#fictional folklore

[asterinthesea]

After four months of work, I finally finished my video about the folklore of Selûne within the Forgotten Realms! If you enjoy worldbuilding and fantasy religions this might just be a video for you 👀

[yarnrocks]

This is a Härkkä. It's a little creature that usually hides in the dark corners of old log cabins and farm buildings (esp. Likes to spend times in the corners of old barns where cows are kept :) ).

At night likes to help with farm stuff at the barn, like keeping the cows and bulls calm, and making sure they have enough water to drink and hay to eat. It will sometimes wake up the farmer(s) to alert them that something's gone wrong at the barn.

At christmas you should leave it a small present under the tree, as a thank-you for their hard work :).

Also some can be hired by witches as familiars ;).

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Just a fun little creature we came up with my mother :D. I invented the backstory ^^. They're very cute creatures indeed. And helpful!

[paperpencilbattery]

How the lake Iltiade came to be

according to folklore

Many nights and days, winters and summers ago, it was a blazing hot day in the Garden of Gods. The Sun Goddess had risen that morning with intent to warm the ground and nourish the plants. She was now high up in the sky, try telling her it's too hot! So the River God Iltes decided to make a pool for the gods to bathe.

He came up to the Axplawe, his mightiest river and asked: "oh Ax, my child, my locket of hair, spare me some water from your deep wide flow, let your father refresh on this dry summer day!" The Axplawe responded: "I'm wide enough as is, my water is cold and clear, you can wash in my stream if you wish for a retreat.". Iltes didn't believe it be enough: "you are mighty wide, but for me alone only! you couldn't fit all the spirits and gods that require a bath, let alone all the creatures gotten by thirst...". The Axplawe wasn't giving in easily: "I can meander for miles on end, stretch far and split up, I can make space for sand beaches by which you can swim!" the River God was getting annoyed with his creation's evasions: "the splits make you shallow and the meanders narrow! a lake's what I need and what I ask for!".

The river tried excusing once more, but Iltes had had enough. he grabbed Axplawe by their waist and squeezed, so that only half of the water flowed though. the valley upstream didn't take long to flood, forming a lake of a nice circular shape. once the lake has filled up Iltes let go of the river, letting the water flow freely again."see? Wasn't so hard after all! Now the gods can bathe and creatures can drink!" He exclaimed. The river, a little disgruntled, (I was very surprised to not find an english word for the sound of running water, so just imagine that sound) murmured something quietly, but didn't seem too mad. The new lake brought the gods together for a grand festival on its beaches (a grand ol beach episode amiright) and bathed deep into the night till the water cooled down.

And this is how the Iltiade came to be.

___

hii merry Christmas! I've been fermenting my thoughts for a while instead of posting for some time. but today I whipped this up in like 2 hours (past midnight) so enjoy and happy new year yall!!

[cmrosens]

The Town That Isn't There

Here's a fictional place fact post for you! Welcome to my twisted little world...

The location of my fictional town, Pagham-on-Sea, East Sussex, is roughly where Norman's Bay is in real life, but I've changed the geology and added a chalk spar that creates cliffs that aren't really there. This is so I can have cool things coming out of the rocks, but also to deliberately create a sense of unease and unfamiliarity about the area itself, so it's hard to pin down by description and signals that it's fictional and not real.

I went there to check out where things would sit geographically, and I think the layout works. @dewiwrites made me a town map that's in the hardback version of THE CROWS, and will also go in the eBook/paperback version of REAL MEAT when that comes out.

Here's the video of me going for a birthday walk in January along the very stretch of coast where Pagham-on-Sea is not.

I came up with the name just by running through prefixes and suffixes that work in the area, so -ham was the obvious ending as I wanted something in Old English to give it that sense of long history, and the prefix Pag- could have a number of folk etymologies while the real one is more mundane. It also just sounded right.

