Archives: Digital Events

Bodies Behaving Badly – From Vagina Dentata to Wandering Wombs – Prof. Marguerite Johnson – 6 part Lecture Series

Bodies Behaving Badly – From Vagina Dentata to Wandering Wombs – 6 part Lecture Series

In this special six-part series, Professor Marguerite Johnson takes us on an uncanny journey across time and space into the wilds of human imagination. Each lecture introduces a particular case study – from vaginas that bite to penises that disappear – and is extensively illustrated along with written accounts of these bodily anomalies. Participants will also receive a reading list for those interested in pursuing the topics in more detail. 

Image for Series: Mary Magdalene, 15th century, wood, from Altschwendt, Austria

Lecture 1: Vagina Dentata – Jan 14th 2024

In this illustrated talk, Professor Marguerite Johnson considers the mindboggling topic of vagina dentata (or toothed vagina). We begin by tracing the topic as folklore, then move to the widespread belief in the toothed vagina from North America to South America to New Zealand and elsewhere, including one or two folk tales, before considering the possible reasons for its origin (castration anxiety? cautionary tale? misogyny? fear? medical anomaly?). Finally, we look at some modern iterations, including in art and film, and ask: Why is this still around?

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read Sezin Koehler’s ‘Pussy Bites Back: Vagina Dentata Myths From Around the World’, Vice (June 15, 2017): https://www.vice.com/en/article/payq79/pussy-bites-back-vagina-dentata-myths-from-around-the-world

Image for Lecture = ‘Untitled’. Creative Commons

Lecture 2: Wandering Wombs – Feb 11th 2024

Believe it or not, some people – including doctors and scientists – believed that a womb possessed a mind of its own and was capable of dislodging and travelling around the body. In fact, the case of the wandering womb was regarded by the Hippocratic writers of ancient Greece as a severe threat to the wellbeing of a woman, causing – you guessed it –hysteria (among other ailments). Theories as to the cause of this medical mystery, such as lack of intercourse, continued to be touted, along with the diagnosis, hundreds of years later.

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read Erica Wright’s ‘Magic to Heal the ‘Wandering Womb’ in Antiquity’, Folklore Thursday (January 18, 2018): https://folklorethursday.com/folklife/magic-to-heal-the-wandering-womb-in-antiquity/

Image for Lecture = Foetal positions in uterus, pregnant female. Wellcome Images

Lecture 3: Stolen Penises  – Mar 10th 2024

Imagine losing your penis. Imagine someone – a woman, naturally – stealing your penis. From witches to nuns, women were believed to possess such a power in parts of Early Modern Europe, as attested in the witch hunter’s manual, the Malleus Maleficarum. Before the claims in the Malleus, there was also the phallus-tree, which was part of folklore in Europe (more widespread that the so-called ‘vulva tree’, which we also consider). But the belief has not been erased entirely, as modern accounts of missing members continue to surface, particularly outside of the Anglosphere, most pressingly in developing nations.

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read Callie Beusman, ‘Witches Allegedly Stole Penises and Kept them as Pets in the Middle Ages’, Vice (September 19, 2016): https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbqjap/witches-allegedly-stole-penises-and-kept-them-as-pets-in-the-middle-ages

You may also be interested in Frank Bures’ ‘A Mind Dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves’, Harper’s Magazine (June 2008): https://harpers.org/archive/2008/06/a-mind-dismembered/

Image for Lecture = Massa Marittima Fresco, 13th Century Tuscany

Lecture 4: Witch Marks –  Apr 14th 2024

Detecting the so-called ‘witch’s mark’ or ‘devil’s mark’ was a means of proving someone was a witch. This bodily marker was some physical aberration, supposedly inflicted by the devil to symbolise the pact made with the alleged witch. It usually manifested around a nipple or nipples, or could, in fact, be an extra nipple or several extra nipples, and was insensitive to pain. The association with nipples also furnished an additional belief that a devilish minion, an animal or imp, could suck at the aberrant site. In this illustrated lecture, complete with written extracts, we also consider the means by which the torturer tests the mark or marks to determine their authenticity, usually with an implement called a ‘witch pricker.’ We will also explore the authenticity of witch prickers and the trickery involved in using them.

