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Castle

@theblackdragontavern

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Stories built the world, help me to keep on building.
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"If your prospective husband literally explodes to get away from you... perhaps take the hint." 🕯️ Folk will end a romance over the daftest little things these days. Dating apps have turned the entire pursuit into a game—I'm half expecting Xbox to introduce Bumble achievements. But if you look back at eighteenth-century Scotland, they weren't much better. They were predicting breakups with two hazelnuts and a fire. It was a popular Halloween custom, famously recorded by the poet Robert Burns. You assign two nuts the names of a prospective couple and place them side by side in the embers. If they burn quietly together, it means a harmonious marriage. In Burns’s poem, a girl named Jean secretly tests her romance with a boy named Jock. At first, all is well. Jean thinks her future is secure. Then, without warning, Jock’s nut suddenly pops and shoots straight up the chimney. We never find out what actually happened to Jean and Jock. But one can assume the hearth made its point rather violently. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #Folklore #RobertBurns #ScottishHistory #Romance by @theblackdragontavern
"If you are ever tempted to tell your spouse how lucky they are to have you... maybe just go to sleep instead." 🕯️ Folk seem terribly keen to make marriage a competition. In fact, the epic Irish saga of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) begins with a pillow talk argument. King Ailill tells his wife, Queen Medb, how fortunate she is to have him. Medb, who was spectacularly wealthy and powerful before they ever met, was having none of it. They decided to settle the argument by counting all their worldly possessions. They were flawlessly matched, save for one absurd detail: Ailill owned a magnificent White-horned Bull that had defected from Medb's own herd because it refused to be the property of a woman. Lacking a matching bull, Medb arranged to borrow the legendary Brown Bull of Cooley. The owner agreed—until Medb's messengers got drunk and boasted they would have stolen the beast by force regardless. The deal collapsed. Medb's solution? Raise a massive army and march to war. There is a lesson here about communication and marital ledgers, but mostly, it's about knowing when to just turn off the lantern and go to sleep. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #IrishMythology #CelticLore #QueenMaeve #Mythology by @theblackdragontavern
"A small portion of the mead escaped Odin... backward." 🕯️ Norse mythology has a rather beautiful explanation for where great poets get their talent. They are blessed by drinking the magical Mead of Poetry. But the Prose Edda also explains where bad poets get their inspiration, and it is thoroughly disgusting. When Odin infiltrated a giant's mountain to steal the mead, he drank every last drop, transformed into an eagle, and fled toward Ásgard. Unfortunately, the giant turned into an eagle too and came tearing after him. As Odin crossed the safety of Ásgard's walls, he spat the good mead from his beak into the gods' vessels. But the chase had been stressful. A small portion of the magical mead escaped the Allfather... backward. Out of the other end of the bird. The gods let that part fall to the mortal realm, and that tainted, backward spillage is exactly what fuels terrible poets. Makes a lot of sense, really. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #NorseMythology #Odin #ProseEdda #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"Cast out of Heaven, and he's still taking it out on a hedge." 🕯️ The Devil spits on blackberries. At least, that's what people across Britain and Ireland used to believe. When the Archangel Michael cast Lucifer out of Heaven, the fallen angel didn't enjoy a graceful landing. He fell directly into a patch of thorny blackberry brambles. Furious about the indignity, the Devil holds a perennial grudge. Every year on Michaelmas—the end of September, marking the anniversary of his fall—he returns to the bushes to stamp, curse, and spit on the berries, turning them bitter. In truth, late autumn weather simply causes the overripe fruit to mould or turn mushy. But there is something strangely respectable about the Devil's sheer commitment to petty revenge. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #Folklore #Mythology #Michaelmas #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"They weren't simply frightened by a beast. They thought Judgement Day had come." 🕯️ In 1577, a black dog reportedly killed two worshippers inside an English church. On August 4th, Sunday service in Bungay was interrupted by a violent thunderstorm that plunged the building into darkness. As panic set in, a black dog raced through the congregation. Two people kneeling in prayer dropped dead on the spot. Another was left horribly contorted, though they survived. A similar incident nearby in Blythburgh left three more dead. The event was recorded by Abraham Fleming in a pamphlet titled A straunge and terrible wunder. Today, we know this creature from modern folklore as Black Shuck—a massive hellhound with glowing red eyes. But the original 1577 report is terrifying precisely because of its bluntness. Fleming simply described a black dog, or the Devil taking its shape. To the people trapped in the dark that day, it wasn't just a monster. It was the end of the world. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #Folklore #BlackShuck #History #Macabre by @theblackdragontavern
"They changed the world without tearing the story apart." 🕯️ The greatest adaptation ever made is a masterclass in how to change the surface of a story while fiercely protecting its soul. In Treasure Planet, Disney put Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in space. They turned Captain Smollett into Captain Amelia. They brilliantly merged Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney into Dr. Doppler. But they fiercely protected the absolute heart of the novel: the complicated bond between Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver. Despite this brilliance, it seemed like the studio spent years trying to kill it. Disney rejected the pitch for a decade. When the directors finally negotiated a contractual guarantee to make it, the studio released it just twelve days after Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It appeared to be a deliberate burial, and within days, Disney wrote off $74 million. I spend a lot of time criticizing bad adaptations because I love a good story. That's why we're telling one ourselves. I'm recording Stevenson's Treasure Island as a Tavern Spoken Book. Follow the chapters as they release, or grab the complete edition in the shop when it's done. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #TreasurePlanet #TreasureIsland #AnimationHistory #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"We don't honour our ancestors simply by remembering their names. We honour them by deciding what was worth carrying forward." 🕯️ Every year, plenty of folk fight over who owns this night. Is Halloween Pagan? Is it Christian? What actually is Samhain? For many, it is a time to remember the dead. But in my family, we're not terribly concerned with the dead coming back. Because, in truth, they never really left. We remember our ancestors in our daily lives through how we wear our hair. Our eldest sons carry our family trees on their backs. But during Samhain, we gather around the table to tell their stories. Every year, new songs are written for those we've lost, joining the stories and songs handed down for generations. And we remember them in the skills they bled to pass down to us. Samhain isn't just about speaking to the dead. It's about acknowledging how much of them still lives through us. The dead don't need to speak for their voices to be heard in the lives we lead. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #Samhain #Ancestors #HalloweenLore #Folklore by @theblackdragontavern