I then realised there is, of course, a real place called Pagham that's in West Sussex, near Chichester, and that just made it sound more authentic. So this one is Pagham-on-Sea, like its neighbour, the very real Bexhill-on-Sea, and the other one is just Pagham.

More info in the blog post below, with maps so you can see where it is in England if you're unfamiliar with the geography of English counties!

So You’re Moving To Pagham-on-Sea: Doing the Groundwork

I’m taking a short break from my Goth posts to blog about my own work, and read a few more modern Gothic fic stories that I can review in th

[grantmespace]

The Discrete Ones

Entity 11: Maime

Goddess of the Land. Lover of Annul, God of the sky.

[postorbital]

Paint a false keyhole so witches are confused and don't come through the real one.

[cmrosens]

Jennet, Jenny and Pinnie-Pen

A Folktale from Pagham-on-Sea

CONTEXT: This is a draft of a folktale that I wrote kind of in the style of a Sussex folktale with some dialect words but it's not written in full Sussex dialect! It's in THE FOLKLORE OF PAGHAM-ON-SEA VOLUME 1 which is 99p to buy, and contains more flash fic like this, folktales and urban legends from this fictional town. It's one of the eBooks you can buy in a bundle for £6 from my Ko-Fi shop right now!

You can also tip me here if you like it.

A folktale from Pagham-on-Sea, recorded by Rev. J. D. Allardyce (1904).

This tale was collected from Richard Pendle in the parish of St Mark’s, Pagham-on-Sea. Richard Pendle’s uncle, Thomas Pendle, was the gamekeeper of Fairwood House. Richard Pendle married Eleanor Hunderby of Barrow Farm in 1873.

This is a tale passed down by the Hunderbys of Barrow Farm, although since the disappearance of Eleanor in 1876 there has been great animosity between the two families, resulting in Richard Pendle’s estrangement from his own relations.

It was a rare event that I was able to speak with him, for he is a solitary man and greatly dislikes company. Richard Pendle was the last to bear the Pendle name: his three cousins, Beverley, Olive and Eileen, all took married names and bestowed these upon their numerous children, although their husbands are something of a mystery and there is no record of their marriages in the parish records.

~ Margin note for this tale by J. D. Allardyce

There’s a tale told of Barrow Field though no folk believe on it now, of the time Old Joss Hunderby went widdershins around the largest of the barrows there after a lamb, and before he knew what was what a door opened in the side and out of it he heard a strange sound like singing.

Old Joss he crossed hisself and said a prayer and peeped in at the door to see what it was all about, but before he could do any more it all went dark inside and a voice calls out,

Come horse, come cow, come small brown hen, Come Jennet, Jenny and Pinnie-Pen!

Well, Old Joss wondered what this was and thought it was the farisees and their little tricks, but he couldn’t move from the spot, it were like his legs were stuck together. He tried and tried and tried again but he couldn’t go back, and he couldn’t go left, and he couldn’t go right, but he could take a step further into the barrow. ‘If I can’t go back, and I can’t go left, and I can’t go right, I might as well go forwards,’ Old Joss thought, and he took a step inside the door.

There in the barrow Old Joss saw three figures, all strange-fashioned in the gloom, two with large heads, one with small, and all bundled up in old travelling clothes. He scratched his head and thought to sneak out another way, but the door closed and he was there with no way out, all in the dark tomb of stone with the grass growing tall over it. Well, Old Joss was afeared and he clutched at his smock, but it was no good now for what’s done is done and there’s no going back from it.

Then he heard the voice again, coming from one of the figures.

“Well Jennet,” said the one, “I heard the batfowlers last night in the woods, a-catching fowl. The fowl say beware the false feathers.”

“Well Jenny,” said another, “I heard the flittermouse last night in the fields, a-catching moths. The moths say beware the false lights.”

“Well Pinnie-Pen,” said the third, “I heard the kime last night in the hedgerow a-catching meese. The meese say beware the false smiles.”