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read ‘The Devil’s Mark’, Law Explorer (November 9, 2015): https://lawexplores.com/the-devils-mark/

You may also be interested in ‘Witch’s mark’, Art and Popular Culture: http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Witches%27_mark

Image for Lecture = T. H. Matteson. ‘Examination of a Witch’. 1853. Creative Commons

Lecture 5: Birthing Bunnies (and other such things) – May 12th 2024

Complete with illustrations and contemporary written records, this lecture unpacks stories around women giving birth to animals, from rabbits to pigs. It considers the origins of such stories, exploring the possible explanations behind them, and addresses related topics, including witchcraft, psychological duress, miscarriage, early science, and fraud.

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read Sara Ray’s ‘How Careful She Must Be: Midwives, Maternal Minds, and Monstrous Births’, Lady Science (2019): https://www.ladyscience.com/midwives-maternal-minds-and-monstrous-births/no56

You may also be interested in Sandhya Hegade’s ‘The Tale of Tannakin Skinker — The Pig-Faced Woman of Europe’, Medium (July 18, 2023): https://medium.com/the-collector/the-tale-of-tannakin-skinker-the-pig-faced-woman-of-europe-254e0b1d59c4

Image for Lecture = ‘Tannakin Skinker’, from A Monstrous Shape, or a Shapelesse Monster, 1640

Lecture 6: Hirsute Women – Jun 9th 2024

This lecture considers hair as a marker of monstrosity, beginning with ancient accounts of the hirsute women, who lived on an island on the west coast of Africa (possibly the Canary Islands or the Cape Verde Islands). From there we look at the theme in later times, travelling to Japan to visit the Harionago or ‘Barbed Woman’, familiar from modern horror films; the Hairy Women of Klipnocky, believed to roam the Appalachian Mountains; to the sideshow attraction of the ‘Bearded Lady’; the Medieval trend for a hirsute Mary Magdalene; and the long locks of Rapunzel. Join us and share the hair!

For a peak preview of some of the topics we’ll be looking at in this lecture, read Cindy LaCom’s ‘Ideological Aporia: When Victorian England’s Hairy Woman Met God and Darwin’, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, Issue 4.2 (Summer 2008): https://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue42/lacom.html

You may also be interested in M. A. Katritzky’s ‘A Wonderfull Monster Borne in Germany’: Hairy Girls in Medieval and Early Modern German Book, Court And Performance Culture’, German Life and Letters, Vol. 67.4 (September 2014): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/glal.12054

Image for Lecture = Portrait of Barbara van Beck. c.1650. Wellcome Images

Bio:

Marguerite Johnson is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland. She is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality, gender, and the body, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

Hunting the Unicorn: Dark fantasies from antiquity to the gothic – Dr Juliette Wood

Hunting the Unicorn: Dark fantasies from antiquity to the gothic

From the exotic beast of the ancient world to the rainbow-coloured fantasies of popular culture, interest in the unicorn has never been stronger. However, look behind the rainbow colours, and you find a much darker and more fascinating beast. Classical authors stressed the unicorn’s untameable and aggressive nature more than the beauty or value of its horn. Even after the unicorn became a religious metaphor, realized as the delicate creature of medieval art, it continued to carry overtones of hunting, sex, death, and danger. Today the chief source of medieval alicorn, the narwhal, is an endangered species that engages our concern for the environment, but its name means ‘corpse whale’, and when it was first identified as the ’sea unicorn’, it was depicted as a ship-destroying monster. Modern fantasy writing has given us many images of beautiful mystic unicorns, but this genre also recalls the original fierce and intimidating nature of this fantastic beast. A dark unicorn still lurks in the shadows of the forest, and it is waiting to greet us, but don’t get too close!

