theowlandthekey

[theowlandthekey]

Happy Goth G'Wednesday!

Here's a fun outfit from last weekend's Goth Nite. The fringe belt thing was a lot of fun to dance in.

[theowlandthekey]

a little comic about kisses and curses. happy halloween!

(all my comics are here!)

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i just know there was a weird little girl in the middle ages out there stealing snake's eggs and putting them in her family's chicken coop in the hope of hatching a basilisk

[theowlandthekey]

After shoving Hansel in the oven, the witch turns to Gretel - who is currently fending the witch off with a gingerbread chair - and says:

“I can’t believe you thought a trail of breadcrumbs would save you. I mean, honestly, this is a forest! It’s full of animals. Honestly, the very idea that a dumb shit like you thought you could get the better of me is absurd.”

Gretel hits her in the face with said chair. To be fair to the witch, she takes the chairshot like a champ.

“Ow!”

“Did you know,” says Gretel, “that crows are capable of facial recognition?”

“Eh?” Says the witch, clambering to her feet and pulling a candy cane sledgehammer off the wall. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Not only that,” Gretel continues, “but they can remember both friends and enemies. And they’ll often follow people they remember as friends.”

The two fence with their sugared weapons for a moment, before the witch knocks the chair out of Gretel’s hands.

“Enough with the bird facts! Honestly, this whole attempted escape has been utter clownshoes. Get in the fucking oven!”

She seizes Gretel by the collar. Gretel immediately sandbags, letting her whole body go limp. This eminently practical defense forces the witch to try and deadlift her. Which is hard, as the witch often skips leg day.

“For example,” Gretel says, as the witch struggles and grunts, “if you feed crows a lot of breadcrumbs, they’ll probably start to see you as a friend and follow you in the hope of more food.”

The witch stops. Outside, she hears the thunder of wings.

“They’ll even bring you shiny things they find as presents!” Says Gretel, as a corner of the gingerbread ceiling is suddenly cut away by a large crow with a knife in its mouth.

“Oh shitballs.” Says the witch, as the crows descend. “I hope you know this is a great unkindness.”

“Technically,” Says Gretel, “It’s a murder.”

[theowlandthekey]

The urban fantasy show I actually want to see is a hospital drama with a dedicated wing for supernatural illnesses.

Vampirism. Lycanthropy. Cheap spells gone wrong. A woman brought in for her prenatal has to be told her baby is a lindworm. Someone is literally being followed by the anthropomorphic personification of the Black Death.

Someone somewhere out there is having their perception of the world irreparably shattered by the knowledge that magic is real, and at the other side is a team of doctors who have to roll their eyes and pull out Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales because some high school kid tried to go Carrie with a cheap spellbook and turn all the kids at prom into frogs, and the doctors have to wrangle a couple dozen teenagers into admitting if they have a true love who can break the spell.

[theowlandthekey]

Fun story, according to old Norse beliefs my companion animal is a red fox.

The old nordics believed individuals and families had protection spirits called fylgie (literally follower or companion) usually in the form of an animal for individuals and women/goddesses for families. They would protect you and act on your behalf.

If you see your own fylgie it is a death omen but other people who are close to you might be lucky enough to see your fylgie while you are asleep (and people gifted in magic might even see it while you’re awake) which of course means you’re unlikely to know what your fylgie is unless someone else sees it.

So how do I know mine is a red fox? When I was 4 years old my parents rented a cottage with some friends for their summer vacation. One evening they put me to bed and the adults arranged themselves in the living room in such a way that my parents could keep an eye on me while the others had their backs to the bedroom. They just sat around and chitchatted when my parents suddenly noticed a red fox in the bedroom with me! It calmly looked around, sniffed me and walked out of the cottage like it was the most normal thing in the world at which point my parents went “OH MY GOD THERE WAS A FOX IN THE ROOM WITH OUR DAUGHTER!!!!”

For the nervous among you, red foxes aren’t dangerous to humans. They don’t even hurt babies and certainly not a 4 year old. Rabies has been eradicated among red foxes in Northern Europe so they’re just allowed to do their thing so long as they don’t eat people’s chickens/rabbits. You know, just in case you were wondering why my parents didn’t freak the fuck out and yelled at the fox.

But yeah, you can be boring and say it was just a normal fox that found it’s way into my bedroom, but it is pretty cool how perfectly it fits with fylgie beliefs.

So keep that behind your ear, if people tell you they saw an unexpected animal near you while you were asleep you’ll know what your fylgie is.

[theowlandthekey]

100% my life as a working witchy mom 😂✨

[theowlandthekey]

Banned for 70 years under Communist rule, shamanism has seen a recent resurgence in Mongolia. In these incredible images Mongolian Shamans or “Buu”, take part in a fire ritual meant to summon spirits to mark the Summer Solstice in Ulaanbaatar grasslands.

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Found this on the interwebs… Offered here for… REASONS.

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Herbal Abortion

Please remember that you undertake a significant risk when utilizing abortifacients without extensive knowledge of how to do so and without the assistance of a professional. This is not to be undertaken lightly and if you have any safe, medically professional alternative whatsoever please utilize that instead.  Download 

[theowlandthekey]

Why is salt good for exorcism and banishing and all that jazz? Well you see, way back in the day people knew jack-all about germs and microbes and for all they knew it was evil spirits that got into their food and made it go a-spoil. They Noticed and Observed that when you soaked food in a Lot of Salt, food stayed good longer. So that meant that the salt was keeping the bad spirits out. Now, tossing around salt and making salt circles makes for dramatic rituals, sure. But I think we all know that some entities are just powerful bastards and need some extra oomph to get them out of the damn house. You know what is more potent than salt at killing bacteria and germs? Bleach. You know what’s really good for just killing all kinds of stuff very dead? Medical autoclaves. Now I understand that not all of you have access to autoclaves, but I understand that a good pressure cooker can also do for sterilization. So therefore, I propose that if you have yourself a haunted doll or something that isn’t reponding to the usual methods, a wash with chlorine might be in order; and if that doesn’t to the job, a visit to the Insta-Pot might teach the bastard who’s boss around here. (Of course there might not be much of a doll left but it wasn’t like you needed to keep it around, anyway.)

[theowlandthekey]

“Lovely-eyed. Death-touched. Witch.” -Odysseus Elytis, tr. by Olga Broumas & T. Begley, from “The Dream,”

[theowlandthekey]

it’s just funny though that in The Before Times when the goat burned (or didn’t burn) there was very little fanfare except maybe some tongue in cheek celebration (or disappointment). but give it a few jokes about lack of ritual sacrifice and a five-year survival streak and two plague years and suddenly we’ve collectively tapped into the seasonal worship instincts of our ancestors from 36,000 BCE and created a new sacred ritual through sheer force of internet jokes and desperate hope. it’s like we’ve crowdfunded a god.

[theowlandthekey]

Footage of a Black fallow deer recently seen in Baryczy Valley, Poland.

Found on r/interestingasfuck