Old Joss could take it no more: “And I heard the mawkin last night in the fields a-catching cold!” He burst out, “And I’ll not be a-listening to you no longer!” And with that he groped around the stones until he found the door again, and the three figures took down their hoods and stared at him behind their mummers’ masks, one with a horse-head, one with a cow-head, and one with the head of a small brown hen.

Well, Old Joss lay bethered after that, and for three long weeks he never stirred, until one night his son came in to say he had seen the strangest sight: marching down from the long barrow in Barrow Field at sunset was a troop of little men all scarce four inches high, and all wore fern-fronds in their caps that bobbed like feathers, and they made their way merrily down the road in procession, the lad following them at a distance to see where they might go, until they came to the grounds of the big house, and there they danced around the well in the garden. And the lad hid in the bushes and watched the little men dance, and as they danced strange lights like small dandelion puffs rose out of the well and danced with them, glowing like tiny pearls. And the lad watched and watched until one of the little men stopped dancing and called out, “I twets, do you twet?” and the lad couldn’t help but laugh – but laughing gave him away and the little men all scattered.

“You must beware the little men with their false feathers, false lights and false smiles,” Old Joss told his son, remembering the words he’d heard in the barrow. But the lad was curious and although he promised his father, he went back to the big house to hide in the bushes the following night to see if the little men would return.

Well, this time, the little men came back and danced with the lights around the well – and this time as before one stopped dancing, all out of breath, and cried out, “Puck! I twets, do you twet?” And as before the lad couldn’t help but laugh and give himself away.

But this time the leader of the little men came to the lad with a smile as long as a staff, and invited him to dance with them. “You little fluttergrub, hiding there in the dirt,” the little man said, “Come away with us, and we will fill your pockets with riches.”

Well, the lad was sorely tempted, and although he had promised his father, he soon found himself dancing with the little men, around and around and around the well, and then when he could dance no more they caught him up, some on his right leg, some on his left, and lifted him like he weighed no more than a sparrow, and they took him off down the road and back to the barrow where they came from, and the lad was heard of no more.

Old Joss got hisself out of bed to find his son, and went widdershins about the barrow again – but no little men did he find, only the darkness of the tomb and the stones, and the three misshapen figures, all dressed up to go travelling. And again he heard that voice saying,

Come horse, come cow, come small brown hen, Come Jennet, Jenny and Pinnie-Pen!

“I’ll give ye Jennet, Jenny and Pinnie-Pen!” Old Joss roared, and set about them with his cane, beside himself for the loss of his boy. “Give to me my child, you little devils!” And he set about to pull at the heads of the figures to see who was playing tricks. But as he pulled at them they fell all in a heap; for what he took to be mummers’ masks were no masks at all, and his fingers found the blood-stiff yarn stitches that sewed the heads to their necks.

And they found Old Joss fitting in Barrow Field and he died that same day, and they never found the boy, not ever, and they say there’s still lights in the well of the big house from time to time, and singing too, if you listen; but no one believes on such fancies nowadays and the Hunderbys sold off the field years back, and the long barrows lie asleep under grass and sun, and are filled with stone and silence and nothing more.

widdershins: anti-clockwise farisees: Sussex dialect for fairies batfowlers: bird-catchers with nets who go out at night flittermouse: bat kime: weasels meese: mice mawkin: scarecrow bethered: bedridden twets/twet: to sweat fluttergrub: a man who takes a delight in working about in the dirt, and getting into every possible mess

The whole box set of 3 novels, 2 short stories, 1 novella and 1 anthology of fictional folklore/urban legends from the setting of the novels/novella is available from my Ko-Fi shop for £6!

Downloads: epub and pdf format.

Box Set: Complete Book Bundle (epub/pdf files) - CM Rosens's Ko-fi Shop

This is a bundle of my books - all of them in one! THE CROWS - A GOTHIC HORROR NOVEL for fans of Hammer Horror, Ramsay Campbell and Brassi