Bio:

Dr Juliette Wood is a professional folklorist and Celtic scholar educated in the United States, but currently living in Britain. After gaining degrees in medieval philosophy and Arthurian literature, she studied folklore at the University of Pennsylvania, from which she holds both an M.A and a PhD. Her doctoral thesis examined similarities between the geography and cosmology of medieval travelogues and journeys to the other world in Celtic and Italian tales. She continued her studies in folklore and Celtic literature at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and at Linacre College, Oxford where she received an M.Litt degree for research into the traditions of the Welsh poet Taliesin.

Dr Wood has also been a professional consultant to TV and media production companies, both UK based and international. In addition she has organised several major conferences such as the Scottish Medievalists Conference in Oxford (1993) and New Perspectives on Fairy lore (1997) in Cardiff. In addition to television and radio work on folklore topics, her major interest at the present time is the relation between medieval tradition and popular culture with special reference to ‘new age’ movements. She currently teaching courses at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Cardiff University on a range of topis including the ‘Sources of Pagan Thought’; ‘Belief Systems in the Neolithic World’; ‘History of Western Magic’, ‘Arthurian Tradition’ ‘World Mythology’ and ‘Celtic literature and tradition’.

Books

• Eternal Chalice: the Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail (I.B.Tauris, 2008)

The Celts Life Myth and Art (Duncan Baird Publishing London 1998),

The Celtic Book of Living and Dying Duncan Baird Publishing London (2000) (Duncan Baird) .

Introductions to new editions of Charles Squire’s Mythology of the British Isles and P.W.Joyce’s Old Celtic Romances (Wordsworth Editions and the Folklore Society)

The Little Book of Celtic Wisdom (Element 1996)

Legends of Chivalry: Medieval Myth in TimeLife Books Myth and Mankind Series (2000)

Publications include substantial articles in academic journals, such as Folklore, Studia Celtica, and Etudes Celtiques . Her current interests emcompass the narrative traditions in the Middle Ages, especially the folk narrative of Wales.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The Krampus & The Old, Dark Christmas with Al Ridenour / Zoom lecture

The Krampus & The Old, Dark Christmas 

The Krampus, a folkloric devil associated with St. Nicholas in Alpine Austria and Germany, has lately been embraced outside his homeland as a sort of icon of a countercultural Christmas. While jarringly out of place with the modern English holiday, in the old world from which he comes, the Krampus fit right in. The Alpine Christmas was a season haunted by ghosts, witches, devilish horsemen, and even murderous incarnations of Catholic saints. Central to this folklore are the Perchten, Alpine demons on which the Krampus is based. In Austria, these creatures were connected to Frau Perchta, a witch-like being who threatened naughty children with disemboweling. In Germany, her peer was Frau Holle, ruler of a fabulous realm hidden beneath a mountain deep within the Thuringian Forest.

Al Ridenour, author of The Krampus and the Old Dark Christmas, returns to The Last Tuesday Society for a virtual presentation jam-packed with rarely seen photographs and archival film clips. His book, the only in-depth English-language study of the Krampus and has been praised by LA Times critic Elizabeth Hart as “gleefully erudite,” a work that “deserves to become a classic.” Ridenour also writes and produces the popular folk- horror/history podcast , has crafted Krampus masks and suits for purchase and organized Krampus plays and parades in his hometown of Los Angeles.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Kryptadia Stories – Part one – Lena Heide-Brennand

Kryptadia Stories – Part one

In this lecture series Lena will tell the once so controversial stories from the secret journal known as “Kryptadia” published and distributed in Europe in the 1800’s. The Kryptadia journals consist of legends, myths, stories and legends that were considered too daring to be published and made accessible on the open marked to the general public. Most of the tales in Kryptadia are of the more erotic kind, and there are stories that dates way back to the early medieval times and that were written down in secret because they were considered too explicit and sinful in their content to be published by respectable publishing agencies. The stories we will get to know in this lecture series come from all over Europe and some have roots from both the African and Asian continent as well. They were secretly published and long forgotten about until tonight when we bring them back into the light that they deserve.

This lecture is the first one of 3.

Warm welcome.

Bio:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Celtic Myths – The Spanking Goddess and Other Discarded Tales – Clare Murphy

Celtic Myths – The Spanking Goddess and Other Discarded Tales

Stellar storyteller Clare Murphy exhumes the Celtic canon to bring the wild women who never made the cut, back into the light.

