Category Archives: Critical thoughts

Better the Devil You Know: Was the Devil Once Blue and an Angel?

Posted on 21st January 2017 by Sam George

I have always wondered how the devil came to be depicted as red with horns and cloven feet and I once heard that one of the first visual images of the devil depicts him as a blue angel. So did … Continue reading →

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All the Better to See You With: Wolves and US

Posted on 11th January 2017 by Sam George

I found myself in Bolton in the pantomime season en route to Glasgow and was fortunate to stumble across an exhibition on ‘Animals and US’ at Bolton Central Library and Museum.  This ‘family-friendly’ exhibition, purports to show how animals feature in … Continue reading →

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Preparing for a Viva – Further Thoughts

Posted on 4th January 2017 by firekrank

At the behest of Sam, I have been persuaded to write more about viva “process”. As I said in my previous post, preparing for a viva can be strange. There are many reasons for this: 1) you can’t help thinking … Continue reading →

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2017 – PhD Reflections

Posted on 3rd January 2017 by firekrank

As Sam has already blogged (in very flattering terms), I passed my viva on Friday 16th December. (Minor corrections if you were wondering). Following this I have taken two weeks of radio silence to celebrate Christmas, the end of 2016, … Continue reading →

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Dark Musings From A Discarded Christmas Tree

Posted on 3rd January 2017 by Sam George

  There is something of an arboreal theme going on on the blog just now following the announcement of the Beasts of the Forest conference. If you are decorating your tree you might like to read Hans Andersen’s unsettling account of … Continue reading →

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Folk Gothic and Folk Noir

Posted on 3rd December 2016 by William the Bloody

We’ve mentioned the growing interest in folk Gothic a couple of times on this site, where the darkness of Gothic narrative roots itself in folk traditions (or invented replicas of such traditions). Folklore, too, interests us in the form of … Continue reading →

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Theodore von Holst, ‘Frankenstein’ (1831)

Posted on 3rd December 2016 by William the Bloody

A very erudite and penetrating article here by Ian Haywood of the University of Roehampton on the frontispiece to Mary Shelley’s 1831 edition of Frankenstein by Theodore von Holst, a protégé of Henry Fuseli. Haywood’s essay uses the image of … Continue reading →

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Gothic Sensibilities: Charlotte Bronte Stitches Her Dead Sibling’s Hair Into Her Shoes

Posted on 1st December 2016 by Sam George

Just when you thought the Bronte sisters could not get any more gothic Charlotte Bronte’s silk shoes from 1850 reveal that she repaired them using her dead sibling’s hair!! This may seem maudlin to us but it was evidently an … Continue reading →

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Fairy Tales, feminism, and strangeness

Posted on 28th November 2016 by William the Bloody

A handful of interesting items on fairy tale here. First, a very scholarly but readable and fascinating account of the classic English fairy tale, ‘Mr Fox’ (a Bluebeard variant). Then, there’s a review, ‘A Dwarf Becomes a Wolf Girl in … Continue reading →

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Gargoyles and Temptation

Posted on 18th November 2016 by William the Bloody

This is a fascinating piece from the always-wonderful Folklore Thursday on the history and significance of gargoyles. It begins and ends with the presence of these ambivalent creatures in popular culture, from a childhood memory of the animated series Gargoyles … Continue reading →

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