucket filled with cold water. The shapes thus formed are "read", all of them having their own meaning. Lead in the shape of a star meant luck, crosses meant suffering, man or sack like figures meant wealth, an aureole meant marriage but the shape of an animal meant death. This method of divination was known throughout all of Europe and was often used on New Years eve to see what the next year would bring. This ceremony was practiced even in recent days. Of course young girls used it for a much less complicated goal, they told each other that the letters which appeared in the water would predict the name of their future husband.
Now this all seems to be not much more then a game for the youngsters, but in fact this divination method is of ancient origin. The Latins instead of lead used wax, once the wax was coagulated they took these small pieces to bed and the dream they would dream that night would tell them their fortune.

There are so many more divination methods closely related to the former, but it would take an entire book to describe them all. However if you are just as much interested in these rituals as I am you can always drop a line. I'm always in for hearing new stories and I love to share all I learned about these matters :)

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"Love Potion"

The second drawing depicts a scene in which a mother makes her daughter a "love potion". It was believed that to obtain ones love you should boil his or her socks in water and then drink the extract. This was believed, like it was believed with all "love potions" containing human fluids of some kind, to be most effective. For people who are wondering why it is that this was believed to be so effective it might be interesting to learn a bit more about sympathetic magic. You can find more information about it here

I am intending to make more drawings featuring folk magic, so if this is what you are interested in ,keep an eye on my blog as more will follow soon.
(the information given above has been partly adopted from; 'Lexikon des Aberglaubens', written by Helmut Hiller)

PS; for those who are interested, prints accompanied with story are now available at my Etsy shop!

Tell me a story; Inês de Castro

2009-09-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

It took a little bit longer then planned but here it is; the next drawing and story for the Tell me a story project!
This is one of the most tragic love stories I have ever heard, absolutely heartbreaking but very beautiful at the same time.

I am a true romantic at heart so this story was a real treat to work on. Michele, who made the submission, told me she visited the graves of the two lovers, the main characters in this story.
She also told me that part of this story is actually true and that the lives of these two lovers are depicted on the marble coffins where they lay to rest. The truth in part of this story makes it even more tragic.

I can only hope the lovers are reunited after death and that their souls may never be parted again.
If the Dutch proverb is true they might be together now, as the saying goes: "liefde overwint alles" (love overcomes all), maybe even death.....

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: Inês de Castro
Submitted by: Michele Mendonça
Country: Portugal

Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Portugal, a true love story marvelled and shocked the hearts of all.

It all started when the prince, heir to the crown, married a Portuguese princess, fell in love with a beautiful Spanish maiden named Inês de Castro, who had just arrived in court to be the queen's maid.

So strong was the love he felt for her and so in love she found herself since the day she first saw him that they started to meet in the secret places of the castle and on the beautiful gardens and fields and hills of the kingdom. Not only tree and river, moon and light witnessed the fire and passion between these two, so in love, but soon peasants and warriors alike took a notice of such joy as well. And before long the news of this forbidden love reached the ears of the king himself. Now the king was not happy, oh he wasn’t! He ordered his son to stop seeing this woman. But the prince didn’t. He had found true love and promised her they would always be together, forever.

One day the sad news of the princes's death spread throughout the kingdom and all took pity on her. The prince was disturbed with her death but inside of him a joy and a hope was born with the thought of him marrying Inês, so big was his love. He asked his father the king, he begged. And three times he was refused. Three times his dream was shattered. The King forbade him to ever see Inês again as she was not a suitable wife for the future King to be.

The prince's sadness grew but he never stopped meeting beautiful Inês. How could she not be the one for him, just because she was not Portuguese, he asked himself. He believed they were meant to be together. They were secretly happy and soon fathering children. When the rumour of these children reached the King's ears he became afraid that the future of the Portuguese crown would be in risk. So the King ordered the murder of Inês de Castro.

And so the legend tell us that when the prince heard of Inês death, his heart sunk into such pain and despair that he declared war against his own father. He stated that he had secretly married Inês so it was his wife who was murdered while she should have been the lawful queen. He then had her body exhumed and in a macabre ceremony of love, death and loyalty he forced his entire court to swear allegiance to her as a queen and kiss her lifeless hand.

And so they all did. And it is told that the Prince made a promise that they would be together till the end of the world so they were both buried, together in exquisitely sculpted marble coffins depicting scenes of their lives. And this is true for I have seen the graves myself. According to the legend, at the Last Judgment, Peter and Inês will look at each other as they rise from their graves.

Food and Folklore: Ainar (a Libanese herbal tea)

2009-09-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

This week I suddenly realized how I have neglected my blog. Yes I am posting regularly, but I only write about my "Tell me a story" project, while there are so many other interesting subjects related to folklore I could and should write about. Such as food.

I started the 'Food and Folklore' section a little while ago with the intention to share recipes which in some way relate to folklore. Be it a traditional dish served during Christmas or a cookie connected to a urban-myth. However, the downloadable recipes accompanied by my illustrations costs me a lot of work to create, too much actually.
As I do love to search for recipes and write about them, as well as trying out them myself, I decided to continue with the food and folklore section. But, this time without the illustrations, as it just was too much work. However, every recipe will still be accompanied by a photograph so you all can see the result before you start experimenting yourself!

This post will be all about the food and drinks connected with childbirth. While searching for these recipes I noticed a most curious thing, they all had one thing in common, one ingredient; anise. Though it surprised me that this herb appears all over the world, it did not surprise me that it is so popular. Anise has a long history in folk belief. In folk magic it was believed to ward off evil and even to exorcise demons. In folk medicine it was prescribed for women who just gave birth as anise was said to stimulate the production of mother's milk. Now, the second explanation seems to be more logical then the first,one.
But one must keep in mind how frightened people were in the past, and sometimes still are, for witches, demons and other evil. It has been believed for a very long time that diseases were caused by demons. So to keep your child healthy it was important to keep the devils away. There are many traditions connected to the exorcism of demons such as laying a silver scissors beneath the cradle or binding a piece of red ribbon to the child. Even a child's rattle was meant for this purpose as the sound was supposed to scare the demons.
Anise, for this same reason, was processed in drinks and food.

The following recipe comes from Libanon. This tea was traditionally served to all guests when a child was born. I have heard this is a more modern version as in the past there were two different recipes; one for boys and one for girls. This tea was served just after a girl was born. But when a boy was born rice pudding was served. The birth of a boy, as in many cultures, was "more important" then the birth of a girl and thus when a son was born they served the more exclusive rice pudding.
This custom has changed through time however, at many places and this tea is now drunk wether a girl or boy is born.

Oh, yes and if you leave away the walnuts it is also said to be a great remedy against pain in the stomach!

Ainar (Libanese herbal tea)

Ingredients:

one and a quarter liters of water
two quills of cinnamon
a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg
a quarter teaspoon of ground anise
a quarter teaspoon of ground allspice

As garnish: chopped walnut

Boil the herbs for 20 minutes. Sift through a piece of cloth and garnish each cup of tea with some copped walnut. Sweeten as you prefer with honey or sugar.

(the recipe was adopted from: The Arabic Cookbook, written by Janny Moor)

Tell me a story; Lidérccsirke

2009-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

The following story is quite something else, apart from all the previous stories I have published on my blog. It is more or less a description of a magical ritual but not the most usual ritual I must say. It gives a detailed description on how to receive a "Lidérccsirke", a demonical ghost chicken which fulfills all wishes of its owner. Well, almost all wishes as there are some exeption....

If anyone ever succeeded in hatching one of these eggs, please do let me know, as I would love to know what this "devil chicken" looks like for real. I'll bet it is one ugly little bastard.

