Normally, episodes come out every 2 weeks on Mondays. The first episode was officially scheduled for April 30, which might have you looking for a May 14 release, but because we gave you three shows all at once, the first is May 21. We’ll post more upcoming show topics as we get them cleared for takeoff.
After two episodes meandering about in the nocturnal folklore of Walpurgisnacht witches sabbaths, we’re inviting our Bone and Sickle friends out in the daylight for a celebrate the arrival of Spring. Not to worry, there’s still human sacrifice in the air, as we begin the show looking at that pre-emininent example of the folk-horor genre, and what’s been called “cinema’s greatest pagan horror musical,” Robin Hardy’s 1973 film, The Wicker Man.
In a curious counterpoint to the ghastly deed unfolding in the film’s final scene, the villagers of Summerisle sing a rather cheery song associated with Beltane, or the coming of summer, for which Beltane, in the Celtic calendar, is the first day.
The 13th-century song, “Sumer is a-cumin in” in modern English:
Summer has arrived, Loudly sing, cuckoo! The seed is growing And the meadow is blooming, And the wood is coming into leaf now, Sing, cuckoo!
The ewe is bleating after her lamb, The cow is lowing after her calf; The bullock is prancing, The billy-goat farting.
Again with the farting goats! Listeners to our Walpurgisnachtepisode will remember, the farting goats and witches from Goethe’s description of the witches’ sabbath on the Brocken in Faust. Perhaps farting goats will become a theme for this show. Please forgive the short, stinky side trip into this digression where we note the real world dangers associated with the issue as well as a popular YouTube video on the theme.
https://youtu.be/K9V5wzWv6gM
Also, speaking of things for which we might apologize, listeners should be warned that there is some unpleasantness regarding Wilkinson the Butler and his new spring suit at the beginning of this episode. You may want to skip past all that if such things offend.
Finally we do come round to our actual topic, the cuckoo in folklore, and Wilkinson is kind enough to read us some quite interesting superstitions associated with the bird’s arrival in spring from an edition of The Gentleman’s Magazine published in London in 1852.
And then a lovely folk song about the cuckoo with some some tragic themes and variations.
A curious line in the song about the cuckoo “sucking eggs,” is explained in epic detail as Wilkinson narrates an an extremely grotesque episode from the bird’s natural life cycle, reading from On Nature’s Trail: A Wonder-book of the Wild written in 1912.
Then the odd association between cuckoos and certain themes in Science Fiction is briefly addressed.
“Village of the Damned” poster, based on “The Midwich Cuckoos”
We follow the cuckoo into an even stranger and mostly forgotten associations between cuckoos and cuckoldry, losing ourselves further in the notion of the cuckold as one “wearing the horns,” and at long last arriving at a truly ghastly farmyard rationale behind the “horns” expression.
The painting below illustrates the “horns” symbolism rudely applied within a group of Italian commedia dell’arte performers. Further illustrations below (17th-century England and 19th-century France respectively) rerpresent other satiric commentary.
Francois Bunel, “Actors of the Commedia dell’Arte” (1580)Illustration of cuckold from 17th-century satiric broadside.A French satirical print depicting an “order” of cuckolds wearing horns.
Naturally, the subject of cuckoo clocks must also receive brief mention, but we find our way to our native “horror” habitat back through the notion of the cuckoo clock as a species of “automata clocks,” and thereby other more morbid examples, such as this stellar piece used in Werner Herzog’s 1973 film, Nosferatu.
A few grisly tales associated with public “death clocks” receive dramatic treatment including this fellow from the Czech town of Havličkův Brod and the grim folklore surrounding him.
We close the show out with the warning, “Carpe Diem” as expressed (with a nod to the cuckoo) by the avant-folk band, The Fugs in 1966.Become a Patron!
Become a Patron!
Episode One of BONE & SICKLE is the first half of a two-parter about May Eve, Beltane, or as the Germans call it, Walpurgisnacht (“Walpurgis night“) the night of St. Walburga, that and oh so much more!
Nearing the Borgo Pass. Tod Browning’s Dracula.Advising against the journey. from Tod Browning’s Dracula
It’s also about St. George’s Eve, and the conflation of the two in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (and another kind of confusion in Lugosi’s 1931 film of the same name.
Along the way, we meet eccentric English churchman and scholar of folklore and occult, Montague Summers, who provides some interesting nuts and bolts on protecting oneself from evil spirits afoot on Saints George’s of Walburga’s nights. (Sprigs of various herbs placed around doors and windows are a start.) We also learn of what appears to be a strange and little remarked upon money-making hobby Bram Stoker devised for Count Dracula, one referencing actual Romanian superstitions of the 1800s, all of which Stoker had studied up on before embarking on his novel. (Do any readers of the novel remember the mysterious “blue flame” incident (something like a will-o’-the-wisp)?
Eccentric scholar Montague Summers
We also discover what was apparently an early, discarded chapter from the novel Dracula, one rich in references to these earlier landmark works of the gothic genre, these being, Joseph Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Gottfried August Bürger’s 1773 poem Lenore, from which Stoker borrowed the epigraph, “The Dead travel fast” — both of which we’ll explore a bit. Am\nd there’s even a little nod to Walpurgis night.
Please enjoy this video trailer, a smattering of podcast snippets from upcoming episodes of Bone & Sickle accompanied by original imagery of an appropriately moody and evocative nature.
Our first episodes of Bone & Sickle celebrate May Eve, Beltane, or — as the Germans say — Walpurgisnacht. Learn more about the relationship between this holiday and European witchcraft traditions, the Dracula mythos, and the history of Germany’s notorious witch-haunted Blocksberg mountain, where occult rituals have been carried out into the 20th century.
April 30 Special Walpurgis Premier Binge Release:
Special Premier “Binge” release of 3 episodes at once. Thereafter on alternate Mondays.
Episode 1, WALPURGISNACHT, Part 1
Episode 2, WALPURGISNACHT, Part 2
Episode 3, LOUDLY SING CUCKOO!
Upcoming Episodes
June 11:
Episode 4, LOST HEADS
June 25
Episode 5, TBA.
More episodes will follow throughout the Summer and Fall on alternate Mondays. Stay tuned for schedule details.
Are there topics within the folk-horror realm you’d like to see discussed? We’d love to hear your likes and suggestions!
