Tag Archives: folklore

Whispers From The Unseen Tongue: A Guide

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home”

The Language of Roots and Rot

Folk magic does not shout. It murmurs in the rustle of leaves, hums in the marrow of decaying logs, and sighs through the hollows where shadows gather. To understand it, one must learn the dialects of the wind- the symbology of fungi, the omens carried on raven wings, the stories etched into bark by time and weather. Here, we wander through the lexicon of the unseen.

Trees: The Archivists of Earth

The tree is a tongue that speaks to the wind, a bridge between the living and the dead.

Trees are more than sentinels; they are living chronicles. The yew, with its blood-red berries and tocid embrace, guards graveyards as a reminder of death’s fertility. The rowan wards of restless spirits with its scarlet clusters- a beacon against the unseen. Ancient oaks anchor let lines, their roots threading through underworlds, their branches cradling starlight.

Folklore: In some Celtic traditions, carrying rowan wood protects against enchantment. To harm a hawthorn, however, invites the wrath of the fairy realms.

Fungi: The Alchemists of Decay

The mushroom is nature’s hieroglyph- a cipher written in rot and rebirth.

Fungi thrive in liminal spaces, dissolving death into life. Fairy rings- circles or mushrooms- mark gateways to Otherworld revelries, where time bends and mortal feet stumble. The fly agaric, scarlet and speckled, fuels Siberian shamans’ visions, while the death cap hides its venom in plain sight, a reminder that beauty and peril share the same soil.

Folklore: Breton lore warns that stepping into a fairy ring binds you to dance until you are freed by madness or death.

Birds: Omens on Feathered Wings

The crow’s call is a funeral dirge; the owl’s cry, a widow’s lament.

Birds are translators between realms. Ravens, Odin’s spires, carry secrets from battlefields to gods. Owls, Athenian emblems of wisdom , are also harbingers of death in Welsh myth- their hoots echoing the Ankou, a grim reaper. Even the wren, tiny and plain, holds power: Irish tradition claims it betrayed martyrs, earning its title Devil’s Bird.

Folklore: A lone magpie at dawn signals sorrow, but two bring mirth- a duality captured in a famous rhyme.

Rivers: The Veins of Memory

Water remembers what the land forgets.

Rivers are thresholds. The Styx ferries souls to Hades; the Boyne cradles Ireland’s myths. To ancient Celts, depositing swords or torcs in water honours the gods of the deep. Even today, well dressing in Derbyshire threads petals into sacred patterns, a plea for the springs’ benevolence.

Folklore: Throwing coins into wells once fed the spirits within- a pact of copper for clarity, silver for healing.

The Moon: A Mirror of the Unseen

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It simply shines

The moon’s phases are a grimoire. The new moon cloaks intentions in shadow, a time for sowing silent wishes. The full moon illuminates truths, its light a scalpel for lies. Waning crescent? A blade to sever ties. Folk magic hungers for lunar silver- charging talismans in its glow, harvesting herbs under its gaze, whispering pleas to its cold, unblinking eye.

Folklore: Romanian farmers once sowed seeds at the full moon to ensure fertility while Breton fishermen refused to set sail under a waning crescent.

Reflections

The forest speaks in riddles. A raven’s croon, a mushroom’s bloom, the way moonlight pools in a hollow stump- these are not accidents. They are fragments of a language older than temples, older than prayers. It is said the to know a thing’s name is to bind it, but perhaps the wild asks for something gentler: to listen, to kneel, to let the world’s whispers etch themselves into your bones.

Thresholds and Covenants: A Journal Entry

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”- William Faulkner

The forest is a keeper of thresholds. Rivers, crossroads, and moonlit glades are its well-known gateways, but hollow oaks- split by lightning and hollowed by time- are quieter, darker doors. I found it weeks ago, its trunk cracked like an ancient tome, its roots cradling secrets older than the village beyond the trees.

Inside, wrapped in linen the colour of a weathered bone, lay a blade. Not rusted, thought its edge was dull. Not ornate, though its hilt bore runes that prickled the skin like static. It hummed in my palm, a sound felt more than heard, as if vibrating in tune with the marrow of the world.

The Language of Unseen Things

Hollow trees are not mere shelters for owls or foxes. In Celtic lore, they are portals to the fairy realms. Offerings of milk or bread are left to appease their keepers, but this blade was no offering. It was a key. Or a lock. Or both.

