Curiosities of Olden Times: Now Available!

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Sabine Baring-Gould was one of the more notable compilers of folklore and history in his century. This particular edition is one of the greater ones; the lore comes from many cultures and time periods, and was chosen specifically because it was curious or odd. So we have tales here of saints which were insane paired with cryptography, and folklore regarding women resides in the same work as a collection of stories of animals being criminally prosecuted. Much of the content is humorous, all of it is interesting.

This edition has been illustrated by Raven Feather Illustrations.

235 pages.

Jewish Folk-Lore of the Middle Ages: Now Available!

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This short text is a twofold effort; first, a few examples of actual Jewish folklore dating to the Middle Ages, and second, some various analysis of the subject itself and the same related tales, from an anthropological viewpoint. It should be noted that claims of King Arthur being a Jewish tale appear to be related to the upsurging Judaist class consciousness of the late 19th century.

34 pages.

English Folklore: Now Available!

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This little work is a broad and truncated overview of a very large collection of folk tales and superstitions among the English peasantry- a field of study of the vulgar or common which was just beginning to be of public interest as the 20th century dawned. It is interesting to note several examples of older myths being adapted to then-contemporary events; tales of ghost lights were common for centuries and ended up twined in with the sinking of German U-boats and the remains of the dead washing up on the shore in the era of WWI, for example.

81 pages.

The Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of Scotland: Now Available!

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This text is a fine compilation of folklore from Scotland- most of which involves cryptids and ghosts. A few other tales are compiled here, as well as rituals and superstitions related to marriage, courting, employment, and other such topics. It roughly traces the evolution of ghost stories from the early period with its technically tangible spirits, to the more modern period where ghouls and poltergeists became more "ghost-like" and could not be hacked apart with a claymore.

157 pages.

A World of Wonders: Now Available!

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This is an excellent book written under a pseudonym by Catharine Gore, a socialite best known for novels involving women being prim, proper, and exhibiting aristocratic tendencies. The folkloric and mythological content here is predominantly presented for the purposes of explaining why it is false and discredited- however my own interest was piqued even more by a few examples of "debunked" lore now being accepted upon further review; in the 1840s Central Africa was not really explored, for example, and tales of "dwarves" (pygmies) there "at the origin of the Nile" according to ancient records seemed to be mere legend; but we now know that such tribes do indeed exist!

More than fifty chapters here are dedicated to everything from spirits and lycanthropy, to astrology, alchemy, possession, and more.

241 pages.

In Ghostly Japan: Now Available!

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This is an excellent compilation of folk tales and proverbs and miscellany related to Japan, written by the famous Lafcadio Hearn at the tale end of the 19th century. It has the value of being not only academically intriguing but interesting in the sense of the tales it compiles; the tradition of floating lamps out to sea for the deceased, the use of incense as a parlor game, and bizarre, macabre stories of ghosts, vengeful spirits, and superstitions of many types. I highly recommend this particular text for its fantastic content.

144 pages.

Signs, Omens, and Superstitions: Now Available!

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This is one of my favorite editing works so far; a massive collection of folklore, dealing with every sign and omen under the sun from a dozen cultures, multiple epochs, etc. From bad luck to good, from relationships to employment, Cielo's work has a little bit of everything. It is interesting to me that some of the content is familiar to me such as the common habit here in my own native New England of seeing barns with horse shoes nailed above the door, always open-end up to "keep in the luck."

The author, a skeptic, wrote this work in order, ostensibly, to mock superstition, but instead is likely to be heralded as a compiler of folklore- the rational minds of the era sought to dispel supernatural things but ended up cataloguing them instead for future generations; a testament to the abilities of the paranormal, of the occult.

121 pages.

Apparitions, Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses: Now Available!

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"Apparitions-" is a wonderful compilation of folklore that was actually written from the perspective of one who wished to expose spook stories as frauds and interesting bugbears. This is actually important; the work is then also a cautionary message for those who accept the spiritual, not to accept it all at face value but to utilize their reasoning abilities to determine if any particular tale is true. I do this for occult and cryptozoological topics myself; I accept for example the existence of extra terrestrial life but find very few sightings of flying saucers to have any legitimacy.

Some of these tales are actually hilarious also, such as a prank involving the use of phosphor to  create ghostly messages to frighten house guests or the time a man with a red rain cloak was mistaken for a specter, scaring an entire village in the process.

176 pages.

Ghostly Phenomena: Now Available!

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This is a rather strange little book and contains a compilation of tales about ghosts and encounters of the same, starting with the authors' own recollections, then tales related to him, and finally some of his opinions on various spiritual phenomena. The author, Elliott O'Donnell, has been generally considered a fraud because of his unwillingness to produce these third parties for scrutiny but I doubt it, personally, based on his open refutation of things like mediumship and automatic writing which could have made him far more cash than simply inventing spook stories. Embellishment aside, I have to assume some of his experiences were genuine.

The work also includes some passages about haunted trees and ghostly mariners, which involve some secondary works which the reader may find useful.

108 pages,

A Host of New Works I'll Be Working On

Little else makes me happier than acquiring new materials to edit and new ideas to write; honestly I think I've found my calling- or at least one of a more generally acceptable nature than analysis and banter on Youtube; admittedly, my latter effort is also skyrocketing in popularity. More copies of my literary works have sold in the first three days of October than were sold in the first four months of my editing back in 2015.

In the last few weeks I've been on an epic quest to bring in more literary content to release over time; and boy did the effort pay off; the following list is just a sampler of the things I'll be working through in addition to dozens of works I already had planned;

-Hull's "All About Devils": A short (60ish page) work of extremely zealous christian authorship.
-"Egyptian Secrets": Ascribed to Magnus but of the manufacture of deLaurence. A sort of Pow-wow style compilation work.
-"Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling" by Leland- a quasi-academic work.
-"The Pedigree of the Devil" by Frederic Hall. A typical late 1800s spiritual-academic fusion.
-"Phallism in Ancient Worships" by Westropp and Wilder.
-The Kebra Nagast, an Ethiopian holy book.
-"Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry" by Yeats: A collection of often paranormal folklore.