~From Facts and Problems of Rabies~
by Arthur Stimson, 1910
“The onset of rabies is usually rapid. The patient usually shows some psychical change very early, becoming anxious, melancholy, and oppressed with a strange pre-
sentiment of harm…” Continue reading
SAWNEY BEANEAn incredible Monster who, with his Wife, lived by Murder and Cannibalism in a Cave. Executed at Leith with his whole Family in the Reign of James I Continue reading
~Han Dynasty, China~
In Chinese legend, the Sanzuwu, or three-legged crow, is not a trickster or bad omen. He and his brothers were responsible for drawing the sun across the sky each day.
Ex libris, or bookplates, are placards inscribed with the name of a tome’s owner and affixed to the inside of its cover. Ex libris establish some amount of provenance — a clue into the history of a book’s possession. The art decorating bookplates is often heraldic, fantastic, ornate, and gorgeous. This collection is comprised mostly of plates created in Europe during the 17th & 18th centuries.
Sitte ge, sīgewīf,
sīgað tō eorðan,
næfre ge wilde
tō wuda fleogan,
beō ge swā gemindige,
mīnes gōdes,
swā bið manna gehwilc,
metes and ēðeles.
Old English. Anglo Saxon metrical charm.
~1874~
A rustic, preparing to devour an apple, was addressed by a brace of crafty and covetous birds:
“Nice apple that,” said one, critically examining it. “I don’t wish to disparage it — wouldn’t say a word against that vegetable for all the world. But I never can look upon an apple of that variety without thinking of my poisoned nestling! Ah! so plump, and rosy, and — rotten!”
“Just so,” said the other. “And you remember my good father, who perished in that orchard. Strange that so fair a skin should cover so vile a heart!”
Just then another fowl came flying up.
The Scold’s Bridle, also known as “branks,” was a piece of equipment used to punish and oppress women in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds. The bridle was made of an iron frame that encased the head of the victim. At the front of this contraption, a bridle “bit” piece extended into the mouth, holding down the tongue with a spiked plate, rendering the victim mute. In effect, a scold’s bridle was a muzzle used on human females.
What type of crimes deserved such a punishment? Women were bridled for being “gossips,” “scolds,” “riotous,” “troublesome,” and even on suspicion of witchcraft.
Santa Muerte de mi corazón,
Niña Blanca,
Ampárame bajo tu manto
Y otórgame tu bendición
Para que el amor y la dicha siempre lleguen
Señora Mía dame tu fuerza
Para que todo lo que me rodea se armonice.
Para que la fortuna y la suerte me sigan siempre.
Que todo lo malo se retire
Que todo lo bueno venga.
Te lo pido por tu poder y fuerza sobre todas las cosas vivas.
Amén.
Excerpts of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Rats in the Walls, 1924
~with~
visions of the legendary Rattenkönig, the Rat King, 1683
God! those carrion black pits of sawed, picked bones and opened skulls! Those nightmare chasms choked with the pithecanthropoid, Celtic, Roman, and English bones of countless unhallowed centuries! Some of them were full, and none can say how deep they had once been. Others were still bottomless to our searchlights, and peopled by unnameable fancies. What, I thought, of the hapless rats that stumbled into such traps amidst the blackness of their quests in this grisly Tartarus?
My searchlight expired, but still I ran. I heard voices, and yowls, and echoes, but above all there gently rose that impious, insidious scurrying; gently rising, rising, as a stiff bloated corpse gently rises above an oily river that flows under the endless onyx bridges to a black, putrid sea. Something bumped into me — something soft and plump. It must have been the rats; the viscous, gelatinous, ravenous army that feast on the dead and the living …
Rat & Raven 