The runes defied translation. Not like anything I have seen before- perhaps something older, something ties to the nameless things that walked the woods before the stones I stumble on were set in place. The blade’s purpose lingers just beyond reach, like a word forgotten mid-sentence.

Dreaming

The blade now rests on my desk, next to dried hawthorn and a jar of storm water. It hums at odd hours, a sound that slips into dreams. Last night I dreamt of a weaver that was not weaving, but instead unravelling. Threads snapped like sinew as she laughed.

I woke with dirt beneath my nails, the journals pages smudged with ink and a refrain echoing through my mind: not all doors should be opened. Coincidence? The forest does not deal in coincidence.

Reflections

I returned the blade to its oak today. Left it swaddled in fresh lines, a sprig of rue, and three drops of blood- an offering, apology, and plea. The wind hissed through the hollow but whether in acceptance or scorn, I cannot say.

The forest guards its thresholds jealously. Some secrets are not meant to be found. Some blades are not meant to be held.

The Poisoner’s Garden: Herbs of Shadow and Light

“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” – William Shakespeare

The Duality of Roots

In the moonlit corners of the poisoner’s garden, where shadows cling like loyal familiars, grow herbs that defy simple categorisation. They are both healers and destroyers, keys to visions and locks on forbidden doors. Tonight, we wander among two of those enigmatic herbs. Handle them with reverence- or regret.

Belladonna: The Silent Siren

Deadly nightshade, fairest of poisons

Belladonna’s glossy black berries and star shaped flowers have lured the curious to their doom for centuries.

A History Steeped in Blood and Vision

A plant with ancient origins, named Atropa Belladonna for the Greek goddess Atropos, the Fate who cuts the thread of life. Roman assassins dipped arrows in its sap, while priestesses of Delphi allegedly inhaled its fumes to commune with Apollo’s oracle. The use of Belladonna as a poison was known as far back as Roman times, with rumours claiming that Livia Drusilla used it to murder her husband, the emperor Augustus.

By the Middle Ages, it became a key ingredient in a ‘flying ointment’ said to be used by witches to induce trances. The hallucinogenic alkaloids (atropine, scopolamine) blurred the line between ecstasy and agony, birthing tales of broomstick flights and Sabbaths with the Devil.

In the middle ages, Venetian women dripped its juice into their eyes to dilate pupils- a dangerous fashion trend immortalised in its name, meaning beautiful lady. Even Goethe wrote of its allure in Faust where it symbolises forbidden knowledge.

Mandrake: The Screaming Root

Mandrake, the little man of the earth.

Its forked root, said to scream when pulled from the soil, has fuelled legends from Babylon to Hogwarts.

A Root Wrapped in Myth and Terror

In Ancient Egypt, Mandrake was buried in pharaohs’ tombs as a gateway to the afterlife. The Hebrew Bible references it as a fertility charm, with Rachel bartering mandrakes for Jacob’s love (Genesis 30:14-16). The myth of mandrake was further deepened in Greek lore as Hippocrates prescribed it for melancholy, albeit sparingly, while Dioscorides warned in De Materia Medica that its cry could kill harvesters. Pliny the Elder claimed sorcerers wore it as an amulet to defy fate.

In Medieval Europe apothecaries sold mandrake manikins- carved from bryony roots, claiming they guarded against plague and poverty. German folklore said they grew beneath the gallows from the semen of hanged men. Shakespeare himself immortalised the dread of mandrakes in Romeo and Juliet: “Shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth.”

Reflections

Belladonna and mandrake are not merely plants- they are mirrors. They reflect humanity’s oldest obsessions: the hunger for transcendence, the fear of mortality, the dance between sin and salvation. To walk their history is to walk a knife’s edge, where poison and cure are divided by a breath.

I gather these with gloved hands, and a humbled heart. They remind me that every garden holds graves, every remedy a requiem.

This post explores historical and folkloric uses of plants. They are toxic and should only be handled with the utmost care.

Shadowed Blooms: The Dark Language of Petals

“The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.”- Emily Dickinson

Whispers in Petals

Flowers are not merely beautiful. They are spies. They are messengers. They are mourners. Long before words failed us, we have them voices- crimson roses for passion, lilies for purity, rosemary for remembrance. But in the shadowed corners of floriography, there blooms a darker lexicon: flowers that speak of betrayal, of longing, of secrets buried deep in the soil.

Let us wander through the unseen garden. Let us learn the language of flowers that grow where the light dares not linger.