The story was given to me by Daniel, who himself also made an artwork depicting this creature which you can view here.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: Lidérccsirke
Submitted by: Daniel Kristofy
Country: Hungary

The "Lidérccsirke" (ghost chicken) is a Hungarian (and Slowakian) creature depicted in folklore . It is said that when a black chicken's first egg is smaller than regular, it will become a ghost chicken. It is important that one will hatch the egg himself, or else it will bring death upon his family. The chicken, once fully grown, fulfills its owner's wishes, except wishes for money because old Hungarian money had a cross printed on the back of the coin and as this chicken is somehow a devil's manifest, it could not touch holy materials.
If someone does not want to own a "Lidérccsirke" they can get rid of it by throwing the unhatched egg over one's shoulder, doing so while standing in front of the house.

Tell me a story; Die Mittagsfrau

2009-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have only started this project a little while ago and yet, here we are, with already the sixth story and illustration. Time does flies.....

The story I am going to share with you was submitted by Christin. Though 'her people' have lived in Germany for quite some time they are of Slavic origin. These people, who cherish their own songs, traditions, native tongue and legends are named the Sorben.
They are a minority and Christin told me that within a 100 or 200 years from now her people will probably no longer exist in Germany as the old are dying and the young are moving out and raising their children with German traditions.

Though her culture is slowly disappearing there are still many stories and songs which are not yet forgotten. One of these stories is "Die Mittagsfrau."

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: Die Mittagsfrau
Submitted by: Christin Hanusch
Country: Germany

In former times the Sorben, who came from poor rural families, lived from agriculture and cattle breeding. Back in those days people had to work very hard to make a living. In the summertime, when the sun burned high in the sky, many were on the fields harvesting grain. When the sun was at its zenith, in local vernacular named; "zur Mittagszeit" (midday), one was supposed to return home for a small pause. It was said, otherwise the Mittagsfrau (midday woman) would appear and with her sickle cut off the heads of anyone still working or, at least, leave them behind in a very confused state.

One day, a young women was working on the fields. As she was completely in the rhythm of her work, she did not notice the time passing by and before she knew the clock struck twelve. When she finally stopped she noticed there was no living soul working on the fields anymore and the sun was burning at its highest point. Suddenly, out of nowhere a tall and slim woman appeared by her side. She was dressed in a white, linen cloth which flew in the wind as she came closer. When the woman in white was slowly raising her sickle in the air, the girl knew her time had come. However, she did not want to die and in fear she begged the women for a last chance.
The Mittagsfrau stopped for a moment and then asked the girl if she could tell her all she knew about flax-processing. This the girl did and she told the Mittagsfrau all that her mother had ever taught her about the process.
While talking, time went by and before they knew the church's clock struck one. As noon-time past the white shape vanished and no trace was to be found anymore of the Mittagsfrau.

She would not catch her prey that day.

The Snake Amulet; a brief history on folk-belief and legend

2009-09-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

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At last, I found some time to write a piece about my latest handmade amulet. To write about serpent-lore and the snake in talismanic-magic is quite a task as the information on this subject is endless. But at the other hand, it is also very vague and there are many different theories concerning the subject. This all makes it almost impossible to write a good blogpost about this subject as my space is limited. Nevertheless I will give it a try.

I cherish a great fascination for the snake in folklore and legend. Its is such a prominent image in art, folklore and religion all over the world. Though its appearance is common it is never the same. The snake, because of its killing nature and poisonous bites became a symbol of death. But as the snake renews its skin periodically it is also a symbol of resurrection and life at the same time. Though the snake as a symbol of death is a very interesting topic (worth an entire book), this post will be about its positive side, namely; its association with life and resurrection. As it is this part which plays an important role in how the snake made itself so popular as an amulet.

Health

The snake, as a symbol of life, also became a symbol of health. There are hundreds of folk-remedies which contain snake parts. Especially snake fat was supposed to be a great remedy for all sorts of ailments. For example: the famous Chinese snake-oil, which has been very popular in America for quite some time, is supposed to be a great remedy for painful joints. Though its popularity in the west has decreased snake-oil is still sold in many traditional Chinese pharmacy-stores.
In ancient Egypt people believed that snake fat allowed bald men to grow hair and today in Israel you can get snake massages. The crawling motion of the creatures on your body is supposed to be very healthy and relaxing. But, probably the most fascinating remedy of all must be the pulverized, dried, snake skin as a cure for snake bites. Like said before the snake skin was a symbol of resurection and life, hence the reason people considered it a great remedy against the deadly poison. This shows us once more how death and life came together in the appearance of the snake.

And of course there is the Greek myth about Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Koronis. From a distance Asclepius observes a snake which carries some herbs. With these herbs he cures another snake which was fatally wounded. Asclepius from then on had the knowledge how to "cure" death. He used this knowledge several times and brought back people from the death. The gods, of course, were furious at him. Because his actions would make him a man equal to the gods. Zeus therefor had to kill him to prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal.
In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals. Non-poisonous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. Nowadays the serpent-entwined staff ,the symbol of Asclepius, is still seen in many medical emblems in the west.

Not only in the West snakes were associated with health, it is said that Buddha once changed himself into a Naga (mythical creature, half human, half snake) to heal people.

Though I am certain that among some people snakes are still killed for their supposed healing powers, in general (especially in the west), the killing of animals became taboo. As with many old remedies which once contained animal- (or human-) parts, medicines made of snake slowly disappeared. However the snake as a symbol of life and health remained and thus wearing a snake amulet was supposed to give you a good health. In some cultures it is believed to protect you against snake bites.

Love, Fertility and sexuality

Closely related to life is birth. So it will not be a surprise the snake also accompanies goddesses associated with birth and fertility. One of these goddesses was Eileithyia, the Cretan goddess of child-birth. In a cave, where she was supposedly born, named; The cave of Eileithyia she was worshipped for a very long time. The Greeks worshipped her as well. According to Pausanias, a Greek traveller and geographer, there was a shrine at Olympia sacred to Eileithyia. A virgin-priestess guarded the place and took care of a serpent that she offered honey cakes and water.
Interesting is that in Ugarit, an old Syrian city, there was an tradition by which the groom offered his bride a snake (or some sort of pastry in the shape of a snake) after the wedding. It would not surprise me if this tradition is related to some sort of fertility goddess, to ensure pregnancy.
Cookies in the shape of snakes, named Koerabithes, can still be found in Greece where it is said to be a favorite delicacy among young lovers. I have also seen antique wedding-rings in the shape of snakes.

Other gods and goddesses of fertility depicted as snakes or accompanied by snakes are; the Assyrio-Babylonic Lakhmu and lakhamu, a male and female serpent who gave birth to heaven and earth, the Celtic god of fertility Cernunnos, who was depicted as a horned serpent and the Aztec Earth-Mother, Coatlicue who wore a skirt made of serpents.

In some cultures the snake is also associated with sexuality. We all know those sailors tattoos of women who are scantly dressed and instead have a lot of snakes wrapped around their bodys. These tattoo' were supposed to give a reflection of the wild and untamable nature of women. That a snake was part of these tattoos was no coincidence. Like I said in the beginning the snake also has a "bad" reputation as a seducer, impostor and killer.
In Christian tradition it was the snake who seduced Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit (interesting note is that the forbidden fruit is often depicted in many artworks as an apple, which is also a symbol of love and sexuality). Eve exposed her "true nature" by following the snake's advice and images of women with snakes often refer to this story.

These days snake blood is believed to be a great afrodisiacum in Asian countries and is sold at many places.
Though we don't offer snakes honey cakes anymore or worship the fertility goddesses, amulets of snakes are still believed sometimes to give fertility and attract love.

