Hacker News with Generative AI: Folklore

Ghost in the machine? Legend of the 'haunted' N64 video game cartridge (bbc.com)
A second-hand Zelda cartridge. A cryptic forum thread. A generation of frightened children. This is the story of Ben Drowned – the internet's most infamous video game ghost.

Gaming, Folklore, Internet Culture

77 points by fallinditch 6 days ago | 14 comments

Tales of the Yucca Man (2018) (longreads.com)
The desert has its own version of Sasquatch, and it’s just as smelly and hairy.

Folklore, Cryptozoology, Desert, United States

15 points by centrosphere 14 days ago | 4 comments

Teru teru bōzu (shine, shine monk) (wikipedia.org)
A teru teru bōzu (Japanese: てるてる坊主 or 照る照る坊主, lit. 'shine, shine monk') is a small traditional handmade doll hung outside doors and windows in Japan in hope of sunny weather.

Japanese Culture, Weather, Folklore, Crafts

5 points by red369 22 days ago | 0 comments

"The Form of a Demon and the Heart of a Person" (publicdomainreview.org)
Who can say what lay in the heart of the giantess Yamauba when she descended from her mountain crag to claim the boy Kintarō for herself?

Folklore, Japanese Mythology, Mythology

15 points by lermontov 31 days ago | 3 comments

In Japan, an Iceless Lake and an Absent God Sound an Ancient Warning (nytimes.com)
For at least six centuries, residents along a lake in the mountains of central Japan have marked the depth of winter by celebrating the return of a natural phenomenon once revered as the trail of a wandering god.

Japan, Environment, Culture, Folklore, Mythology

6 points by occamschainsaw 42 days ago | 1 comments

Blurred Forms: An Unsteady History of Drunkenness (2014) (theappendix.net)
During an evening of carousing and drinking at a Salisbury tavern, a soldier and his comrades were drinking to one another’s health. Then the soldier did the unthinkable: he drank to the health of the Devil.

History, Drinking, Alcohol, Folklore

19 points by pepys 101 days ago | 1 comments

Stories from the Internet (dbrgn.ch)
A collection of internet folklore.

Internet Culture, Folklore, Storytelling

53 points by ColinWright 117 days ago | 10 comments

The Heroic Industry of the Brothers Grimm (hudsonreview.com)
In an 1846 letter to the Athenaeum, English writer William Thoms coined a term, “folklore.”

Folklore, Literature, Brothers Grimm, History

48 points by prismatic 121 days ago | 9 comments

Bad Moon Rising (archaeology.org)

Archaeology, Folklore, Astronomy

43 points by samclemens 121 days ago | 55 comments

Nosferatu's Robert Eggers on how folklore fuelled his film (theguardian.com)
The vampire of folklore is not a nobleman. The vampire of folklore is not a suave, dinner jacket-wearing seducer. The vampire of folklore is a corpse. An undead corpse.

Film, Folklore, Vampires

4 points by Emigre_ 133 days ago | 0 comments

Mellified Man (wikipedia.org)
A mellified man, also known as a human mummy confection, was a legendary medicinal substance created by steeping a human cadaver in honey.

History, Medicine, Folklore

6 points by makeitshine 141 days ago | 0 comments

The Brothers Grimm: A Biography (theamericanscholar.org)
The German folklorists who helped build a nation

Biography, Folklore, Germany, History

79 points by benbreen 183 days ago | 18 comments

Ghosts in the Machine (jstor.org)
Forty years ago, Hollywood made gremlins loveable—portraying them as adorable, furry creatures. Their folkloric origins are far more sinister.

Folklore, History, Film, Artificial Intelligence

80 points by gmays 188 days ago | 35 comments

Sabine Baring-Gould's Book of Were-Wolves (1865) (publicdomainreview.org)
Lycanthropes go by many names, writes Sabine Baring-Gould in his “account of a terrible superstition”, and “half the world believes, or believed, in were-wolves”.

History, Folklore, Books, Werewolves

24 points by Caiero 192 days ago | 7 comments

A deep history of Halloween (resobscura.substack.com)
You know the holiday: the one where people wear outlandish costumes and sweet things are eaten. It’s fun, but also otherworldly, with roots in an ancient belief that this evening — this one night at the change of the seasons — is when spirits roam the earth.

History, Halloween, Culture, Folklore

132 points by benbreen 192 days ago | 47 comments

Why ghosts wear clothes or white sheets (theconversation.com)
When you think of a ghost, what comes to mind? A ghastly, mouldy winding-sheet? A malevolent pile of supernatural armour? Or a sinister gentleman in a stiff Victorian suit?

Ghosts, Culture, Folklore, Paranormal

114 points by samizdis 196 days ago | 94 comments

The Ballad of the Inquisition's Greatest Witch Trial (historytoday.com)
How a lost ballad detailing the Inquisition’s sentencing of 28 alleged Basque witches spread a witchcraft panic through 17th-century Spain.

History, Witchcraft, Spain, Inquisition, Folklore

8 points by Caiero 199 days ago | 1 comments

Witches around the world (aeon.co)
If asked, most people in the West would say that wicked witches who fly unaided or turn into animals don’t really exist. And, according to all available evidence, they would be right. It’s more difficult to prove that no one practises ‘witchcraft’, that is, conducts rites or utters curses in an attempt to harm others.

Witchcraft, Folklore, History, Culture

44 points by drdee 214 days ago | 1 comments

Beast of Gévaudan (wikipedia.org)
The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La Bête du Gévaudan, IPA: [la bɛt dy ʒevodɑ̃]; Occitan: La Bèstia de Gavaudan) is the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorized the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767.[1]

History, France, Folklore, Cryptozoology

30 points by reaperducer 215 days ago | 10 comments

The 18th-century French media stoked a werewolf panic (openculture.com)

History, Media, Folklore, France

85 points by PaulHoule 310 days ago | 27 comments

The lore of Kalloor (wikipedia.org)

Folklore, Mythology, India

13 points by akolbe 333 days ago | 0 comments

How to Consult an Onion Oracle (atlasobscura.com)

Culture, Folklore, Alternative Medicine

19 points by Brajeshwar 344 days ago | 4 comments

Fairytales much older than previously thought, say researchers (2016) (theguardian.com)