Flowers of the Forgotten

Nightshade: Beware the beauty that blinds

Its berries gleam like polished onyx, its blooms a velvet purple. A flower of danger, delirium, and the veil between life and death. In the Victorian language of flowers, it does not speak, it whispers: I am your undoing.

Black Rose: Love, darkened by time

A rose dyed black by moonlight and sorr0w. It speaks of farewells, of love that persists beyond the grave, of vows made in shadows. It wails: My heart is yours, even in decay

Yew: Eternity’s Sigh

Its scarlet berries and evergreen needles mark gravesides. It stands, now as always, a sentinel between worlds. It murmurs: I remember. I wait.

A Bouquet for the Lost

I gathered my flowers at dusk, their petals trembling in the half-light. The nightshade from the edge of the forest, the rose from a forgotten garden, the yew from the churchyard where the stones lean like wary watchers. Together they form a bouquet of unspoken truths- a language for the secrets I cannot name.

There is a love here, tangled in thorns. A love that refuses to die, even as it poisons the soil. A love that waits, patient as the yew, for a reunion I cannot yet fathom.

A Ritual for Speaking Without Words

  1. Gather your tools: A black ribbon, a candle, and three flowers
  2. Set your intention: Light your candle and whisper the name of the one you wish to reach.
  3. Bind the flowers: Imbue into them your intention silently. Consider who you are wishing to reach, and why. Feed the blooms with your questions.
  4. Bury or Burn: To release, burn the bouquet letting the smoke carry your message. To preserve, bury the bouquet in soil where roots will cradle your words.
  5. Give thanks: Extinguish your candle, and leave a drop of honey as a thank you.

Reflections

The forest taught me that growth and decay are lovers, entwined in an endless dance. These flowers are their emissaries- beautiful, lethal, eternal.

I press the nightshade between the pages of my journal, its petals leaving stains like old ink. Somewhere, in the silence between heartbeats, I hope I am heard.

Murmurs in the Mist: A Journal Entry

“I am the only being whose doom No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn.”- Emily Brontë

The Morning’s Veil

I woke to a world swallowed by fog. The forest was a ghost of itself- trees reduced to silhouettes, the path ahead dissolved into a haze of silver and grey. Even the birds were silent, their songs muffled by the weight of the mist. I followed the stream, its voice the only guide, a murmur beneath the stillness.

The water was black as ink, reflecting nothing but the void above. I knelt to drink, and for a moment, my own face stared back- pale, fractured, a stranger’s visage rippling in the current. The forest does this: mirrors your doubts, your fears, the parts of yourself you’ve buried like bones.

The Language of Loss

I found something today. Half-buried in the mud, corroded by time, was a locket. Its chain was broken, its clasp rusted shut. When I pried it open, the inside was empty- no portrait, no lock of hair, just a hollow where memory once lived.

Who wore this? A lover? A lost soul? Or someone like me, who wandered too deep and forgot the way back? The locket hummed in my palm, cold and insistent. I slipped it into my pocket. Some questions aren’t meant to be answered yet.

With the fog this thick, the way was unclear. I gathered a cup of stream water, a feather and a candle. I held the feather above the water and asked for guidance through this unseen place. I dipped the feather into the water and traced a path over my skin, anointing myself. I lit the candle and allowed flame to burn the tip of the feather. The smoke curled upwards in the mist, its shape revealing a map.

Reflections

The fog has lifted now, but the locket stays with me- a reminder that loss is not an end, but a thread. Every empty space holds the echo of what once was, and every echo is a call to keep walking.

The forest is patient. It knows I will return, lantern in hand, to ask the questions I am not ready to voice yet.

Wuthering Heights: A Haunting

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”- Emily Brontë

A Tempest in Ink

There are books that do not merely tell stories- they breathe, they howl, they claw at the edges of your soul. Wuthering Heights is such a book. Emily Brontë’s tale of love, revenge, and the wild Yorkshire moors is not a romance; it is a force of nature, a storm bound in pages.

The moors themselves are a character here- a vast, untamed landscape that mirrors the raw, ungovernable hearts of Heathcliff and Catherine. Their love is not gentle. It is a wildfire, consuming everything in its path, leaving ash and echoes in its wake. Brontë does not ask us to forgive them; she asks us to understand that love, in its purest form, is as wild and untamed as the wind that sweeps the heather.