Wisdom

As the snake personifies all facets of life, he was considered wise as well. After all he knew all the secrets of life and death. Living among the gods, or in some cases being a god, made him a divine animal.
Athene, the Greek goddess was sometimes depicted with a snake as an emblem of her wisdom.
Though the snake was considered wise he was feared more then loved, as he often had the habit to use his wisdom against humanity. Was it not the snake of Eden who used his knowledge to make Eve commit a sin? But not only in Christianity the snake has a bad reputation. In the epic Mahabharata, the Nagas (deities depicted as half human, half snake) are often described as the most evil of all while they play a important role in heroic quests. Maybe it is therefor the snake was considered wise, as he knew ALL, not just the good, but the evil as well.

Because of this reputation many people thought carrying an image of the snake would reveal them secrets of life and would help them to make decisions in difficult times.

Magic and the Supernatural

Another interesting thing is the role of the snake in magic. As the snake was both good and evil, death and life, it was used in white magic as well as in black magic.
An example of white magic can be found among the people of Tuscany, where it was said; "that if one has something in the eye or throught, spit three times upon the ground and say":

"O grande Serpent
lo ti baccio il volto!"

("O great Serpent
I kiss thy Face!")

Amongst the same people it was a longtime custom to paint snakes with the head pointed down upon the wall. This was believed to ward of evil, including the evil eye. And indeed we can find many amulets depicting snakes which are believed to give protection against the evil eye.

Someone once told me that in South Africa people wear little amulets of snakes to protect themselves against water-snakes. The snakes who live in the water are sometimes believed to be many a reincarnation of Death. These deities can be malevolent and when people fall in the water it is likely they will drown you. Thus wearing an amulet should protect against these evil spirits.

There is among the Xhosa (an African tribe) a curious belief. This belief concerns the "Icanti" (love Snake), this snake is supposed to make woman irresistible to men, hence the reason why many would like to have one. To get such snake one most swallow a special medicine, from which the ingredient are only known to those of the tribe. This you must do every day, for a month. You will then start vomiting and in the vomit you will find a little snake. Next you have to take the little creature to the river, where it will grow. Once it is fully grown the woman puts it in a pot and keeps it at her home.
It is said that the Icanti is especially loved by prostitutes who make good money because of them!

Another example of the snake's magical powers: it was believed in Europe, for quite some time, the blood and fat of a snake enabled you to understand the language of animals. Some practicers of Hoodoo still believe eating the brains of a snake will give you conjuring skills. Moreover the snake is actually the center of many hoodoo practices and serpent-worship plays a very important role in the Hoodoo culture. Alas I do not have the space to write more about this interesting subject, maybe in a later post....

Though I have only given a few examples of white "snake-magic" it is clear how health, love and wisdom are recurring topics in these forms of magic all over the world.

The amulet

To get back to our starting point; an amulet depicting a snake is thus believed among many people to preserve magical powers and it would pass on all these characteristics upon its wearer.
Nevertheless, many people , especially in the west, have lost faith in the "old religion" and the snake as an amulet is now not much more then a decorative piece.

I however, can not look upon a snake amulet as just a fancy jewel. I am no snake-worshipper but I have great respect for its long tradition and I look with admiration upon this creature. There is something mystic about this creature, something which, despite my knowledge about folklore and magic, I can not define.

Making this amulet was thus very special for me, I guess you can say it was a sort of "tribute" to the snake.

O, incase you were wondering about the other features of this necklace, the red felted tie is not just mere coincidence. In the magic of the Southern Europe, (and among many other people as well) red is a very powerful color which symbolizes life and gives protection. Especially red wool is supposed to be very powerful and is a lucky charm on itself. The hand as well is a common image on amulets which function is mostly to ward of evil, depending on its position. But that is a whole other story, something for another time......

For those interested, this one of a kind snake amulet is now (or tomorrow...) available at my Etsy Shop!

Tell me a story; Mamiña

2009-08-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

Here's another one. This story, from far away Chile is submitted by Lenka.
It was one out of many stories she told me, Chile is a goldmine of Folklore and Legend. I would like to illustrate all of them as they were all very interesting stories. But then the book would be about the folklore of Chile, and interesting as it might be, that is not my aim at the moment.

The following short story might be from the other side of the world but it touches the European Catholic saintlore in many ways.
This summer, I have visited a source which is said to grant the same miraculous remedies as the lagoon in the story. The source I have visited was in the French Alsacian region, a long way from the Andes-mountains. There are more similarities as both of the main characters are princesses. But there the French story deverts somewhat as the French Saint-Odile is nowadays revered as a saint while the Inca princess is a princess of legend.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: Mamiña, the girl of my eyes (or Maminia)
Submitted by: Lenka Brejcha Avila
Country: Chile

It is said, an Incan princess who was losing her eyesight was brought to a lagoon between the Andes-mountain ranges and the Tamarugal-pampas. The princess was submerged in the water several times, and shortly after, she began to notice that she was regaining her vision. From that moment on, that lagoon was called Mamiña, wich means as much as "Girl of my eyes" in Quechua, Incan language.
For years the lagoon saw the arrival of Incan caravans, whose only intention was to find relief and remedy in its waters.

Tell me a story; The Ankoù

2009-08-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a story which will guarantee you some sleepless nights!

The Ankoù, the Breton personification of Death, is a sinister figure in Breton folklore. Every cultures has its own interpretations of Death, but many of those characters are nothing compared to the Ankoù. Many stories are connected with this figure but I will share with you the version which was send to me by Marie-Véronique, a Breton, true at heart.

Marie-Véronique told me she had first heard the stories of the Ankoù from her grandmother. As these stories play such an important role in the Breton culture she soon became more and more interested in the subject.

Marie made it very clear to me that the stories about the Ankoù are no mere stories, but a part of people's faith and believes. They are known by all and are part of every Breton.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: The Ankoù
Submitted by: Marie-Véronique

Country: Brittany

An Ankoù is the personification of Death, he looks like a skeleton, he wears a black hat, a black coat and he holds a scythe. The Ankoù travels in an old barrow with grinding wheels which you can hear from afar, but you will not be able to see him. His assistants are called the black men.
When an Ankoù reaps a soul away , one of the assistant must carry the soul which looks like a dark, black dog to the "Hell Gate", a place which is called in Breton language; "Yeun Elez", and is situated in a marsh in a dale in the Montagne d'Arrée. To this place, no one dares to go, not even in full daylight. The Black man must throw the black dog in the Yeun Elez. But the dog often barks, bites and resists.

Sometimes, some people who are doomed to die soon will meet an Ankou on their way, he can take the apparence of a rich man, or a poor woman, and give you an appointment which you will accept because you are unaware of the danger; When the time comes of the meeting, it is the grinding song of the rusty wheels you can hear in your farm yard, by then it is too late...

NEW! Halloween and Witch stencils.

2009-08-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

The company Crooked River Stencils is currently offering stencils featuring my silhouette designs. These stencils are great for signs, decorating boxes etc. Below you can see some examples.

You can find these designs and others here. I hope you like them!

For those who are interested, these two designs are also available as shadow puppets. You can find them at my Etsy shop.

Tell me a story; Knight Coenraedt

2009-08-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight I would like to share with you the story of Knight Coenraedt. It was submitted by Myrthe Tielman who works as a tour guide at De Haar Castle in Haarzuilens, Holland. She explained to me she tells this story regulary during her guided tours.

The former castle is about a hundred years old, but more interesting is that the castle was build on the ruins of a medieval castle, which has been inhabited from 1200 till 1800.
The story which Myrthe shared with me is from these days.

