Magic and Memes @gaywitchyshit - Tumblr Blog

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frenchwitchdiary

Meme templates X tarot

wizard-council-bureaucrat

ancient roman spell circle to contain one(1) snail

biornicles

hello. what.

wizard-council-bureaucrat

i don't think i can be any clearer here: ancient roman. spell circle. to contain. one(1) snail.

allthingslinguistic

There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown one” or “honey-eater” instead of “bear” to avoid summoning them, and similarly my friend has started calling Alexa “the faceless woman” because saying her true name awakens her from her slumber

English has an avoidance register used in the presence of certain respected animals, which sounds fancy until you realize it’s spelling out w-a-l-k and t-r-e-a-t in front of the dog.

Mx. Leah Velleman on twitter

a-book-of-creatures

Icelandic folklore requires you avoid saying the names of evil whales, otherwise you’ll draw their attention.

fidoruh

Yall have evil whales?

a-book-of-creatures

Iceland does! They are the illhveli, literally “evil whales”, and they live to kill you. They love nothing more than killing and eating humans and sinking their ships. Their greatest enemy is the steypireydur (that’s blue whale to you), which is the greatest of the good whales and the protector of sailors.

All evil whales are, well, evil. So evil that if you speak their name at sea, they will hear it and home in on you. So instead you use all sorts of euphemisms for their names. Also if you try to cook their meat it literally disappears from the pot. That’s right, they’re so evil, you can’t even eat them.

They include such types as the hrosshvalur (horsewhale), with big eyes and a red mane and tail. This is probably the best known and most feared of the lot.

The raudkembingur (redcomb) is especially cruel and bloodthirsty even by illhveli standards. If you manage to escape it, it will die of frustration.

Good luck escaping the mushveli (mousewhale) though, it has legs! And will clamber onto the beach in pursuit!

Or what about death from above? The stökkull (jumper) leaps high into the air and pile-drives boats to pieces.

Meanwhile the skeljungur (shellwhale) sits in the path of boats and lets them get wrecked on its shelly hide…

… while the sverdhvalur (swordwhale) slices through boats with its dorsal fin.

The katthveli (catwhale) is relatively harmless though. It meows.

The same can’t be said of the lyngbakur (heatherback), a classic island fish that lets sailors get on its back and then dives, taking them to a watery grave.

The nauthveli (oxwhale) on the other hand specially targets cattle, attracting them into the sea with its bellow before tearing them apart.

How can you avoid all these murderous whales, like the taumafiskur (bridlefish) here? Any of a number of ways, including getting a steypireydur to help. There are substances, ranging from angelica to sheep dung and chopped fox testicles, that they find abhorrent. And you can distract them with loud noises and barrels.

For more, I assure you this link will answer all your questions.

https://abookofcreatures.com/category/illhveli/

Posts about Illhveli written by abookofcreatures

fixyourwritinghabits

This is also why fairies were referred to as the ‘Good Neighbors’ and why there are so many nicknames for Satan.

The concept of avoidance speech is endlessly fascinating and rife with plot points for writing, but honestly I’m just thrilled about the EVIL WHALES.

theomenroom

when applied to drinks, "dry" means "without sugar". therefore it follows that sugary drinks can be called "wet". the meanings of the terms "hot" and "cold" when applied to drinks are obvious. thus the aspect of any drink can be determined.

for instance, green tea, freshly steeped and served without additives, is hot and dry, and therefore has an aspect of fire.

a mocha, on the other hand, while hot, is sweet, and therefore wet, and thus has an an aspect of air.

lemonade, which is wet and cold, has a water aspect.

finally, the drink which most epitomizes the earth aspect, being both cold and dry, is vodka

jawline-of-steel

We have once again returned to the four humors

keepcalmandcarriefischer

I feel like the beverage water is a fairly water aspect drink

derinthescarletpescatarian

No unfortunately water is dry

amorphousbl0b

The tribes of Tumblr appeared to worship Apollo as their primary patron deity, most often under the epithet Apollo Spairahemon ("Apollo the Ball-Thrower") as a god of prophecy and sport. His name was typically invoked to celebrate a user blessed with uncommon prescience. Moments of prophecy were considered highly sacred and were often recorded, and such texts are sometimes accompanied by an artistic depiction of the god — either his traditional masculine image or, unusually, in the form of a young woman, which appears to have been an earlier style before a conservative shift toward more conventional iconography — preparing to cast a round rubber ball that our scholars believe was used in the sport known as "dodge ball". Much as other cults regarded his arrows as bringers of disease and health, this community believed that being struck by this ball would bestow prophetic visions.

Some icons are reproduced below:

An earlier depiction (c. 2020) of Apollo as a girl clad in a simple tunic and playing with other children. Figures are smiling and the image is brightly colored, indicating a celebratory outlook toward knowledge of the future.

