Bone and Sickle

Today he’s known mainly as a figure from medals carried to insure safe travels, but that image of a giant carrying the Christ Child across a dangerous river represents only the final stage in the long and strange evolution of the saint’s legend. Earlier or forgotten aspects of his story describe Christopher as a ferocious soldier, the Devil’s servant, a cannibal, and even a dog-h...

Robert the Devil is a supernatural medieval legend that inspired a 19th-century French opera, which incorporates key elements from a seminal Gothic novel.  The opera and legend are substantially different but both interesting. We begin with Giacomo Meyerbeer’s 1831 opera, Robert le diable , which gained notoriety for a ballet sequence in Act III, which portrays an attempted seduction of the...

Trolls, as presented in medieval literature, are vastly different from the creatures we encountered in our last episode’s collection of 19th-century Norwegian folktales. These Viking Age trolls are more vividly and gruesomely described, and the “troll-women,” who frequently appear, are akin to witches. We begin the show with a traditional song from the Faroe Islands, “Trøllini í Hornal...

Trolls in Scandinavian folklore can be a little different from what’s imagined in the rest of the world.  We begin our show with a montage of clips from recent movies, Trollhunter (2010) , Troll (2022) , and Troll 2 (2025) — the latter two being Netflix productions that have rekindled interest in the subject while reimagining trollsin a way that does not always conform to the folklore....

Gammer Gurton’s Garland , published in 1784, is one of the earliest collections of English nursery rhymes, and contains verses both familiar and alarmingly unsettling. Intended to be read to toddlers (i.e., “children who can neither read nor run,” according to its subtitle) and named after a fictitious Grandma (“Gammer”) Gurton, who’d be analogous to Mother Goose, the volume were assembled b...

The Christmas Eve ghost story is a fine old tradition associated with Victorian and Edwardian England, one that’s been making a comeback on both sides of the Atlantic. Since 2018, Bone and Sickle has enthusiastically embraced the custom. Our offering for 2025, is “The Other Bed” written by E.F. Benson in  1912 and read for us by Mrs. Karswell . Previous Christmas ghost stories are linked her...

Historically, the celebration of Christmas and Carnival could overlap, and there is some reason to believe that customs associated with the former were inherited by the latter. A clue to this calendrical shift is offered by the Christmas song, “Carol of the Bells,” which uses the melody of an old Ukrainian New Year;s carol, one which dates back to the era in which New Year was celebrat...

In our second short episode for November, we take a close look at a the 1692 trial of Thiess of Kaltenbrunn, a purported werewolf in the town of  Jürgensburg, in Livonia, (a Baltic region now divided between Estonia and Latvia). “Old Thiess,” as he was known, described himself as being a  particularly exotic form of werewolf — one who served God in Hell.  The testimony offered was so curious...

This is a special short episode looking at fictional evidence used to bolster horror narratives in literature, film, and broadcast media.  We compare the found-footage phenomenon with earlier literary techniques and discuss some famous hoaxes and Halloween pranks, some historical and others closer to home.

This year, in the tradition of Halloween fortune-telling, we have an interactive divination game you can play at home.  It comes from aa 19th-century book on cartomancy called, The oracle of human destiny: or, the unerring foreteller of future events, and accurate interpreter of mystical signs and influences; through the medium of common cards . TO PLAY ALONG,  you will need an ordinary DECK OF CA...

If you’ve been curious regarding Mr. Ridenour’s and Mrs. Karswell’s troubles with anomalous events in the house, this short episode should answer some of your questions as Dr. Bartusch and crew attempt to restore order.

(SPOILER ALERTt: Do not listen to this until you have heard Episode 146 “Urban Legend”.) This is  a short postscript to our “Urban Legend” episode based on feedback from a listener. It has to do with a very curious grave in Chesterton, Indiana, which may be related to our story.  And here is the grave:

A 1968 Halloween “Spook Show” in the Midwest left an unsettling heritage of urban legends possibly rooted in even more unsettling facts.  What little is definitively known regarding this event comes from the newspaper archives of the Danville News-Gazette , in which we find a short October 28  promo piece in the “Entertainment” section featuring this photo presumed to be of...

