The Devil's Bird. They go out and hunt the wren, the old trickster and king of the birds, today, on St Stephen's Day. And so, we go to Ireland in our 27th #Yulefolklore tale and meet one, too – read how that goes below! 🎨 Rosamund Fowler

Osechi ryori is Japan's traditional New Year's cuisine. How did this tradition begin, and what do all the different foods symbolize? A look into one of Japan's most intricate holiday traditions.

ONLY YULE

Wyrdlings! @prairiebones.bsky.social will be here for the remainder of the day to repost your art, folklore, and stories in the festive free-for-all!

In Icelandic folklore Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat, comes to eat those who do not wear their new clothes for Christmas. In this image, you can see somebody did not put on their new Christmas sweater. Or perhaps even more unfortunately, no one got them one! More ... 👇

Merry Christmas Eve, folks. This is my favorite version of the song, and my favorite Christmas song of the last century.

Wait to hear about Mexico's "El Viejo" in New Year

¿Es esta la celebración más absurda/bizarra/disparatada ever? Yo digo sí.

La Befana is an Italian Christmas figure, both feared and loved. This ancient witch brings toys to kind children, coal or garlic to bad children, and sweeps away the problems of last year: but if you get on her bad side, ashes will be the least of your worries #LegendaryWednesday

The tradition of Christmas ghost stories is born out of the Victorian period, where rising literacy led to oral traditions being recorded and shared, focusing on supernatural stories that had undercurrents of social issues of the day. #WyrdWednesday 🖼️: E.H. Garrett

From the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to Christmas Day, the children of Catalonia and around the world take in Caga Tio and feed him treats in comfort. On Christmas Day, they beat him until he gives all those treats as presents: he is the Pooping Uncle! #LegendaryWednesday

Each night before Icelandic Christmas or Yule (depending on the tradition) a new Yule Lad arrives: the 13 sons of Gryla are tricksters supreme, pagan spirits who harass the Icelandic people for 13 nights, once malicious kidnappers but now mere pranksters. #WyrdWednesday

For a millennium, Gryla has haunted the winter wastes of Iceland, terrifying Christmas and taking children who are not good or wander alone, unless she is given her demands. She travels, and her sons, the Yule Lads, are tricksters in their own right. #LegendaryWednesday

Less common today is the Christmas Eve tradition of leaving shoes by your bed: in Icelandic tradition, the Yule Lads leave gifts, while in the Latin world it is Papa Noel. In the Anglophone, this takes place on the Feast of St. Nick, December 5-6th. #WyrdWednesday

💫 Happy Winter #SolsticeBlessings!! Join me Wednesday for #LegendaryWednesday where the theme is winter holidays! With your #Christmas legends, your #Hanukkah traditions, Bodhi Day & #holiday deities. Share a #legend #folklore #quote #fairytale #poetry #film #art #mythology 💫

Wyrdlings! Since #Wyrdwednesday falls on Christmas Eve this year, we Mothers have a little gift for you, with: "Do what thou wilt!" as this week’s topic – go hog wild with your post, as long as it’s wyrd & wynderful!

Better have a clean house too!!the Yule Cat has standards...

While there are many theories as to its origin, the stocking hung by the chimney with care first appears in a concrete form in A Visit from St. Nicholas, aka The Night Before Christmas. Most folklorists link it to St. Nicholas and some to Odin. #FairytaleTuesday

It's important to receive new clothes by Christmas Eve in Iceland, or else you might become prey of the Yule Cat, pet of the vile jotun witch Gryla. The Yule Cat devours those who wander at night without these new clothes, though he can be distracted with food. #FairytaleTuesday

At the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas is Epiphany, also called Three Kings' Day, marking the adoration of the Magi and Christ's first baptism. It's a good time to get your house blessed for the coming year, do some brisk winter swimming, and carols aplenty. #FairytaleTuesday

Syrian Christians do not have reindeer, they do not have St. Nick's sleigh, but instead, they have Christmas camels bringing them gifts: indicative of the Three Magi who brought the Christ child gifts, these gift givers are much-beloved. #FairytaleTuesday

According to Christmas folklore, the robin is red because at the Nativity a fire was lit to keep the infant Christ warm and grew too hot, so a bird used the flapping of its wings to protect Jesus, scorching it and marking it for all time. #FairytaleTuesday

Though a symbol of terror in Rome, the fasces became a symbol of unity of purpose and ideal, showing how a bundle cannot be broken where a single rod might be. A symbol of revolutions, it also gave rise to a particularly loathsome ideology: fascism. #MythologyMonday

Recognizing that neither people alone could defeat the monstrous Fomorian threat, the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha de Danann joined forces after a series of contests called the First Battle of Moytura. Their unity created Ireland. #MythologyMonday 🖼️: S. Reid

Brazilian revolutionary Anita Garibaldi believed in the power of republicanism and liberty above all, fighting not just for Brazil but more famously with her impassioned husband Giuseppe Garibaldi, dying in service to birthing the reborn Roman Republic in 1849. #MythologyMonday