Please take your time to read this beautiful story about a knight who became a victim of his own pride and vanity.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

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Story Title: Knight Coenraedt

Submitted by: Myrthe Tielman
Country: the Netherlands

A long, long time ago, in those days when knights still rode around on their horses, princesses were locked up in stone towers and ghosts roamed around at night, there was a castle, somewhere in the middle of this country . The castle was named 'Huys te Haer' and in this castle lived a knight. He was called Coenraedt.
Everyone knows the stories of handsome, noble and chivalrous knights, but Coenraedt was nothing like that. In fact Coenraedt was a very mean and evil man. Coenraedt thought of no one else but himself. He was arrogant, he believed himself to be the most important person and other people were nothing but common folk. When the villagers had problems, he refused to offer help. He was the Knight after all and the others were nothing more than farmers and workers.

One day knight Coenraedt pulled on his harness and went for a ride on his horse. He passed the gateway, crossed the moat and rode around in the surroundings of the castle the whole day long, to make as many people as possible see him, and see how important a knight he really was. Eventually, when it was getting darker, he returned to the castle. He was almost home when he heard a voice speaking:

"Knight Coenraedt, Knight Coenraedt! I am so tired, I am so hungry and I am so cold. May I sleep in your stable?" The voice said.

"Who dares to speak my name!" Knight Coenraedt called savagely and he looked around to see who was there. He even found his name to important to be spoken by a peasant.

For a moment there was silence but then the voice was heard again.

"Knight Coenraedt, I am so hungry, I am so cold and I am so tired. May I sleep in your stable?"
Knight Coenraedt looked around again and now discovered the man. He was only a poor pilgrim.

"You are so tired, so hungry and you are so cold? " Repeated he sneering
"And what do I have to do with that? I am knight Coenraedt and I am far to important to care about poor pilgrims!"

After saying this, Coenraedt fiercely rode away on his horse. But knight Coenraedt was in such a rush that he rode too fast. While crossing the bridge, just before the gateway his horse slipped and both, the horse and rider ended up in the moat which surrounded the castle.
The horse was later found back in the pastures, but the harness wearing knight Coenraedt was never found again. The villagers sometimes say; "during the evening you can still hear an echo near the moat. The ghost of knight Coenraedt still roams round at this place, forever repeating the words of people passing by. This is his punishment for sneering at a poor pilgrim."

Pride comes before the fall

Tell me a story; The albino cannibals of Los Gatos

2009-07-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

The second story I have illustrated for my 'Tell me a story' project, is quite special. I'll bet not many (if any) of you know this legend.
It was send to me by Tommy Gleason (thank you so much Tommy!), who grew up in the area and remembered the story his uncle used to tell him when he was a kid.
It was such a delight to work on this drawing, though I have to admit it was quite the task....

I will not say more, just read the story for yourself. It is absolutely fantastic!

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(click picture for bigger view)

Story Title: The albino cannibals of Los Gatos

Submitted by: Tommy Gleason
Country: Rough & Ready (US)

I grew up in a town called Los Gatos. It used to be called Forbes Mill, but with all the cats in the hills (mountain lions) loudly meowling all the time, our earlier locals decided to give it that quaint Spanish name. Anyways, on the main road exiting town there's a spot where two statues are set to the entrance to a side road. We used to drive by there all the time. These two tall cats, twice as tall as any man, seem to guard this dark road up into the overgrown hills.

"What's up there?" I once asked my uncle Charlie. "Oh, you don't want to go up there!" said he, suddenly turning and looking at me with wide-set eyes, a look of genuine fear on his face. At once he had my full attention, my ears listening intently. "Why?" said I, "What's up there?" "Well..." said he, "you can go up for quite a ways... At first it's sunny and bright, not too many trees." He seemed to wander off, quiet now, thinking... "So," said I, "what's wrong with that?" "What's wrong with that!?!," he said, "If they catch you, they'll EAT you!!"

I then wondered just what it could be that he was talking about. "But the bears... They're gone! And the mountain lions aren't really around any more, are they?" said I. "Oh, it's not the cats or the bears that'll get ya," said uncle C, it's THEM!!"

But who's "them?" said I, now starting to wonder if perhaps he was just pulling one on me. Uncle Charlie slowly looked me over, evidently seeing the scam I was beginning to consider. "The people up there..." he said in a hushed whisper... they're... they're strange. Something wrong with them." I leaned in closer, not wanting to miss a word. Uncle Charlie knew how to play this 9 year-old kid. "What's wrong with them?" said I. "They usually only come out at night," said he, "but if you get into a real shady area under those trees, they'll come out to get ya!" My eyes widening, I stared at him expectantly. "They're all white, with pink eyes," he said. "They're really, really tall too. They're called 'Albinos,' and they love the dark. They'll sneak up quietly on you, and if they catch you, they'll drag you away to a feast with all the other Albinos."
Still I said not a word, my thoughts now full of horrid imaginings of what might happen to me... "At the feast they prepare a big pile of sticks and leaves," said uncle Charlie, "and they'll drag you to it and put you up on it, all tied up. You can't get away, there's too many of them, and they're always looking at you with their hungry pink eyes!" I shivered inside. Something made me look back out the rear window at the gathering darkness, wondering if they'd come out to get me. Uncle C must've known what I was thinking too, because then he said "Yes, and if you play outside too late, and it gets dark, you might not see them coming... They'll catch you. They'll drag you away up into them dark hills... It doesn't matter how hard you scream, nobody, but nobody DARES to come out to face them. Then they'll stack up their wood, drag you up and tie you to it, and light up their bonfire. They'll cook you alive. And then it's probably good that you're dead, because just before they eat you, their pink eyes open wide, and they start singing...

'Blooody Bones, Bloody Bones, I'm gonna eat me some BLOOOODY BONES!!!!'"

Uncle Charlie had woven his words well. I now filled in all the blanks to my wonderings with a curdling fear, knowing that if I didn't get inside before dark, there would be more than simply the boogieman to contend with.

I grew up with that, the telling and the re-telling of the Albinos. The questioning of where else they might live. The look of fear when I heard something unexpected in the dark outside.....

Tommy was so kind to give me some links to other websites and pictures he had found on the internet. Apparently he wasn't the only one who grew up with this tale.

Another legend told about this place: Link
Some History: Link
Pictures: Link

Following the yellow brick road; My new column at FaeZine

2009-07-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Great news, the summer 2009 issue of FaeZine is online! Faezine is a wonderful new E-zine filled with inspiring, interesting, enlightening stories written by artists, writers, musicians, artisans and believers.

"Nice, but why do you mention it in your blog and what does it have to do with you?" You might think.
Well, apart from the fact the e-zine is just wonderful I am delighted to announce I am one of their new columnists! In my column, Following the yellow brick road, I tell about the places I visited which are related to folklore and legends. Each of the stories will be accompanied by photographs and an illustration.

So, wait no longer and head over to FaeZine.....

Tell me a story; The white deer

2009-07-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Finally, the project has officially started! After a lot of promotion and correspondence the first drawing for the "Tell me a story..." project is ready. From now on once or twice a week a new drawing accompanied by the story will be posted on my blog. Please forgive any lapses in grammar and spelling as most stories submitted come from non-English speaking countries. The stories published on my blog are the 'rough-versions' and are not yet completely edited. I really hope you all will enjoy the stories and illustrations. Hopefully many of you will follow me while this project grows and eventually all stories and drawings will get published in a book.

NOTE: would you also like to see your story get illustrated? please check out my previous blog post here and read the guidelines.

