And that's a wrap! The last #FolkloreThursday of 2025 was brought to you by: @folkloretodmorden.bsky.social @willowwinsham.bsky.social @botanicafabula.bsky.social @mythcrafts.bsky.social @crystalponti.bsky.social @shanonsinn.bsky.social Thanks for a fabulous day, we'll see you in 2026!

That's the end another epic #FolkloreThursday ✨🐿️☃️🥂 Today's theme was "Winter and Festive Folklore” This is @shanonsinn.bsky.social signing off - your last host of 2025! Wishing you a wonderful Winter Solstice and a happy holiday season ❄️🎄🌟 1880 circa English Card

#FolkloreThursday In time for the holidays! Get ready for cozy chaos with "Yule Mischief Makers" a delightful new #ebook packed with cheeky sprites, snowy pranks, and heartwarming holiday magic! 🎁 Grab your copy now and let the Yule shenanigans begin! niftybucklesfolklore.fun/yule-mischie...

#FolkloreThursday Greece's #Kallikantzaroi are mischievous underground #goblins emerging during the 12 days of Christmas. Born from a human mother on #Christmas Day, they torment humans until Epiphany waters banish them.

#FolkloreThursday From the heart of Vatnajökull glacier emerges Skessan í Vatnajökli, the mighty she-troll giantess of Iceland! Her skin, a white blue glacier ice, is veins of glowing lava and volcanic ash, embodying the land of fire and ice 🌋❄️. 🌌🗻 #IcelandicTrolls

Merry Christmas to everyone in the brilliant Folklore family. Thank you for filling our year with folklore fun and bringing a great community of people together to share such wonderful stories. May you all have a fab festive period and continue to educate and enthral in 2026. #FolkloreThursday

#FolkloreThursday 🎄 Starting December 11, one mischievous Yule Lad arrives each evening for 13 magical nights. 🌙✨ These jolly visitors sneak into homes to leave treats in children’s shoes — fluffy pancakes, creamy yogurt, meat or surprises… but beware! Naughty kids might get a potato 🥔 instead!

According to older mid European folklore, if your lamp goes out on Christmas morning you will see spirits. And if you burn elder on Christmas Eve you will see witches #FolkloreThursday 1993 book cover by Ian McCaig

On the winter solstice in Japan it's traditional to take a hot bath with yuzu citrus fruits floating in the water. (There aren't usually yokai and capybaras in the tub with you, but you can hope!😂) It might be good for your health and good luck, but even if not, yuzu smell awesome #FolkloreThursday

Even scarier than Christmas Callicantzaroi is their companion the violent demon Koutsodaimonas with his oversized head, lolling tongue, hump on his chest and genitals always on display. Keep him away by leaving a sieve and broom by the door and burn incense... #FolkloreThursday 🎨Edelmann

Namahage go door to door at new years in the north of Japan, brandishing knives, calling "are there any crybabies here?," chastising bad children and lazy people, and eating and drinking sake offered by the families they visit. #FolkloreThursday

Caroling began as a protective rite. Songs in the cold kept unseen things at bay. The louder the carol, the safer the threshold. #FolkloreThursday Art: Sharon Hart

In Irish families it was believed on Twelfth Night, the dead walked, and on every tile of the house a soul sat, waiting for prayers to take it out of purgatory... #FolkloreThursday 🎨Sedlacek

It’s #FolkloreThursday. I have a Palestinian folktale for you today. It’s the tale of The Dib-Dib-Dib. Illustration by me:

If you are interested in Norwegian traditions connected to Christmas, you can find some here (collections in Norwegian) #folklorethursday

Feliz Navidad #FolkloreThursday ❄️✨🎄❄️ That was Crystal @crystalponti.bsky.social being merry and bright before the break! I'm @shanonsinn.bsky.social your elven host for the next one hour ⭐ Today's theme is "Winter and Festive Folklore” 1900s early German postcard

Thank you, #FolkloreThursday, for a wonderful hour of Winter & Festive lore. I’m @crystalponti.bsky.social wishing each of you a joyful season and a magical New Year. After a short break, the lovely @shanonsinn.bsky.social will return to host the final hour of the day. ❤️🌟 Art: Debbie Criswell

A fly in the house at Christmas is considered a sign of good luck in British folklore... #FolkloreThursday

#FolkloreThursday The Mari Lwyd is out and about this time in Wales. The tradition had all but died out until recent revivals have put it back front and centre in the Welsh Christmas calendar. Going house to house in Welsh villages, knocking on doors, rap-battling for booze... Pure Xmas! #marilwyd

KFC is the traditional Japanese Christmas feast, the result of a marketing campaign supposedly inspired when the manager of Japan's first KFC outlet heard an American resident complaining about missing their holiday turkey and having chicken as the next best thing #FolkloreThursday

Thank you. We had some Mummers in the Museum back in 2010.

Thank you! I have some notes from out 2013 "Sussex Folklore" exhibition.

