I bid good night to one of the great actors of our age. Born Carl Adolph von Sydow in Lund, Sweden, Max von Sydow (1929-2020) started out among the stable of versatile, mostly Scandinavian actors who worked with the consummate Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). This repertory included Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, […]
[To the Celtic peoples of Europe a “dust devil” – a moving mini-cyclone of dirt and detritus – announced the passage of an invisible supernatural being, usually one of the Fairy-folk but not exempting one of their own formidable witches. I know the Six Nations/Hodenosaunee people in my home region of Western New York […]
One of my best friends in college went on to become a Celtic specialist. Like me, he had a fondness for out-of-the-way lore. On one of his trips to the British Museum in London, he fell into conversation with a couple of guards and asked them about ghost stories at the Museum. Neither guard had […]
Children’s psychic experiences can be both the most poetic and the most frightening. According to the reports I get, the average ghost sighting is a completely visual experience. Other sensory phenomena – sounds, moving objects, even electrical effects – are almost never involved. The images reported are of adult people, children, shadows, and even animals. […]
1 So I admit it. I let the food run low for Disko and Fortnight over the weekend. It looked like there was just enough Science Diet to make it till Monday, and I meant to visit the vets before noon on Saturday to stock up just in case. But I had to go to […]
The recent passing of Lughnasadh (July 31/August 1) has set a couple of reflections into me. Most of you are probably wondering, though, what Lughnasadh may be. The Celtic holiday called under various spellings Lughnasadh was dedicated to the harvest’s first fruits. Usually pronounced, “Loo-NA-sa,” the word means, “Lugh’s gathering/assembly.” Traditionally held on the eve […]
[Through back-channels I heard the story of a Canadian boy who may have been studied in Toronto in the 1990s. He had some disability, possibly Downs Syndrome, and it was said that when he became agitated, some impressive psychic phenomena could get started. Everyone interpreted the flying objects and other unexplained physical effects as threatening […]
[Readers may know me as a chronicler of other people’s supernatural experiences. They may not expect me to have my own. It’s true that I don’t have many. I believe I had such a moment recently by an ancient monument in southeastern Ohio.] 1 The state of Ohio is decked with the earthworks of the […]
Talking Animals and Medicine People: The Supernaturalism of the Upstate Iroquois One of the world’s most impressive storytelling traditions is that of the six New York Iroquois nations. The Longhouse folk who call themselves Hodenosaunee populated the hills, woods and creeks of the upstate with a virtual zoo of supernatural beings, and their imaginations thrilled to […]
In my last post I referred to the beautiful fable given us by the young bardic poet Dónall Ó Héalaà at the home of Andrea and Owen O Suilleabhain. It was about the Gaelic champion Conan and the villagers who were helping him haul his treasure-chest back to the High King at Tara. The villagers […]