(click picture for bigger view)

Story Title: The white deer

Submitted by: Chloé
Country: France

Originally this story came from an old French song/ballad probably first written during the (late) Middle Ages as, at this time, cruel fairy tales and legends were "fashionable". There are, of course, several versions of this tale.

It starts with a young lady and her mother going to the woods together. The mother was joyful but her daughter looked rather sad and thoughtful.
"Why are you always sighing Marguerite?" asked the mother.
"I've kept a secret for long and never found the courage to tell you about it before. During the day I'm a girl but at night I change into a white deer, hunted by barons and princes. But the worst of them all is my own brother Renaud. Please mother, go promptly and tell him to stop his dogs and hunters at least until tomorrow at noon.

And so did her mother: "Where are your dogs Renaud and your gentle hounds?"
"They are in the woods mother, hunting down the white deer"

"Stop them my son! I beg you. Stop them immediately!"

He ordered to call back the hounds and to end the chase. Three times the copper cornet called but when it sounded for the third time the white deer was already dead.

"Let's prepare the deer for tonights dinner" Renaud then ordered.

As soon as the skinner started to cut her in pieces, he saw not a white deer but a fair and pale maid. But he remembered his instructions and decided to finish his work anyway.

Later on the banquet was ready and in a crowded room all the barons and princes had come.

"We are now all together except my beloved sister Marguerite..." started Renaud.

Suddenly he was interrupted by the quiet but cold voice of the young girl.

"Oh, don't wait for me, I was the first one to sit. My head is in a dish, my heart hangs on a hook. My blood is spread all over the kitchen floor, my bones are burning on the coal. It's me who was served for dinner, I'm the one you've been eating."

More soon!

Magic in a Box ; Medieval Catholic Amulets

2009-07-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

Of all amulets and talismans known to me, the Catholic pieces are among the most interesting. Maybe it is because they do not only reflect peoples faith and hopes but also are a great source on history. These amulets and talismans are rarely original and are a combination between Ancient (heathen) believes and Christian symbolism. In this way they could be seen as a "religious time-line", showing us the developement from heathen faiths into Christian (folk-) believes today. Though this subject is certainly worth a good conversation I do not intend to go further on discussing this subject at the moment. But, I would like to share with you one of my new amulets based upon one of these old Catholic pieces.

The picture showing above is my "reproduction" of an amulet found in a woman's grave in the cemetery of Szentes Nagyhegy, east Hungary. The original was a small, silver, book-like amulet depicting a cross up front which has never been opened, thus the contains will remain unknown to us. Luckily many more of these little "boxes" were found through time and we know now that they were meant for talismanic use. These boxes, which came in many shapes; some of them being square and others being round, were most of the time filled with devotional objects. Common objects were; a Paternoster (prayer), images of Saints, but also herbs and gems which were supposed to contain magical powers to ward of evil, or even the devil himself.
Next to this, these boxes were also used for carrying along objects collected from the holy places pilgrims visited, reliques. This could be graveyard dirt from some grave where a Saint was buried or a piece of cloth which Jezus was supposed to have worn during his last day, really any sort of relic would do. These relics, sold by the churches, were a very important part of amulets as it was believed that the power of a holy person would transfer to anything he or she had touched during her life and therefor contained healing and protective powers.

These amulets were just as powerful as crucifixes and for a long time generally accepted by the Catholic church.
Of course I don't need to explain that wearing herbs, gems and images of god(s) was something new. Neither is the concept of taking small pieces of dirt or water from these so called holy places. These sort of amulets were seen among all races and are as old as humankind. They are most certainly not of Christian origin.
Nevertheless they make beautiful amulets and though not original, Christianity did give it's own very interesting interpretation to the contains of these boxes.

The little box I made is filled with a tiny bundle of Saint James Wort, known as one of the most protective and healing herbs in Christian Folk-medicine and Magic. It was supposed to protect against all evil influences such as demons, ghosts and witches. Also widely accepted was the 'fact' the devil himself was terrified of this herb and had no control over those who wore this herb as an amulet. It was especially favorable among pilgrims who ventured to the Holy Land.

As mentioned, the Paternoster (The Lord's Prayer) was used for talismanic use as well, as were many other biblical texts and prayers. The funny thing about the Paternoster is that the word "Paternoster" itself was supposed to have magical powers. Therefore many amulets are simply just showing this word instead of the entire prayer. When you examine different Catholic amulets you will notice that on many of them the word "Paternoster is written somewhere in a corner or on the back of the amulet.
Last, a small rock-crystal was added to the box which was considered a fortunate amulet to wear for many reasons. But to stay with our subject I will only mention those which are connected with this amulet.

For this amulet the rock-crystal is used for protection against evil, just like Saint James Wort, it was supposed to protect against demons, ghosts and witches. Next to this it was also praised for its power to keep one from going mad. Interesting to note is that madness was often associated with demonic possession of a kind.
The rock crystal had also the reputation of a "burial-stone" in Christian Mythology, as it is said; "To him that overcometh...I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it." (Rev 2: 17) Hence the reason why the rock-crystal (also a white stone) became so immense popular among Christians.

Albeit the contains of this box will be a very protective amulet against Evil and all the influences evil can have on the human body and mind!

For those who are interested, the amulet will soon be available at my Etsy shop! (Here you can also read more on how the amulet was made.)

Food and Folklore: Blue Fingers

2009-07-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Today, a new topic is added to my folklore blog, namely: Food & Folklore! This part of my blog is all about food which is related to folklore in some way. Have you always wanted to know how certain dishes got their name, the urban-myths connected with food in the present, how the birth of a child was traditionally celebrated with tea in Lebanon, or why it is that they eat cross buns in England during Easter, then you are at the right place.
At this part of my blog I will not only tell you about the history and legends connected with food but also allow you to download the recipes (for free), so you can make them yourself. All recipes are accompanied by small illustrations depicting the tales behind them. So it will be fun to collect them!

The first recipe I give you is from Dutch origin. It tells us how a cookie named blue finger got it's curious name....

(Blue Fingers)

The Story:

Blue fingers is the name of a Dutch delicacy, but also the nickname for people who come from Zwolle, a city in Holland. How these people got their nickname is explained in the following tale:

Once, two Dutch cities, Kampen and Zwolle were true rivals. They deprived one another of their cattle and money and when they met one another it was almost certain a fight would ensue.
This went on for a long time, although sometimes there was also a moment of "peace" between them.
It was during such a period the people of Zwolle went to 'governing-board' of Kampen to ask if they wanted to buy the church bells from Zwolle. Their clock tower had burned down and so the bells were of no use to them. As they were very poor they could really use the money.
Kampen agreed on one condition; they could pay in any currency they liked. Those of Zwolle made no problem of this and they closed the deal, but would regret it very soon.
Kampen did pay, but in the smallest currency which existed at that time. So, the people of Zwolle had to count coins for days on end, maybe even weeks. It is said that their fingers got blue from counting all these copper coins. And of course the people of Kampen were delighted because of their prank.

The cities are no longer rivals but the name, blue fingers, survived. Nowadays it is the name of a cookie which reminds us of this curious event which happened a long time ago...

Download the recipe here: Link
(right click, save as...)

Tell me a story - ( Free Prints ! )

2009-07-01T14:07:00.001-07:00

Your grandmother always told you not to venture near this dark, ruined house on the edge of the forest. At first she wasn't too particular why you shouldn't but when you asked her some years later she told you this tale of legend and superstition. I am interested in these stories and I know others will be as well.