Reflections

I read Wuthering Heights curled by the fire, the wind rattling the windows like Cathy’s ghost begging to be let in. There’s a part of me that understands Heathcliff’s obsession, his refusal to let go. Love, in these woods, feels just as primal- a thing of roots and storms, not softness.

Sometimes, when I walk the moors or the tangled forest, I imagine Catherine’s voice on the wind. She is not a cautionary tale; she is a warning. A reminder that love can be a knife, a key and a curse at once.

Gothic Motifs in the Wild

Brontë’s genius lies in her ability to blur the line between the human and natural world. The moors are not a backdrop to the story, rather they are a mirror. When Catherine declares “I am Heathcliff,” she is not speaking metaphorically. She is acknowledging that they are both creatures of the same wild soil, bound by something deeper than blood or reason.

In the forest, I feel that same kinship. The trees are not scenery, they are confidants. The streams are not water, they are voices. The wind is not air, it is a chorus of ghosts.

A Ritual for the Wild Heart

  1. Gather your tools: A candle, a handful of soil. a lock of your hair.
  2. Set your intention: Light the candle and whisper “Let my heart be wild, let my soul be free.”
  3. Bury the token: Mix the soil and hair in a small bowl. Say clearly “As earth to earth, as wind to wind, let my oul be free.”
  4. Release it: Scatter the mixture outdoors, letting the wind carry it away.
  5. Give thanks: Extinguish the candle and have a moment of gratitude for the land.

Reflections

Wuthering Heights isn’t a story about love. It is a story about what happens when love becomes a tempest- when it refuses to be caged, even by death. As I turn the last page, I feel the moors stir inside me, restless and alive.

The forest, too, is a tempest. It does not ask for permission; it takes. It does not apologise, it grows. And perhaps, in the end, neither should we.

The HearthList: Songs For A Wandering Spirit

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.”- John Keats

Music has always been my companion in the quiet moments- when the fire crackles low, when the tea steeps, when the forest outside the window hums with twilight. It is a language older than words, a thread that ties the heart to the earth and the stars. This playlist is a collection of songs that have walked me through fog-draped mornings and moonlit wanderings. Light a candle, pour a cup of something warm, and let these melodies guide you inward.

The Songs

  1. Riverside-Agnes Obel
  2. Runaway- AURORA
  3. The Moss- Cosmo Sheldrake
  4. Nightsong- Sylvain Chauveau
  5. The Bonny Swans- Loreena McKennitt
  6. Woodland- The Paper Kites
  7. Falling Water- Maggie Rogers
  8. Samskeyti- Sigur Rós
  9. In a Week- Hozier ft. Karen Cowley
  10. The Moon Will Sing- The Crane Wives

A Ritual for Listening

  1. Prepare your space: Light a beeswax candle and brew a cup of herbal tea (mugwort for dreams, chamomile for calm).
  2. Set an intention: As the playlist begins, whisper a word to the flame.
  3. Listen mindfully: Let the music wash over you. Notice which songs stir your heart, which melodies make your bones hum.
  4. Journal: After the last note fades, write down one image or memory the music conjured. Fold the paper and tuck it into a book or under a stone.

Reflections

Music, like the forest, is a living thing. It grows, it changes, it remembers. These songs are my companions, but they are also maps- guiding me deeper into the wild, into the quiet, into the parts of myself I’ve yet to name.

Whispers In The Wind: A Journal Entry

“The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.”- Alfred Noyes

The Forest’s Song

I woke to a sky bruised with storm clouds, the air thick with the promise of rain. The wind tore through the trees like a wild thing, bending branches into bows and scattering leaves like ancient runes. I followed its restless path, my hair snapping behind me, until I found myself at the edge of a stream.

The water churned, restless and dark, its surface stippled by the wind. It felt alive- a creature of the storm, singing a song of chaos and creation. I knelt, my reflection fractured by the current, and wondered if the stream recognised me. If it, too, felt the weight of unspoken secrets.

The Language of the Wild

The forest speaks in riddles today. The wind carries voices that are not quite human- a sigh here, a laugh there, the murmur of a name I almost recognise. I found a crow’s feather lodged in the crook of a birch tree, its edges iridescent with oil-slick blue. A gift? A warning? The forest does not explain.

I traced the feather along my palm, its barbs catching on my skin. In the distance, thunder growled, and the first drops of rain began to fall.

