Going to the theatre can often feel like a magical experience. You sit in the dark, watching a story unfold in front of you, with your imagination filling in the gaps between the sets.

It’s unsurprising that theatre superstitions would be so plentiful. Intended to bring good luck or ward off bad luck, some of these superstitions have made their way into life outside the theatre. Look at how many people know it’s bad luck to name Macbeth.

I’ve grouped these theatre superstitions according to which part of the theatre or performance they refer to. I'm thrilled to also have a special guest for this theatre-based episode, so a big welcome to actor, musician and folklore writer, and contender for one of the loveliest people I know, Mateo Oxley!

Let's explore the strange world of theatre superstitions in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find Mateo Oxley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mateooxley/

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/theatre-superstitions/

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Folklore and the arts are almost natural bedfellows. As we saw with the work of Newcastle-based painter Ralph Hedley, artists can capture local traditions for posterity. The Pre-Raphaelites created some of the most enduring depictions of myth and legend.

Even creating art becomes a part of folk life, with various arts and crafts part of enduring traditions. As we saw with the humble proggy mat, making items can be a way to engage with history and heritage in a very tangible way.

So it seemed only natural that when I had three art-related episode requests, I would dedicate a month to Folklore and the Arts.

The requests were for: superstitions connected to artworks; haunted portraits; and stories about the creation of certain artworks. Unfortunately, in the case of the last request, there was no indication of which artworks they wanted to know about, but hopefully, I've included them here anyway!

In this article, we’ll explore a supposedly cursed painting, an apparently haunted portrait, and a painting at the heart of a weird urban legend in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/cursed-artworks/

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

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Studying the shapes of things is a popular means of divination, relying on human pattern recognition abilities. Look at reading tea leaves and coffee grounds, or tasseography, which rely on spotting symbols in the cup. The symbols often hold near-universal meanings (like a ring for marriage), but they can also be deeply personal to the diviner.

And let’s be honest, we live in an often chaotic and unpredictable universe. Divination using pattern recognition methods offers a way to make sense of seemingly senseless things. Perhaps you believe the brain loves connecting patterns between unrelated information to find a meaning. Known as pareidolia, it explains why people see faces of dead celebrities in the burned parts of their toast.

Or perhaps you think we see shapes in smoke because a spirit or a god is manipulating form to pass on a message. Either way, there is a whole range of methods involving pattern recognition. There’s an entire chapter about them in the book, so let’s focus on finding symbols in the air, in fire, and in dreams in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/dreams-divination/

Buy Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination: https://amzn.to/41SkWOF

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

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Divination is a beautifully varied practice, with a plethora of tools and practices designed to give insight into situations. Practices like reading tea leaves or tarot cards already appear on this podcast.

But what about those forms of divination that rely on ‘randomness’ in order to work? You might cast lots, throw dice, or interpret the connections between items that fall where they may.

To what extent you believe the result is 'random' depends on your belief system. For some, the message comes from deities or spirits, and the tool is their communication method of choice. For others, the results come from the universe itself. Other diviners don’t accept ‘random’ as a concept, and their meanings come from the statistical results of divination. For others, the result might be truly random, but the diviner creates meaning by seeing associations between apparently disparate items.

But how it works is not our issue here. Instead, we’re going to explore the folklore of casting lots, casting stones, and throwing dice in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/random-chance-divination/

Buy Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination: https://amzn.to/41SkWOF

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

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Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7

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Last week, we looked at the use of dowsing to find treasure or criminals. Like water dowsing, this method requires the use of a rod that twitches in the hands when the target is close.

But the other method of dowsing involves a pendulum. That is, an item suspended from a chain, cord, or hair, that swings in one direction or another to give you an answer. For example, people suspended keys over the Bible as a form of bibliomancy. They asked a question, let the key swing, and checked the verse the key indicated.

This form of pendulum dowsing appears in a range of folklore, from the famous ‘sieve and shears’ practised by cunning folk, to wedding ring-based love divination! Let’s explore them further in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/pendulum-dowsing/

Buy Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination: https://www.crossedcrowbooks.com/shop-crossed-crow-books/p/fate-or-fortune-the-art-and-folklore-of-divination

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

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Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7

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Morgan Daimler is a witch who has been a polytheist since the early 1990s. Following a path inspired by the Irish Fairy Faith blended with neopagan witchcraft. Morgan teaches classes on Irish myth and magical practices, fairies, and related subjects in the United States and internationally. Morgan has been published in multiple anthologies as well as in Witches and Pagans magazine, and Pagan Dawn magazine, and is one of the world's foremost experts on all things Fairy.

In this chat, we talk about the fairy courts from Scottish folklore, how Seelie and Unseelie as terms entered the international chat through fiction, what a fairy might actually want with you if you ever met one, and why it's not a great idea to sanitise supernatural beings who once taught our ancestors valuable lessons...

Buy The Fairy Courts: From Folklore to Fiction: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781803418384

Find Morgan's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/morgandaimler

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

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Get weekly articles and bonus content at Substack: https://fabulousfolklore.substack.com/

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Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7

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Dowsing is often used to find water, minerals, or even lost items. Where divination usually seeks to provide information, here the information is of a directly practical or tangible sort. Rather than telling a fortune, or providing a prophetic dream that must be interpreted, dowsing relates information about the presence of something the dowser is looking for.

We’ve already looked at dowsing for water, also known as water witching. In this post, we’ll look at dowsing for treasure and criminals in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/treasure-dowsing/

Check out Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination: https://www.crossedcrowbooks.com/shop-crossed-crow-books/p/fate-or-fortune-the-art-and-folklore-of-divination

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

Get weekly articles and bonus content at Substack: https://fabulousfolklore.substack.com/

Buy Icy a coffee or sign up for bonus episodes at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick

Fabulous Folklore Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/fabulous_folklore

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Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7

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When it comes to the walnut tree, we're probably more familiar with their produce than the actual tree. Walnuts are easily recognisable, and present in everything from nut selections to coffee cake.

We might even know that classic Jaguar cars often feature walnut veneers on their dashboards. Many guitars also feature walnut in their construction.

Yet we're probably less familiar with their superstitions, legends, and even remedies. The fact that they appear in folklore shows they were important to our forebears, even if we've forgotten their uses now.

Let's put that right and get to know the walnut tree in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the blog post with all the images and references here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/walnut-trees/

Buy Bring Me Love: Finding and Keeping Love Using Divination and Folk Magic: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781786789747

Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/

Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595

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Buy Icy a coffee or sign up for bonus episodes at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick

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Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7

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