About the "Tell me a Story"Project:

The project's goal is to collect enough fascinating, known and unknown folk tales from all over the world to fill an illustrated book. Instead of taking stories from books the project aims to 'collect' these stories directly from the source: the people, you. On a regular basis Isabella will illustrate a submitted story. He or she who submitted this story will receive a free print of the illustration. Eventually all these illustrations combined, of course accompanied by the original stories, will be published in a book.
Isabella will update her blog regularly on the progress of the "Tell me a Story" project.

How to participate in the project:

Participating in the project is rather simple: Send your story! Multiple submission allowed. As not all stories will be illustrated sending in more then one story will enlarge the chance of one of them being illustrated.
If your story is chosen you will receive a free print. Next to this, both story and illustration will be published in the book. Please state beforehand if you want your name and hometown to be mentioned or rather wish to remain anonymous.

What am I looking for:

Every story connected with folklore is welcome. This can be anything: maybe there is a haunted cemetery or mansion in your home-town, or you remember this fantastic story your grandmother told you when you were young. Is Bloody Mary haunting your mirror as well or do you know another urban myth which circulates at your school. Personal encounters, rituals or superstitions are very interesting as well. This story can be traditional or modern as well. I am looking forward to every story you will surprise me with, and not only me, the readers of the blog as well.

A few 'rules' and notes:

When you are ready to submit the story send me an email.
There is no word limit or anything but don't be too comprehensive, I intend to reserve a single page for each story.
Please keep in mind this is no writing-contest, I am looking for folk tales, not stories made up.
Everyone who submits will receive an answer, it might take a few days as I can be fairly busy now and then, but you will get a note in return from me for sure!
Once I have picked a story to illustrate, you will receive a small 'contract', nothing fancy, nothing scary just to have everything sure for the both of us.

About Isabella:
Isabella is a Dutch artist/illustrator who is hugely interested in...., no passionately about, portraying folklore, myths and legends. The "Tell me a story" project is thus something very close to her heart.

New Amulets!

2009-06-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

Three new amulets have arrived at my shop yesterday! For those who are interested you can purchase them through Etsy. (If you don't have an Etsy account you can also send me a message.) These amulets are based upon late medieval, Italian examples and are meant to ward of the Evil Eye.
For those who are not familiar with the Evil Eye, you can read the entire story in one of my previous posts, Here.

Hand of Glory

2009-06-21T11:13:00.001-07:00

Today I started working on a new series of drawings, namely; magical objects in folklore. I have made a couple of drawings before concerning this subject (which can be found here) but I wasn't all that satisfied about the result, so I thought I would give it another try. This time using much more black and leaving away the recipes. The first drawing is made after the famous story; 'The Hand of Glory'.

Hand of glory was the name given to the severed hand of a hanged man, which was carefully dried and prepared into a candle. It was a popular amulet among thieves as it was believed the hand of glory could open locks, make one invisible and bring the owners of a house in a deep sleep from which they could not awake until the hand/candle was removed from their sight. A little incantation is said to be used by thieves to increase the power of the amulet when they needed it the most. It goes as follows:

"Let those who rest, more deeply sleep;
Let those awake their vigils keep.
Oh, hand of glory, shed thy light
And guide us to our spoil tonight."

But not only thieves were accused of possessing such amulet. In several witch trials we can find evidence that the hand of glory was also believed to be a favorite object among so called witches. It was said they used to light these candles while brewing deathly potions and to be charged of possessing a hand of glory was a big accusation.

After reading this you might think the hand of glory was only seen among so called outlaw, but you are wrong. In folk medicine we can find examples of the use of such a hand to cure headaches, whooping-cough and even leprosy.
In fact it's powers were so highly valued that only its touch would be enough to cure the sickness.

How to create the amulet

There are several recipes on how to prepare the hand of glory, but the most detailed description is to be found in "Marvellous Secrets of the Natural and Cabalistic Magic of Little Albert" (1722). The recipe (though a bit shortened) goes as follows:

"Cut of the hand from a corpse which is still on the gibbet, preferable the right hand of a felon (better said, the hand which committed the crime). Wrap it carefully in a piece of shroud and squeeze out all fluids. The hand must then be pickled with salt, nitre, long peppers and 'zimit powder' and placed in an earthenware pot. Let it rest for two weeks and then take out the hand to let it dry in the sun.
The candle must be made of the fat of a hanged man combined with virgin-wax, 'ponie' (horse dung) and sesame. Place the candle between the fingers of the dead man's hand and lit to obtain it's magical properties."

It is funny that though, this is the most complete account given, most people only know the image of a hand which finger tops are on fire. This is not incorrect as there are other recipes in which it is said that after drying the hand one must lit the finger tops. And let be honest this gives a far more interesting picture then the hand holding a candle....

How to protect yourself against the evil influence of the Hand of Glory.

Though many powers were described to the use of the hand of glory it was not invincible. There is one recipe which could protect your house against the evil intentions of thieves and witches.
To protect yourself you must prepare an ointment from the gall of a black cat, the fat of a white hen and the blood of a screech-owl. Once this is done you must smear the ointment over the thresholds and other entrances to the house.

This all might sound disgusting to most of you, something I am not going to deny, but it is most certainly not rare for human/animal body parts and fluids to be used in folk medicine and magic. Fat, blood, teeth, skulls, hair, urine and bones are quiet common ingredients when you are looking in books on old healing methods. I know it's not that tasteful but it is most interesting matter to read about...

For those who are interested, prints are now available at my shop!

Saint Christopher

2009-06-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my trip to France last week and all the Saint-lore I encountered during my stay in the abbey of Sainte Odile I decided to make a talisman featuring a saint. And which saint is more popular for talismanic use then Saint Christopher as the Saint-patron of Travellers?

(click picture for bigger view)

I think the story of Saint Christopher is more or less known by most people but for those who are not familiar with this legend here follows a brief description:

According to the Legenda Sanctorum (better known as the Legenda Aurea), Saint Christopher was a Canaanite 12 cubits (18 ft) tall and with a fearsome face. While serving the king of Canaan, he took it into his head to go and serve the greatest king there was. He went to the king who was reputed to be the greatest, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. On thus learning that the king feared the devil, he departed to look for the devil. He came across a band of marauders, one of whom declared himself to be the devil, so Christopher decided to serve him. But when he saw his new master avoid a wayside cross and found out that the devil feared Christ, he left him and enquired from people where to find Christ. He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. Christopher asked him how he could serve Christ. When the hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher replied that he was unable to perform that service. The hermit then suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river, where many were perishing in the attempt. The hermit promised that this service would be pleasing to Christ.

After Christopher had performed this service for some time, a little child asked him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river became swollen and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty. When he finally reached the other side, he said to the child: "You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work." The child then vanished.

Christopher later visited the city of Lycia and there comforted the Christians who were being martyred. Brought before the local king, he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The king tried to win him by riches and by sending two beautiful women to tempt him. Christopher converted the women to Christianity, as he had already converted thousands in the city. The king ordered him to be killed. Various attempts failed, but finally Christopher was decapitated.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Detail of the image.

There are several other legends connected with Saint Christopher but it is this legend which made him ' famous' as the Saint-patron of travellers among the people. Because he served Christ, by leading him across the river and protecting him from the water, it was believed he protected travelers from water, storm and sudden death. In later times he was also said to be the protector of motorists. It must be noted though that the word traveller is also a symbolic term for anyone seeking Christ, as a 'spiritual traveller'. In this way Saint Christopher protects those who seek God during their 'earthly journeys' from seduction and all things evil.

The image of Saint Christopher became a popular talisman among people and it was said that he who looked at the image before leaving his home would always return safely. For the 'spiritual traveller' it meant that no matter what happened on his way he would always reach his destination; Heaven.

