Crystal Ponti

The ancient Greek pankration was a no-holds-barred contest of wrestling and boxing. Biting and eye-gouging were technically banned, but often ignored. The gods of Olympus were honored by blood, not sportsmanship. #MythologyMonday

The harvest has always been a season of contradictions, full and fading, bright and dying, warm and warning. You feast, but you store. You thank the land, but you watch the skies. Celebration never came without superstition. #FolkloreSunday

Harvest moons are so bright they cast shadows. Farmers once said if your shadow was taller than you during the full moon, your luck would stretch through winter. If it was smaller, plant garlic. And pray. #FolkloreSunday

Art: Billy Jacobs

In Eastern European folklore, a woman with calloused hands and dirty fingernails was considered a blessing in the harvest season. She had the touch. The wheat bent to her. The pumpkins fattened when she walked by. #FolkloreSunday

Art: van Gogh

Corn dolls weren’t just cute decorations. In ancient custom, they housed the soul of the field. Kept through winter, burned or buried come spring. The harvest lives on, not in barns, but in braids of straw. #FolkloreSunday

Harvest wasn’t just a celebration. It was a reckoning. Did the seeds take? Did the sun bless or burn? In old lore, the scythe was a tool and a judge. Every swing of the blade was a gamble with hunger. #FolkloreSunday

Art: van Gogh

Ballad on Top of the Mountain Painting by Thai Hung Nguyen | Saatchi Art Saatchi Art is pleased to offer the painting, "Ballad on Top of the Mountain," by Thai Hung Nguyen, available for purchase at $3,885 USD. Original Painting: Acrylic on Fabric. Size is 35.4 H x 27.6 W ...

Hi Sher! The painting is titled "Ballad on Top of the Mountain" by Thai Hung Nguyen. I forgot to include attribution. Thanks for asking! www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting...

And to you! :)

Sometimes, the first harvest feast was somber. A reminder that not all would survive the winter, that not every crop would last. You celebrated in advance into trick the fates into letting you make it to spring. #FolkloreSunday

Art: David Teniers

Appalachian farmers sometimes left the first tomato or ear of corn in the field “for the haints.” A small price to keep spirits fed and fields blessed. The first bite wasn’t yours. It belonged to whatever watched from the tree line. #FolkloreSunday

Art: Debra and Dave Vanderlaan

The enchanted places in magical realism don’t announce themselves. They’re always familiar - a hometown, a house, a garden - until something moves just out of step. The dog speaks. The shadows shift. You open the door, and it’s yesterday again. #BookWormSat

Art: Andrea Kowch

In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman lets magical realism wash over childhood memory. A duck pond becomes an ocean. A farmhouse becomes a fortress. The truth is distorted by wonder and maybe, that’s the truest form of all. #BookWormSat

Art: Marina Dormidontova

Allende’s stories are filled with women who endure the impossible but never become brittle. Their pain has texture. Their resilience, rhythm. And through it all, the surreal glides quietly like a candle flickering in daylight. #BookWormSat

In "One Hundred Years of Solitude", a plague of forgetfulness spreads. People hang labels on everything—cow, bed, God. Magical realism shows how absurd reality already is. All the writer has to do is nudge. #BookWormSat

Art: Elizabeth Berry

Gabriel García Márquez wrote of towns where insomnia made people forget what objects were for. Where rain lasted four years. Where beauty was a curse. He called it realism. Not magic. Just truth with its bones showing. #BookWormSat

Art: Tere Safry

Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits doesn’t ask if the dead can speak. It assumes they never stopped. Spirits linger in the kitchen, omens fall from the sky, and family sagas unfold like spells. In magical realism, memory is never quiet. #BookWormSat

Art: Paul Bond

In parts of Eastern Europe, Lammas loaves were baked with nails or hair hidden inside, protective magic meant to ward off evil as the light began to fade. Break bread too soon, and you might choke on a secret. #Lammas #Folklore

Art: Chris vander Spuy

In some Scottish folktales, the harvest spirit was thought to live in the grain until Lammas. If you cut the last stalk too early or too greedily, you’d wake it - twisted, hungry, and old as the dirt. #Lammas #Folklore

Art: Mindi Oaten

"Crying the Neck" Harvest Ritual: When the last corn was cut, the reaper would traditionally shout three times "I 'ave 'un" and the other farmworkers would reply, "What 'ave 'ee?", with the reaper responding, "The neck" before everyone cheered. #Lammas #Folklore #FolkyFriday

The word “cookie” comes from the Dutch koekje, meaning little cake. But in folklore, small cakes were often left out as offerings to household spirits - bribes to keep them from mischief. Today we leave them for Santa. Same energy. #BookologyThursday

In "Like Water for Chocolate", Tita’s tears fall into the wedding cake batter. When guests eat it, they’re overcome with longing and sadness. Food and emotion, bound together. A recipe for magical realism. #BookologyThursday

Art: Bryony Marianne

Appalachia stack cake has layers of flat, skillet-baked cake sweetened with molasses and filling. Historically a community wedding cake, with guests each contributing a layer. The height of the cake was said to reflect the couple's popularity. #BookologyThursday

Turkish delight wasn’t just a snack in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was enchanted. Edmund sells out his siblings for another bite. In literature, candy isn’t just food. It’s betrayal in a fancy wrapper. #BookologyThursday

In Victorian times poisonous substances were mistakenly used in the production of candy, leading to accidental poisonings. One notable event was the Bradford sweets poisoning in 1858, where arsenic was used instead of a harmless white powder called "daft" in peppermint humbugs. #BookologyThursday

The first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece around 2400 BC. But by the Middle Ages, spiced cookies were shaped into animals, saints, and lovers and believed to bring luck, fertility, or revenge. The original edible effigies. #BookologyThursday

In "Hansel and Gretel", the witch’s house is made of cake and candy, but it’s a trap. Gingerbread walls and sugar glass windows hide the hunger. In old folktales, sweets often signal danger. If the forest offers dessert, run. #BookologyThursday

Art: The one and only Rackham!

In 1951, the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit in France experienced mass hallucinations. Dozens leapt from windows, claimed they were snakes, or saw hellfire. The official cause? Moldy bread. But theories say it was a CIA mind-control experiment gone wrong. #WyrdWednesday

In 1900, the crew of the Eilean Mòr lighthouse vanished without a trace. The only clue was an overturned chair and missing oilskins. Their logbook mentioned strange winds and “a dreadful silence.” Some blame a rogue wave. Others blame the sea itself. #LegendaryWednesday

The Mary Celeste was found adrift in 1872, fully stocked, with food on the table and no sign of struggle. The crew was simply gone. No lifeboat. No note. Just silence. Theories range from mutiny to sea monsters. No one agrees. The sea never explains. #LegendaryWednesday

The Soviet Union built secret “closed cities” during the Cold War - entire towns hidden from maps, surrounded by barbed wire, filled with scientists and surveillance. You lived well. Unless you asked questions. Then you disappeared. #WyrdWednesday