I ritualised the rainfall. I whispered to the wind let me be as fearless as the storm, I collected rainwater and anointed myself under the angry sky. “Clear my mind” as I touched my temples, “Free my voice” as I touched my throat, “Strengthen my spirit” as I touched my heart. I listened to the wind- I opened my arms to it, I filled myself with the energy of the raging wind and then, I left the feather as an offering- a thanks given to the forest for its guidance.

Reflections

The storm has passed now, leaving the forest glistening and still. But I feel its echo in my bones- a reminder that even the wildest tempests are part of the tapestry.

The forest doesn’t offer answers; it only offers mysteries. And mysteries, I am learning, are a kind of magic all their own.

The Magician: The Alchemist Of Possibility

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”- Mary Shelley

The Symbolism of The Magician

The Magician is the first card of the Major Arcana (The Fool is counted as card 0), a figure of power, creativity, and transformation. He stands at a table adorned with the tools of his craft- a cup, a coin, a sword, and a wand- each representing the four elements: water, earth, air, and fire. Above his head is the infinity symbol, a reminder of the boundless potential within us all.

The Magician is the master of manifestation. He reminds us that we have the power to shape our reality, to turn our dreams into tangible truths. But with this power comes responsibility. The Magician’s energy is not about control, but about alignment- aligning our will with the forces of the universe, and our actions with our intentions.

As I sit with the Magician, I feel a spark of recognition. Like him, I am standing at a crossroads, my hands poised to shape the threads of my own destiny. The forest is my table, and its gifts- the herbs, the stones, the whispers of the wind- are my tools.

But the Magician also reminds me of the importance of focus. His gaze is steady, his hands deliberate. He does not scatter his energy, but channels it with precision. As I wander these woods, I am learning to do the same- to listen deeply, to act with intention, and to trust in the magic that flows through me.

The Magician is a reminder that we are all creators, weaving the threads of our lives into a tapestry of meaning and purpose. As I walk the forest paths, I feel his presence beside me, a steady hand guiding me home.

Through the Shadows: A Myth of Love and Longing

“What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both your fingers, until your fingers are broken?”- Tennessee Williams

The Tale

In the ancient forests of Thrace, there lived a musician named Orpheus, whose songs were so beautiful they could charm the trees, the rivers, and even the gods. He fell deeply in love with Eurydice, a nymph of the woods, and she loved him back. They married quickly, under the watchful eyes of the forest spirits.

But their happiness was short-lived. One day, while wandering through a forest, Eurydice was bitten by a venomous snake and died. Heartbroken, Orpheus could not bear to live without her. Armed with only his lyre, he descended into the Underworld to plead with Hades, the god of the dead, for her return.

Orpheus’ music was so moving that he swayed death itself to let Eurydice return to the land of the living on one condition: Orpheus must not look back at her until they had both reached the surface.

Orpheus led Eurydice through the dark tunnels of the Underworld, his heart pounding with hope. But as they neared the surface, doubt set in. Was she really following him? Could Orpheus trust the gods? Unable to resist, Orpheus turned to look Eurydice- and in that moment, she vanished, lost to him forever.

The Lesson

The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is a story of love’s power and its limits. It reminds us that even the strongest bonds can be fragile, and that trust and faith are as important as passion. It also speaks to the thin veil between life and death, and the delicate nature of that balance.

A Ritual for Remembering Lost Love

To honour the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, meditate on it with this simple ritual.

  1. Gather your tools: A candle, a piece of music (or an instrument, if you play one), and a quiet space.
  2. Set your intention: Light the candle and take a moment to reflect on a lost love, or a person you wish to honour.
  3. Play or listed to music: Choose something that speaks to your heart. As you listen, visualise the thread that binds you to the one you have lost.
  4. Speak their name: Whisper the name of the person you are honouring and remind yourself that those you love never truly leave you.
  5. Give thanks: Extinguish the candle and thank the spirits for their presence and guidance.

Reflections on Myth

I think of Orpheus as I wander the woods. His story is one of love so fierce it defies death, yet so fragile it can be shattered by a single moment of doubt. I wonder if I would have the courage to descend into the unknown for the one I love. Would I trust the path ahead, even when I cannot see what lies behind me?

There is a part of me that understands Orpheus’ longing, his desperation. The forest whispers of loss and reunion, of threads that bind us even when they seem to fray. I feel those threads now, tugging at my heart, pulling me towards something I cannot yet name.

The forest holds many stories, but the greatest of them is the story of love. As I walk these paths, I feel the echoes of Orpheus’ song, a reminder that love is both a journey and a destination.