For those who are interested, the Saint Christopher amulet will soon be available at my Etsy shop. The amulet comes with a prayer and is packed in a little bundle so you can carry it safely on your way.

Margaret Barry

2009-05-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Everyone who loves folk music and ballads should know Margaret Barry. She was one of the best traditional Irish singers I know. I learned about her through Alan Lomax, one of the great field collectors of folk music. I still bless the day I came across this wonderful singer.

She was born in a family of travelers and musicians. In fact both of her parents were street musicians and so it was meant to be that Margaret Barry became a musician herself.

At the age of sixteen she left home and started street singing. It didn't took long before she became a well known figure in the Irish pubs of London, but also did she sing on market squares and even sporting events.

I highly recommend you to listen to following song as I am quite sure that any folk lover will fall in love....

Amulet against the Evil Eye

2009-05-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

Amulets and talismans are such fascinating topics. Through time I have collected many modern amulets and talismans. But unfortunatley, I have not been able yet to get my hands on an old (preferable Medieval or Roman) piece yet. I have read a lot of books on the subject though and have seen many beautiful pieces in museums, which gave me the idea of 'reproducing' them. I say 'reproducing' as I am not very fond of copying, so the amulets I make are merly based upon old examples. Taking the utmost care to keep the old symbols and historical features preserved within.

(click picture for bigger view)

The first piece I have made (showed above) is an amulet ment to protect the owner against the evil eye. I'm afraid that the evil eye is too complicated a subject to explain in a few sentences but I will do my best to give a good description of this phenomenon.

It was believed in former days, and in some countries still, that people could do harm simply by looking at a person.
We all know the saying, 'If looks could kill'. Well this was actually believed to be possible in the old days.
The look of certain people, who had the evil eye, was supposed to bring misfortune, sickness and even death upon their victims. This does not have to be a human, as the evil eye could also be fatal to cattle and homes.
The first glance was supposed to be the most 'fatal' so people invented all sorts of things, such as amulets, to distract the evil eye. Red ribbons, little bells, holy texts, images depicting horns, but also more vulgare objects such as little silver amulets in the form of a penis or vulva, were believed to ward of the evil eye and sometimes it was even believed that a simple handgesture could be enough to scare away the 'enemy'.
Another tactic was the use of shiny objects. The evil eye would be reflected and in this way the curse would be reverted. The image of an eye was also believed to be a very powerfull and protective amulet as it would have the same effect as a shiny object and turn back the curse. That's why many shields, especially those used on the battlefield, were decorated with eyes. Nowadays when you visit Turkey you can still find many blue-colored, glass beads formed in the shape of an eye which are sold at any touristic place.

But who are those people with the evil eye? Well many times it was said witches and wizards used their magical look to harm others. But you musn't think that these were the only people with a look that could kill. I have read accounts of simple country folk and even saints who were accused of having the evil eye. In fact many times the person couldn't help it, he or she was simply born with it and though they didn't meant to do any harm they couldn't help bringing doom upon another person.
Many times the evil eye is not associated with magic at all but with envy and the later was supposed to be the real problem.

It might be fun knowing that is wasn't just someones look that could harm. No, this sort of evil could also be transferd by touch and words. I have read about the so called evil hand and evil tongue and I have even read once about an evil foot!

Does the evil eye really exist?
Well, the belief in it certainly does. Luckly I don't have any personal experience with it but I do know people who claim they have. Once I met a person who told me about his sister, she was terribly sick. According to him his sister was so sick she was almost dying. Because no docter could help her they went to a 'white witch' who cured the girl from her sickness. This happend only a couple of years ago.
There are most certainly things happening which can not be explained, such as this story. Though most of it is not much more then a curious folk belief there are these rare cases in which modern science fail to give an explanation.

If those amulets work or not, it can never harm to have one, just in case.....

The 'Evil Eye Amulet' is now available at my Etsy Shop!

The man with the Hook - A Dutch Folk tale

2009-04-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

The man with the Hook, is one of the most haunting stories I know concerning water spirits. Ever since I laid my hands on a copy of this story, I have not been able to put the image of this monstrous spirit out of my mind. It must have been four years ago when I first read the story and now, at last, I have illustrated this wonderful, but slightly macabre, Dutch folk-tale.

The story as I first read it is as follows:

'The man with the hook is feared by all children. Most parents have only seen his green eyes below the water surface. They, who saw a bit more of this creature, say he has a black skin, webs between his toes and fingers and long hair which has run wild.
He drowns the children he has caught and then suck out the blood. Their souls are kept in pitchers turned upside down which can only be released when the pitchers are knocked over.
(J.R.W. Sinninghe)

(click picture for bigger view)

Water spirits were often used to scare children and keep them away from the water. I myself remember how my grandmother told me about 'de Bullebak'. Some grotesque frog which eats children after he has drowned them. Especially here, in Holland, where water is everywhere to be seen these stories played a big part in folklore.

The souls which are kept in pitchers or bottles are quite common in many tales about water spirits. So, I thought it was worth illustrating just this little detail as well.
I know it's not a pitcher as the story above describes but as I wanted the soul to be seen I decided it would be better to draw a bottle instead.

(click picture for bigger view)

It brings me so much joy to illustrate these creatures and their habits, but it frustrates me as well. As I know I will never be able to put all those beautiful myths and legends down on paper. There are thousands of these creatures dwelling in our rivers and at sea and only a handful which will reach the paper.

So who will be next? Jenny Greenteeth, Nickelman, Fossegrim, Morskoi Tsar, In-Guas, Awabi or......

PS; for those who are interested, prints accompanied with story are now available at my
Etsy shop!

Superstitions concerning Shadows

2009-04-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Shadow as a manifestation of the soul, and it's association with life and death.

Among most people we can find the belief that shadows are a representation of the soul or even being the soul itself. Darkness and chaos were believed to be the beginning of the world in many cultures and thus it was a small step for mankind to think that a shadow, as a reflection of darkness, kept life within itself.

It's not very odd that the people of the past have described so much power to shadows.

Just think back to your own childhood and the time when you first discovered your own shadow. You might remember how this black figure, which followed you around, constantly imitating your behavior, seemed like a wondrous thing.

Because it imitates 'life' many children think these shadows are actually living beings. Naturally comes the fear of going to bed, as this whole world, full of dark creatures, comes to life once the light goes out.

Keeping this in mind, we might understand better how people came to the belief that shadows somehow are connected with life, as 'strange believes' often come forth out of first experiences.

19^th century philologist and antiquary Frederick Thomas Elworthy described several of these believes in his book; the Evil Eye. He mentioned; the Ancient Greeks believed that whomever entered the sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lycaeus would lose his shadow and therefore was doomed to die within the year.

As shown the Greeks actually believed that the shadow contained the soul and that none could live very long once the soul was separated from the body.

In another account given by the same writer we can read how it was a custom for magicians on the Indonesian isle of Wetar “to injure a man by stabbing his shadow with a spear or hacking it with a sword.”

Here the shadow is used as some sort of witch-doll or voodoo-doll, but instead of using pins, spears or swords were used to cause the victim great pains. It is not mentioned however if the victim could die from the injuries made to his shadow. From which we might conclude that it was not possible to kill a person by injury and that the only way to kill someone was by severing the entire shadow from the body.

I wonder if the famous writer J.M. Barrie was familiar with the concept of the shadow as a manifestation of the soul when he wrote the scene in which Peter Pan lost his shadow and Wendy had to sew it back on...

Prof. Anton Herrmann makes it very clear that the shadow was used in magic also by Gypsies. As he writes: “There is a superstition among the gypsies that if the shadow of a cross on a grave falls on a woman with child she will have a miscarriage, and this seems to be peculiarly appropriate to girls who have 'anticipated the privileges of matrimony'.”