At midnight on Christmas Eve all animals are endowed with the gifts of speech and prophecy. Apparently, those born on a Sunday can speak with them... #FolkloreThursday 🎨Brueghal the Elder

"St. George & The Turkish Knight. The old Mummer's Play is one of the most interesting features in British folk-customs...story acted is the world-old one of the death of a champion...& his resuscitation..." Customs of the World 1900, D.H. Moutray Read. #FolkloreThursday #Christmas #Mummers #1900s

the Tsurara Onna, Icicle Woman, is created by the longing of a lonely man gazing at an icicle in the winter. He falls in love with his beautiful visitor and lives happily till spring comes when the snow and icicles melt and she disappears, leaving him heartbroken #FolkloreThursday art @yokai.com

In many traditions, winter was the season when dreams grew stronger. Cold nights thinned the veil, and ancestors wandered into sleep with advice, warnings, or comfort. #FolkloreThursday Art: Zaira Dzhaubaeva

In Scottish folklore, those born on Christmas day have the ability to see ghosts... #FolkloreThursday

In parts of rural Warwickshire c. late 19th/early 20th C, a giant cooked marrow filed with stuffing graced the Christmas Day dining table. Prior to the feast, the marrow was hung in the parlour. #FolkloreThursday

❄️Mari Lwyd🐴 The Mari Lwyd is a tradition celebrated in South Wales over Christmas.The name means "Grey Mare". The tradition may have Pagan origins though was first recorded in 1800. The Mari Lwyd is a decorated horse's skull attached to a pole and draped in a white sheet 1/2. #FolkloreThursday

Star-shaped Epiphany cookies, piparkakut, can be used to make wishes. Hold a cookie in one hand, and use a digit from the opposite hand to break the cookie into three pieces: eat them before another word is said and your wish will come true. #FolkloreThursday

The Nordic Frau Holle was believed to originally be called Hulda, a deity that predates the Norse pantheon. She is associated with Winter, Yule season, and snowfall is said to be Frau Holle shaking out her feather mattress. art by A. Münzer (1870-1953) #FolkloreThursday

By daylight, Maria Wood wears a gown of, well, wood. But by night she wears her dress of chimes & climbs a tree near the palace, leaving everyone to wonder where the music comes from. #AnotherCinderella #FolkloreThursday #folkyfriday #notdisneyprincess #fairytales 🎨Elizabeth Shippen Green

Contrary to popular belief, Yule does not take place on the winter solstice: traditionally it took place on Midwinter Night, the second full moon of winter, between January and February. Yuletide refers now to the holiday season, an even wider range #FolkloreThursday 🖼️ HolgaJen

One selkie story tells of an old fisherman who finds a baby girl wrapped in a seal skin on the beach. He and his wife raise the baby, but when the child develops second sight, she is ostracized as a selkie. 🎨 by Ruchie Mhasane kellyjarviswriter.com #FolkloreThursday #selkies #fairytale #folklore

Each winter in parts of Northern Japan, the demons descend: Namahage are oni dressed in winter coats of straw, bringing drums and looking for naughty or whiny children to terrorize. Centuries ago, they were more akin to kami. #FolkloreThursday

In the tradition of Orkney, winter is the time of Teran, the terrible storm spirit who takes control back from his much-abused wife, the Sea Mither. Representing the oceans and storms, the seas around Orkney become treacherous this time of year. #FolkloreThursday 🖼️: breath-art

Hello, friends! I’m @crystalponti.bsky.social hosting this hour of #FolkloreThursday as we celebrate Winter & Festive lore. BIG thanks to @mythcrafts.bsky.social for hosting before the break. Now, let’s make this thread sparkle with midwinter magic and holiday fun. Post away! Art: Mary Stubberfield

Thank you #FolkloreThursday! This is @mythcrafts.bsky.social signing off, but @crystalponti.bsky.social will be back for more after the break. Have a wonderful festive season Img:London Ballet performing the nutcracker

#folklorethursday 12 December is the Day of the Mountain God revered by people working in the mountain. From the Legends of Tono by Yanagita Kunio, the Mountain God would count their trees on that day. If you enters into the mountain and are counted as one of the trees, you'll never return. 📸 by me

A legend tells of the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral who gave sugar sticks to young singers to keep them quiet during long Christmas services. As a seasonal touch, he bent the sweets into shepherds’ crooks and candy canes were created... #FolkloreThursday

Fjøsnissen are small house spirits from Norwegian folklore who live in barns and do work around the farm. It's traditional for farmers to leave their fjøsnissen a bowl of rice porridge on Christmas Eve, and not doing so may result in him carrying out mischievous or malicious acts. #FolkloreThursday

In Japanese folklore, Hatsuyume, the first dream one has in the new year, is said to be especially significant, and it is believed to be good luck to dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk...and an eggplant🤷‍♀️ #FolkloreThursday art by Isoda Koryusai

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still… —Sir Walter Scott, “Old Christmastide” from the Introduction to Canto Sixth of MARMION: a Tale of Flodden Field (1808) #FolkloreThursday #poem www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/old-chr...

Krampus’ name is probably from the German kramp/krampen, which means claw (though another possible etymology comes from the Bavarian word krampn, which means dead or rotten) #folklorethursday 🔗👇 mythcrafts.com/2024/12/05/g...

Most accounts of Perchta concur on the major themes: she was associated with spinning, she traveled with a litany of others, and she loved slitting open the bellies of naughty children and stuffing them with straw or garbage. #folklorethursday 🔗👇 mythcrafts.com/2024/12/12/t...

Winter solstice fires were thought to chase away the spirits of hunger and frost. Each spark was a promise that the sun had not abandoned the world. #FolkloreThursday Art: Nikolai Astrup