A shapeshifter spanks her opponents, a queen balances on the point of a spear, a goddess is caught in a face-off with death, heroes are defeated by mother-daughter warriors, and we witness the first divorce…and the woman won.

These are not your regular myths. Expect wicked tales of badass deities, feral fighters, unorthodox sex, hairy bodies, mastery, and goddess-on-goddess battles – not for the faint-hearted and definitely for grown-ups.

Storyteller Bio:

Clare Muireann Murphy has been telling stories since 2006 on stages all over the world including The Globe Theatre London, Open Eye Theatre Minneapolis, and Fabula Festival Sweden.

Her work ranges from the political folkloric work to playful Science-story pieces that explore where quantum physics, philosophy and mythology meet. She has had the honour of performing for President Mary Robinson of Ireland, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the writers at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has worked outside of the world of performance teaching all kinds of people from scientists to veterans.

Her festivals include Cape Clear Festival Ireland, Beyond the Border Wales, National Storytelling Festival Jonesborough USA, Alden Biesen Storytelling Festival Belgium and many others.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The Tarot in Art and Fashion – Hazel Florez

The Tarot in Art and Fashion

Archetypal and symbolically charged, the tarot has had a rich history since the creation of the first Tarocchini card games in the 15th century Italy. The tarot is a pictorial chameleon and shapeshifter, constantly manifesting in new iterations of visual and artistic culture.

This illustrated zoom talk will cover a brief survey of the history of the tarot and its influence in art and fashion. It will explore the impact of the tarot in the works of several Surrealist artists. Although a number of painters made separate tarot decks of their own, this talk will offer an exploration of where the imagery of the arcana has played an influential role in the creation of specific paintings and sculptures. The talk will look at a tarot influence in the work of artists such as Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Bridget Tichenor, Enrique Chavarria, Salvador Dali, Nikki de Saint Phalle to name a few. It will also look at it’s role in more recent contemporary conjurings of the milieu- from fashion, photography, music to perfume. Finally, Hazel will introduce a few images from her own interdisciplinary tarot based project.

Bio:

Hazel Florez is an artist and researcher based in London. She has exhibited in solo and groups shows both in London and internationally. She has an MFA from Edinburgh and taught at Queen Mary University before becoming an artist. She has participated and given talks at a range of venues and events including the Jung Club, the Magical Women’s Conference and Occulture Conference. She is due to participate in a residency program at Swedenborg House in the Spring. She was shortlisted for the London College of Psychic Studies annual art competition 2022. For more information see http://www.hazelflorez.com

Image: ‘Luna Mercury Weeps’ (mixed media, self portrait as the moon card), Hazel Florez, 2022

Curated & Hosted by:

Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic, ethnographer and folklorist speaking and writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently working on several Colquhoun related manuscripts. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and she is a curator and host for the Last Tuesday Society lecture series.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Reverend Robert Kirk’s “The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies” – Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart – Zoom

Reverend Robert Kirk’s “The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies”

It is not entirely usual for a respectable, scholarly minister in the Church of Scotland to compile a learned treatise about the mysterious and treacherous world of invisible supernatural beings, as well as the occult ability of Second Sight by which they could be perceived. The Rev. Robert Kirk (1644–92) was minister successively of Balquhidder and Aberfoyle, two parishes on the border between the Highlands and the Lowlands. Kirk translated the psalms into Gaelic; he supervised the printing in London of a Gaelic Bible; and in the last year of his life he composed an extraordinary manuscript entitled ‘The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies’. He was not only writing in an attempt to make sense to his readers – and to himself – of the different folk legends and supernatural beliefs he had heard about the fairies or sìthichean from the people of the Highlands; he was also trying to prove the existence of a local spirit realm in order to vindicate the Christian worldview itself.