A later piece (c. 2022) that resembles the traditional appearance of Apollo. References to childhood and play are omitted, and the god carries a more frightening aspect; perhaps this icon represented grim omens rather than good tidings.

eunuch-whisperer-deactivated202

it sucks so bad that 'lightning magic' in every media is just some pathetic little strands of electricity. i wanna see some LIGHTNING. show me a magic setting where lightning magic lights up a room like the sun, and the bolt is only visible as an afterimage burned into your vision. I wanna see someone cast lightning and have the thunder rattling the room and shaking everyone to their core. i want lightning magic to be a split second blast of so much power it leaves everyone's senses reeling. c'mon guys don't you know what real lightning looks like? we can be doing so much better than this.

emmaklee

I've been thinking about this all day.

lipstickmata

i think it's the other way around

dark-magician-girl-meets-world

Fortuneteller, turning over the Death card: Don't worry. It isn't literal. It simply refers to some form of change. Me: Phew Fortuneteller; turning over the Gets Eaten by the Fortuneteller While Trying to Leave card: That can also mean many things

thejwilightzone

prokopetz

The reason your fantasy pantheon doesn't feel authentic is because you're starting from the wrong end. Real-world polytheism is syncretic – just deities from neighbouring cultures getting smashed together at high speed and leaving it for nerds with too much time on their hands to figure out how it makes sense. You are yourself a nerd with too much time on your hands. Don't start out asking yourself what domains make sense together. Pick domains at random and work backwards to invent a theology and metaphysics whereby of course the god of war is also the god of baked goods. What kind of silly question is that?

honourablejester

Oh, this reminds me. While we’re on the topic of food and war and the random intersections of same. Anyone want a random bit of historical trivia?

The Livery Companies of London. The guilds, essentially. They all have mottos, right? You can see a list of them here on Wikipedia, and they’re all fascinating. Have a browse, it’s well worth it. But.

For some reason, and I deeply want to know what that reason is, because I’m sure it’s going to turn out to be very prosaic, but anyway …

The motto of the Worshipful Company of Cooks? Vulnerati non Victi. Wounded not conquered.

I would deeply love to know what historical event or wishful aspirations led to that combination of profession and motto. Heh.

Also, completely different bit of trivia, but Catholic saints and their collection of odd jobs? Various saints have become patrons of very odd professions, in several cases basically by word association?

My favourite is Saint Barbara, who is the patron saint of, among other things, artillery men, military engineers, miners, and anyone else who works with explosives. Why? Because when her father had her tortured for her faith and then executed her personally, on his way home from doing so, he was struck by lightning.

Basically Barbara hit the afterlife and immediately lobbed a lightning bolt back across. So people who much later down the line started working with things that go boom essentially went … you know what that lady would’ve liked? I bet she’d have loved this. Maybe she’ll look after me while I work with it.

Your gods can pick up jobs as they go. Not even always by choice, maybe they get landed with domains because, well, they’re close enough! Somebody’s gotta do it! Or there was just one incident, one historical incident, one thing they did, and they’re essentially never getting to live it down? Or maybe they adopted something because hey, actually they do appreciate it!

Maybe your god of war, one seeing his starving armies during a siege, got down and dirty and started working the ovens for a bit. Turned his miracles to bread for a night.

Or maybe there was an ambush from the rear, and the supply lines and camp were overrun, and the cooks fought an absolutely stunning holding action while the rest of the army got itself turned around, damn near dying in the process, and the war god immediately adopted them, these people are my people, did you see that, bread is my new holy symbol, nobody talk to me for a minute.

Life is messy. Sometimes shit happens, and suddenly a god has a whole new domain because of one thing that happened. Or they did a thing two thousand years ago, and then a new technology happened, and even though the mechanics had nothing to do with them, the ethos really fit, and people started praying to them about it, and they said why not? Sure I’ll take your boom cannons. I’m mostly the god of math, but I can get behind the odd explosion as well.

Some gods are very clear and very distinct, they do one job, they like what they like.

Other gods get handed whatever jobs are going because, well, somebody needs to do ‘em, and hey, looks like you’re up!

And some gods are like magpies and acquire bits of whatever shiny thing passes in their vague vicinity.

Glue a bit of everything together in your mythology, shake it vigorously for a couple of centuries, and see what bits of glue actually hold, I guess?

chaumas-deactivated20240115

is it plant magic or is it green tentacle magic

chaumas-deactivated20240115

if I’m going to have tentacle magic I want them to be purple or black but if I’m going to have plant magic I’m gonna have to request a more interesting move than green tentacles

chaumas-deactivated20240115

actually I could go for black and white striped tentacles I think that’s an aesthetic I could get behind. the animators can just deal.

en-theos

BABES WAKE UP NEW MESOPOTAMIAN MYTH FEATURING AN ABDUCTION TO THE UNDERWORLD FOOD OF THE DEAD AND WITHERED CROPS JUST DROPPED

en-theos

the scholarly article dropped in february actually apparently but major media picked up on it recently!

the myth is roughly that the sumerian storm god iškur is kidnapped to the underworld while inspecting canals, and after his father Enlil conveyes a divine council, only Fox is prepared to retrieve him. foxy shenanigans ensue with the food of the dead, resulting in iškur's return and the restoration of the land.

A recent study by Dr. Jana Matuszak, published in the academic journal Iraq, examines the mythical narrative contained in a tablet (Ni 12501

OF CAPTIVE STORM GODS AND CUNNING FOXES: NEW INSIGHTS INTO EARLY SUMERIAN MYTHOLOGY, WITH AN EDITION OF NI 12501 - Volume 86

fongus-the-ninth

kirkspocks

odin is like “when thor was born the sun shone bright upon his beautiful face. i found loki on the sidewalk outside a taco bell”

chromalogue

Oðinn spake:

Bright the sun shone | at the time of Þor’s birth, And bathed his count'nance fair. Loki, wolf-father, | the trickster, the liar, I found on the cold pavement While returning in glory | from a grand hunt For a 3 AM quesadilla.