The Halloween Jack-o’-lantern, made from pumpkins in the US and originally turnips in the UK, began its existence as a wisp of glowing marsh gas or “spooklight.” We begin our episode with a montage of modern American spooklights including that of Oklahoma’s “Spooklight Road,” North Carolina’s Brown Mountain, and the flying saucers sighted in Michigan in 1966, fa...

There’s so much more to the figure of St. George than his battle with a dragon. Legends also tell of his grisly martyrdom, capture of a demon, and postmortem abilities to cure madness through contact with his relics. In the Holy Land, there is even a tradition syncretizing St. George with a a supernatural figure of Muslim legend. We begin with a look at a modernized take on the St. George le...

As a summer replacement for our regular episode: a round-up of non-English-language Folk-Horror films (here as audio but also available as video ) The presentation was created by Mr. Ridenour’s for the Rural Gothic conference hosted by The Folklore Podcast on 9/26/2020. The focus is on European folk-horror films, including Russian productions, and a few especially interesting Turkish films are als...

The Fates of Classical Antiquity not only survived in the form of related fairy-tale figures but also as the object of superstitions and rituals associated with newborns. In South Slavic and Balkan regions particularly, these customs represent a surprisingly long-lived and genuine case of pagan survival. We begin our episode examining the fairy godmothers of “Sleeping Beauty” as embodi...

During the 15th-century, citizens of Nuremberg, Germany, experienced spectacular Carnival parades highlighted by the appearance of floats known as “hells.”  Featuring immense figures, including dragons, ogres, and man-eating  giants, these hells were also peopled with costumed performers and enhanced with mechanized effects and pyrotechnics. In this episode, adapted from a chapter of M...

Your favorite podcast is now seven years old!  As a birthday gift to our listeners, we decided to try a super short, experimental video podcast. For your pleasure, Mr. Ridenour yesterday edited together this vide0, entitled “The May Queen”.

Mr. Ridenour introduces his new book “ A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters, and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival, ” explaining how the project grew out of his research for “ The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas .”  In this episode, he sketches out chapter themes and topics, from ancient Rome to modern Bulgaria, focusing particularly on cultural hinterlands where festiv...

The Sin-Eater was a figure associated with funerals of the 17 th – 19 th century, mostly in Wales, and the English counties along the Welsh border. According to tradition,  he was invited by grieving families to transfer the burden of sins from the deceased to himself by consuming bread and  beer in the vicinity of the corpse, after which he might receive some financial compensation. He typi...

Mélusine is a female fairy of medieval legend. who suffers under a curse transforming her once weekly into a monstrous form. In various tales she becomes either a serpent or fish from the waist down, or fully transforms into a dragon. Mélusine can only break this curse via marriage to a mortal who is obliged to allow her certain secret freedoms.  In return, her husband enjoys magical assistance an...

Unfortunately, release of the episode scheduled for this month has been delayed thanks to the Eaton Wildfire in California. Your hosts are safe and sound, but complications from the fire temporarily halted production. The episode in question should be available in February. Thank you for your patience!  

The Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas has been celebrated by Bone and Sickle since 2018.  This year is no exception as we share two stories in this episode, one comic, and one frightening. We begin with the Introduction to the 1891 anthology, Told After Supper , by the British writer, Jerome K. Jerome, following this with “The Old Portrait” from  Scottish writer...

A short extra episode on Befana, the gift-bringing Italian witch associated with Twelfth Night, the end of the Christmas season.  Included in the show is material from the book, “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas,” traditional music of the season, audio from actual celebrations, and a few pop songs associated with la Befana. Befana on the Piazza Navona, Rome. The Cucibocca of Mon...