Famous legendary figures like King Arthur and Robin Hood have one foot planted in fact and one firmly planted in fiction. This is also true for Hereward the Wake, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who helped...
Few stories in English folklore have had the staying power of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. While many people are familiar with the legend, few people realize how many different...
Inspiration can come in all shapes and sizes. But the story of the downtrodden Scottish national hero Robert the Bruce, who ruled Scotland in the 14th century, being motivated to continue his...
The Baku, otherwise known as the dream eater, is a mythological being or spirit in Chinese and Japanese folklore which is said to devour nightmares. The Baku cannot be summoned without caution,...
The origins of a bizarre creature that resides in a Japanese temple are being studied. While the so-called mermaid is worshipped as such, a folklorist suspects this is another P. T. Barnum special...
Fire is only produced when certain materials – a combustible material, an oxidizer, and a source of heat – are present in the right proportions. The absence of one or more of these elements would...
The faeries appear in folklore from all over the world as metaphysical beings, who, given the right conditions, are able to interact with the physical world. They’re known by many names but there is...
Finland is known as a country with many forests. In fact, over 75% of Finland is covered in forests. Therefore, it is not surprising that Finnish folklore includes several myths and stories told...
As a researcher of unusual historical phenomena, I investigate strange stories, but I had no intention of doing so in Alberta, Canada. Nevertheless, I came across something that was truly odd in the...
The 12th century tale of the Green Children of Woolpit, in Suffolk, is a bizarre medieval folk story which has been remembered for generations. It isn’t often we hear of children appearing at the...
The Paiutes, a Native American tribe indigenous to parts of Nevada, have an oral tradition that they told to early white settlers of the area about a race of red-haired, white giants or “barbarians”...
Inhabiting the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, United States, is a creature known as the Jersey Devil. This legendary being has been described as a kangaroo-like creature with the head of a goat...
Scattered across an isolated, flat plain in Shaanxi Province, near the ancient capital of Xi’an, lie dozens of spectacular pyramid mounds that are little known outside of China. Mixed in with the...
Tuag is a princess in Irish legend. Stories say she was so beautiful that she even attracted the attention of a god, who sent a bard to kidnap her. However, tragedy struck, and the princess lost her...
The Hopping Vampires (jiang shi) are a type of undead creature found in Chinese folklore. Although its Chinese name is often translated as ‘Chinese hopping vampire / zombie / ghost), its literal...
After two years of hard work, scholars have now finished an Old-French-to-English translation of a centuries-old manuscript that tells of the adventures of Merlin the Magician , King Arthur, and...
The story of Solomon and Sheba is well known as one of love. But it is only when we learn their true identities that we see how much affection and adoration Solomon had for his favorite Queen. He...
The historic existence of the legendary English hero who ‘stole from the rich and gave to the poor’ is a perennial source of debate. Every few years, new evidence emerges of authenticity and possible...
The notion of shapeshifting has been around for nearly as long as human beings. The possibility that a person can take the shape of another being—most often an animal—can be traced back thousands of...
Icelanders believe in elves. They refuse to begin major construction projects unless they consult with elves first. They lobby their politicians on behalf of elf colonies. They run “elf schools” and...
The 6th century epic poem Beowulf echoes as loud today as it did when it was written fifteen hundred years ago. Ink has been spilt, careers made, films produced, and academic wars have been waged in...
Forever intertwined, Morana, goddess of winter and death, and Vesna, goddess of spring and rebirth, could not exist without each other. However, they could not possibly exist in the same place at the...
Near the city of Gaza, 3,000 years ago, laid a city unlike any other in the world. The Greeks called it Rhinocolura, named for strange faces of the people who lived there – because every person there...
When ancient Egypt and Ireland are spoken about in the same breath it usually results in the rolling of eyes, polite exits and the sound of murmurs citing pseudo-history and new age babble. At least...