In his talk, Dr Stiùbhart will introduce us to Kirk’s life and works, comparing the beliefs presented in the ‘Secret Commonwealth’ to similar, and dissimilar, traditions recorded more recently in the Highlands and beyond. He will also examine Kirk’s other writings, in particular the commonplace books in which, for over two decades, the minister recorded his thoughts and opinions, as well as summaries of what he was reading at the time. How did Kirk try to organise and categorise the many different types of beliefs and stories he had read and heard, from folktales to learned magic? How did he try to make their messages agree with the lessons from the Bible he taught every Sunday? What can we learn from Kirk about what Gaelic-speaking Highlanders really believed about fairies and Second Sight in his lifetime – and how might these beliefs be different from those recorded by folklorists from later generations?

Bio

Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart is a Senior Lecturer at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands, and Course Leader there for the MSc in Cultar Dùthchasach agus Eachdraidh na Gàidhealtachd (Material Culture and Gàidhealtachd History). He has lectured and published extensively on the history, literature, material culture, ethnology, folklore and popular culture of the Scottish Highlands from the seventeenth century onwards, and is often interviewed on these subjects for radio and television.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Marvelous Births in Old Norse Myth and Saga – Bernt Ø. Thorvaldsen

Marvelous Births in Old Norse Myth and Saga

In Old Norse culture, there is a number of stories about peculiar conceptions and births. The god Heimdall is said to have been born of nine giantess women, possibly without male involvement. The eight-legged and exceptional stallion, Sleipnir, is born of a male god in the guise of a mare. From the world of humans, there is a tale of a man who was conceived when his mother ate a rotten fish! Kinship and gender roles were important in Old Norse culture, not least because they anchored each individual in what was undoubtedly the most important institution of the time, the family. Deviant kinship and marvelous births were important for explaining the resulting offspring, such as the eight-legged stallion Sleipnir and the powerful god Heimdall, but such myths also provide a unique window into a culture that on the one hand is quite alien, but on the other hand, themes something as modern as transgression of gender norms and complex parental constellations.

Bio:

Bernt Ø. Thorvaldsen (b. 1976) is a professor of Norwegian at the University of South-Eastern Norway, where he teaches language and literature. Thorvaldsen is an expert on Old Norse culture, with Old Norse mythology and Edda poetry as his speciality.

Curated and Hosted By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The most terrifying creatures of Slavic Mythology- part 1 of 3 – Lena Heide-Brennand

The most terrifying creatures of Slavic mythology – Part 1 of 3

Have you ever heard the stories about Baba Yaga, Kikimora or the Strzyga? Slavic folktales and mythology are full of creatures and characters that can only be characterized as the most terrifying ones in the world through history. Tonight we will open up that portal to a creepy and chilling world filled with demon-like characters and ghosts and spirits that are neither humans nor animals but still appear and act like both. Expect descriptions and pictures of scary loners of the darkest woods and even to experience close encounters with witch-like creatures lurking in every dark corner of the harrowing tales told to children and adults alike through the ages in and around the Slavic countries. Embrace yourself for an evening with constant goosebumps…and a following sleepless night.

Bio:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Chilling ghost stories of the Scandinavian countries – Lena Heide-Brennand

Chilling ghost stories of the Scandinavian countries

Welcome to an evening where we get to know the different ghost stories from the countries in the north. Ghost stories and legends are important parts of the folklore and mythology, as well as the religious history.

The different ghost creatures We cannot verify whether ghosts exist or not, but we will get those goosebumps going when we encounter the eerie ghosts and undead creatures forever wandering between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Stories about the ghosts in Scandinavia date to pre-Viking era, and they were even darker and scarier back in pre-Christian time than what they are today. We find them in the old Icelandic sagas, the old Norse literature, and the numerous stories of the spirits of the undead Mylings, the Utburd , the Deildegast the Dokkalfarand and the numerous different Grey ladies have stirred up many a good night’s sleep through the centuries. The ghosts rooming around the far north are said to be spookier and more evil than anywhere else in the world.

In this lecture, you will be introduced to them all. Spine- chilling doesn’t even cover it- you will after this lecture feel a presence of something in the room with you. But is it one of the more evil spirits haunting you, or is it one of the nicer ones?

Bio:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day