Greetings, Myth Lovers! Join us for the theme: SOLIDARITY. Tell us a myth that features solidarity between people or groups and use the hashtag #MythologyMonday for boosts. If joining from #BlueSky: follow @ap.brid.gy so we can interact with your posts. See […] [Original post on thefolklore.cafe]

"What is done in youth can never be undone in age!" Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Story" is a tale of familial betrayal and vindictiveness woven over the snows of Christmas, a Victorian ghost tale where guilt plays like music in the night. #PhantomsFriday

People often call winter solstice Midwinter, marking the center of winter, but this was not always the case. Before the rule of Haakon the Good of Norway, Midwinter, at which Yule was celebrated, was the first day of þorri, which is mid-January on our calendar. #FolkyFriday

Usual Thursday plug for #PhantomsFriday tomorrow, which will have a Christmas #ghost story theme, including #ghosts said to haunt on or about that very traditional date. If one isn't to hand, though, please feel free to post anything else spooky and join in anyway. #folklore #legend #folktales #art

Ho ho ho, it's #FolkyFriday! 🖤 Our theme today is "Legendary Endings and Midwinter Lore" ahead of Winter Solstice. From fin de siècle folktales to tragic endings, soaring romances, and 'Ever Afters' happy and sad, tag related posts #FolkyFriday for shares from 10am-6pm UK time!

Speaking of Father Christmas.... one of the first personifications of Christmas we have in the English language is from the carol 'Sir Christemas' written in the 1400s when he was an old knight spreading good cheer and merriment. Here's me singing the carol (badly) in one of my local folk clubs

He nips noses too!

Where do I sign up? I could use a fair amount of arson right now and a little debauchery with my bourbon and ginger ale is a perfect accompaniment to watch the flames by....

You love to see people who a year ago were ravenously anti-war suddenly become war hawks. Almost like war was never the problem for you. It was just who was in charge of it. Modern conservatism in a nutshell.

Jack Frost is a stock character of European lore dating back into pre-Christian lore, appearing first in the written record in English in 1734. During the night he paints windows with frost and can sometimes freeze doors and pipes. His look often shifts. #LegendaryWednesday

Anthropologists believe the reason why festivals like pre-modern Christmas and Carnival, where social roles are reversed and norms flagrantly rejected, is because in Antiquity winter spirits needed to be exorcized with displays of joviality: a summoning of spring. #WyrdWednesday

In Slavic winter wanders Ded Moroz, Grandfather Frost, bringing gifts with his granddaughter Snegurochka. While Snegurochka has no origin in traditional folklore, Ded Moroz is an ancient frosty folk figure who thrives despite attempts to snuff out such belief. #LegendaryWednesday

The Lord of Misrule was a Roman relic of Saturnalia, a peasant put in charge of planning the revelry of the season. This often included debauchery, drinking, and a fair amount of arson that is utterly alien in our sanitized, commercialized version of Christmas. #WyrdWednesday

💫It's that time of the season for #holiday characters! Join us Wednesday for #LegendaryWednesday with your Santa legends, your Jack Frost legends, Krampus offerings, & holiday-specific deities. Share a #legend #folklore #quote #fairytale #poetry #film #art #mythology 💫

Io Saturnalia, you Wyrdlings! Ancient Rome’s arguably best-known festival was famous for the reversal of roles and such things and so we give you: “Turning It Upside Down!” as this week’s #WyrdWednesday topic! Tell us all your tales of twists and distortions!

I like these bony ponios

While many see winter as a dark time, the winter solstice was a point of celebration among the writers of Antiquity, who marked the solstice as the birth date of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. It's all about perspective. #FairytaleTuesday

Yule is a mysterious holiday of which we know for certain very few things: we know it was a winter holiday around the winter solstice. Germanic folklore tells us hints: at Yule the Wild Hunt takes to the skies, led by the Yule Lord, Odin himself. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼️: alusiam

Devoted to his master Rama, Hanuman is the vanara companion of the hero of the Ramayana and monkey-faced son of the wind god Vayu. Celibate, his lordship of vanara helps to build a land bridge from India to Sri Lanka. #MythologyMonday

Sun Wukong is the Monkey King, made of rock and arrogant and fitful, yet made humble by Buddha's hand. He is the primary defender of Xuazang in his famous Journey to the West, a mythic trip over the Himalayas in East Asian literature. #MythologyMonday 🖼: GENZOMAN

According to the Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, a bone in the wing of lapwings attracts spirits, and it is for this reason their cries are said to be accompanied by the moaning of the dead. #FolkloreSunday 🖼️: A. Pomroy

Did your garden bear many berries in preparation of winter? Folk tradition suggests this is nature's attempt to take care of winter birds and animals: it suggests a long winter is on the way. #FolkloreSunday

We see you Australia. We see you Brown.