"You can insist you love the truth, when what you really enjoy is winning an argument." 🕯️ Everyone has a god. The trouble is, we're not always worshipping the one we think we are. If you leave a handful of coins for a family that can't afford supper, you've done a wonderful thing. But if you then spend the rest of the week making sure the entire village knows you did it—wondering why they haven't commissioned a statue in your honor—your ego has begun to hijack your generosity. C.S. Lewis had a marvelous example of this in The Screwtape Letters. An old demon advises his nephew on how to corrupt a human: when a man becomes humble, make him notice how humble he's become. And when the man catches himself taking pride in his humility? Make him proud of having noticed. It is a brilliant, devastating trap. There are all sorts of little substitute gods like that. You can talk endlessly about kindness while being perfectly dreadful to the people closest to you. We can become so devoted to the idea of being good people that we forget to examine whether we're actually behaving like them. Of course, right now I'm feeling rather pleased with myself for explaining all this. It catches us all. ​Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #CSLewis #Philosophy #LifeWisdom #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"Tolkien had finally given the trees the war Shakespeare denied them." 🕯️ J.R.R. Tolkien harbored a lifelong grudge against William Shakespeare's Macbeth. As a young reader, Tolkien came across the famous prophecy of Birnam Wood advancing on Dunsinane. He eagerly anticipated an epic scene of a literal forest marching to war. Instead, he got soldiers waving branches to disguise their numbers. The disappointment stuck with him. Years later, Middle-earth finally gave him the scene he'd been waiting for. He created the Ents, the ancient shepherds of the forest, and sent them to rip the stones of Isengard apart. In a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien admitted that he hadn't consciously set out to invent the Ents—they grew naturally from his love of language and nature. But their march to war? That traced directly back to his schoolboy frustration with Shakespeare's camouflage trick. If the world doesn't give you walking trees, you simply have to grow your own. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #Tolkien #Shakespeare #LOTR #FantasyBooks Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"Their final words, spoken together? 'Farewell, dear companion.'" 🌿 Jupiter and Mercury once knocked on a thousand doors disguised as weary travelers, and a thousand doors were shut in their faces. Only an impoverished old couple, Baucis and Philemon, invited them inside. They revived their hearth and shared the best of their modest provisions. Then came the terrifying realization: no matter how much they poured, the wine bowl kept refilling itself. Panicking, the couple tried to sacrifice their only goose to properly honor their divine guests. The bird escaped, leading to a frantic chase around the cramped cottage until it finally sought refuge at the feet of the gods, who decided it was time to reveal themselves. The gods flooded the valley, drowning the unwelcoming neighbors, and turned the couple's humble cottage into a temple. Offered a reward, Baucis and Philemon asked to serve in that temple, and to pass away at the exact same moment so neither would have to bury the other. When their time finally came, they became an oak and a linden, growing together, their branches intertwined. Slán go fóill, traveler. #BlackDragonTavern #RomanMythology #Folklore #MythologyLore #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"The two men paid for that secret with their lives... but those chests of English silver are still out there." 🕯️ Aging is a cruel master, even for a legendary Viking. In his final years, the once-feared warrior Egil went blind. When the household servants started mocking him for getting in their way, his bitterness boiled over into a remarkably cynical plan. Egil possessed two heavy chests of English silver, a gift from King Æthelstan. He decided to haul the treasure to Iceland's national assembly and scatter it into the crowd, simply to watch his countrymen tear each other apart fighting over the coins. When his son-in-law Grímr discovered the plan and forbade it, Egil's spite found a darker outlet. In the dead of night, he took two enslaved men and his chests of silver on a mysterious journey into the wilderness. By morning, he was wandering alone with his horse. He admitted to killing the men, ensuring they could never reveal his route. As for where he hid the silver? Not a word. The ravines and bogs of the Icelandic landscape have guarded that secret for a thousand years. Watch your step in the bogs, travelers. Slán go fóill. #BlackDragonTavern #VikingHistory #Iceland #Folklore #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern
"Roman customer service was rather unforgiving." 🕯️ Imagine stepping out of the public baths and realizing someone has stolen your coat. Today, you'd complain to management. In Roman Britain, you'd write a formal letter to a goddess and demand payment in blood. At the sacred spring of Sulis Minerva in Bath, archaeologists unearthed a massive collection of these letters. When a Roman had their property stolen—be it cloaks, gloves, or coins—they didn't simply write it off as a loss. They scratched curses into thin sheets of lead or pewter and cast them into the sacred waters, asking the goddess to deliver justice. Tablet 65 is particularly brutal. It dedicates the thief of a hooded cloak to Sulis Minerva. The victim writes that whether the thief is male or female, enslaved or free, they can only buy back that gift with their own blood. We don't know if Sulis ever collected on the debt. But imagine stealing a cloak and discovering its owner had offered you to a goddess—and declared your own blood the price of getting you back. Watch your belongings today, travelers. Slán go fóill. #BlackDragonTavern #RomanHistory #Folklore #AncientHistory #Storyteller by @theblackdragontavern

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