Another curious practice can be found among people in south-eastern Europe. The people of Greece sometimes use shadows as a sacrifice when the foundation of a new building is being laid. This can be done by laying the foundation-stone upon a man's shadow. The sacrifice is believed to give stability and strength to the building. The man however, whose shadow is secretly used for sacrifice, will die within a year.

The shadow used as a sacrifice is also common among Romanians and the people of the island Lesbos. Sir James George Frazer, a Scottish classicist and anthropologist even said that: “In the nineteenth century there were still shadow-traders whose business it was to provide architects with shadows necessary for securing their walls!”

Though a body could not live on when the soul was taken, it was not a problem for the soul to 'live' without his carrier. This is shown to us in many folk tales in which the soul appears as a shadow long after the person or better said, body, has died. There are many legends which describe how graveyards are haunted by grey and black shades at night. Shades which clearly have the silhouette of human beings and move around like humans as well but have no other human features.

In some cases these shadows were seen as an omen of death. The person who encountered such a shadow was thought to die within a few days or someone very close to him would die instead.

The shadow as a death sign is quite common in many cultures, hence the fear people developed for shadows.

When Christianity was brought to the people the shadow, or darkness, became a characteristic of the devil. Often the devil himself is described as 'one without a shadow', meaning he has no soul. And so we came to believe that whomever sold his soul to the devil would also lose his shadow. Which explains why vampires, witches and other so called 'damned creatures' are described in many tales as having no shadow or reflection.

At last most people stopped believing in the shadow as a representation of the soul. Only the association with the devil, as a bringer of darkness, remained as a common belief . Hence rose the belief shadows were the reflection of our darker side or in some cases represented the devil himself.

A nice example of this belief is given in a Dutch folk tale in which a couple of men are ice-skating and think they are being followed by devils or demons. They go faster and faster but the 'devils' keep chasing them. As it turns out at the end the so-called devils chasing them are their own shadows.

Still many people today don't feel comfortable amongst shadows. Though many of us don't know about these ancient beliefs concerning shadows we seem to have inherited this fear.

And so the shadows keep haunting us till death do us part........

Author: Isabella Baudelaire

Water-spirits and magical gifts....

2009-04-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

Currently I am working on a series of drawings depicting all sorts of water-spirits from around the world. The first two drawings I made are based upon legends concerning a gift.
I am very much intrigued by these gifts as they connect the supernatural world with the human world and I like these stories even more when it is said these objects still exist and are in someone's possesion as is the magical flute. (which I will describe later...)

Both legends I have drawn were found in a special Prague travel guide written by Pavel Rut. In this curious little work he describes several legends concerning water-spirits which are thought to haunt the city.
The chance that you would recognize one of these creatures is rather small. Pavel Rut claims that the Prague water-spirits mostly appear like old, skinny men with long, white beards and often wander around in the city. No fish-tails, green colour, sharp claws or fins are seen by the people who met these creatures. About the waternimphs he does not speak much apart from noting they must have been beautiful women.

(Click picture for bigger view)

The first drawing depicts the legend 'Still water'. The writer describes the story in just two sentences but nevertheless that were enough words for me.

His exact words are as follows;
"From time to time water-spirits sold bottles filled with 'still water'. He who wore such a bottle on him would not experience any damage from the river."

I imagine these bottles must have been sought after by sailors and fishermen, and perhaps by their wives as well who tried to get one of these bottles just to make sure their husbands would come back home safe.
Unfortunatley I have not succeeded to find more information about the bottles or their possesors. Nevertheless I was delighted to read the short tale. Sure I have heard about objects which would give the owner the power to control the sea, such as flutes, coins and bags containing wind, but never had I heard of so called 'still water'.

The image simply spoke to me and so I had to put it on paper, even though I did not have much more information about this mysterious water then that found in the two sentences.

(Click picture for bigger view)

The second drawing depicts another wonderful object, a magical flute. Which is, unlike 'still water', a familiar object in many stories concerning water spirits. These objects are supposed to be the favorite instruments of water spirits.
Pavel Rut says: "He who receives such flute as a gift would also receive the power to calm or to bring water in movement."

The most excited thing of all is that it is known to the writer that two people must posses such magical flute.... A miller of the Soví-mills and a ferryman from Vysehrad are or were the lucky possesors.

And yes, I know... it's probably just an old flute which have been in the family for a long time and some grandfather told the little ones great stories about his adventures with the water-spirits. But let us just dream away for a moment and pretend that all of this is true and imagine how the bottoms of rivers and seas are filled with beautiful coral castles, spirits singing their songs and magical flutes and bottles with 'still water' to protect us on our journeys......

Wouldn't that be wonderful.

PS; for those who are interested, prints accompanied with story are now available at my
Etsy shop!

About me and this blog.....

2009-04-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm an artist, illustrator, writer and some day I hope to become a film maker as well. These are the four major things which keep me busy. Besides these I always run 'little projects' such as story-telling, making dolls and jewelry.

Furthermore I like to visit old churches, graveyards, libraries, botanical gardens, local farm markets where you can find all sorts of delicious food and I am very fond of puppet theatres and campfire stories.

For those who are interested in all the projects I have worked, or I am currently working on I advice you to take a look at my resume.

As most of you probably know I also run my own shop at several places on internet such as, Etsy and Dawanda. Here you can find a selection of my latest art-works and shadow-puppets which are for sale, but if you wish to see all my (older) work you should visit my website.

Currently a new section is added at my shop: Art with a story.
This section is al about my art and love for folklore. All works which you can find here are depicting scenes from legends, myths or historical events which are connected with folklore in some way. For those who share the same love and are interested in the prints I sell it might be nice knowing that all prints are accompanied by the story behind the drawing.

Why this section? Why this blog?, you might ask....
Because this is what I love, this is what keeps me busy whole day long, this is in a way my life. Though I also like to make drawings of images which are not related with folklore but come from my own imagination, I just seem to be drawn to the subject of folklore every time. There is not a single day in my life I am not reading in some book about myths and legends and many times a year I visit archives to search for local, historical events related to folklore. I spend many days in libraries as well, seeking for that one special story and when I'm on a holiday I can't help ending up at a place where a statue of some witch or knight stands flaunting with her tale and so I end up doing research again.

All of this I do while an old record player plays the folk song collection of Alan Lomax in the background.

I guess when you read so many stories and listen to this many songs, the urge to illustrate all of these things comes automatically. I would love to explain why I love this subject so much, but I find it hard as I am driven by pure emotion. Maybe I'm attracted because these stories are as old as mankind which gives me a feeling of being connected with the past. Maybe because it makes me understand human desires, frustrations, hope and love and in this way learn to understand myself. Maybe because I am seeking for a way to escape reality every once in a while, like many of us do when they read a good book. But I know for certain that I am mainly attracted to these stories because of there pure beauty. No literary work has the attraction or beauty of oral tradition. Simply because a writer is constantly busy with writing a good story, having a strong plot and making beautiful sentences.
In legends all of these things don't matter they are purely coming from the heart of the narrator, or in case of music the singer. They reflect their emotions, being it fear or happiness. These stories are not only his story but the story of the people, of a country, of mankind and therefore so much bigger and greater.

And perhaps I am also still young at heart, longing for a rabbit hole which leads me to wonderland.....

It is my mission to share these marvelous stories with people and to keep these legends and songs alive in my works of art, as a drawing, book, article or a film production. As long as these legends don't get lost.

So come and follow me on this great adventure and I will tell you all I have heard.

Yours Truly,
Isabella