Tag Archives: Walpurgisnacht

Night of the Gorgeous Goth Girls–again!!

Posted on 4th November 2018 by William the Bloody

This poem was meant as a light-hearted celebration of all things Gothic, and of scholars and students in the field. I crammed in as many tropes, archetypes, characters, and clichés as I could, torturously straining the rhymes on the rack. … Continue reading →

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Happy Walpurgisnacht!

Posted on 30th April 2018 by William the Bloody

I know I’ve posted this previously, but I made some slight changes and additions–my poem celebrating OGOM and Gothic Studies and general witchiness: Night of the Gorgeous Goth Girls: A Paranormal Romance. (for Sam George, Alison Younger, and their students … Continue reading →

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Witches and Walpurgis Night

Posted on 30th April 2017 by William the Bloody

Happy Walpurgisnacht! Here’s an excellent article by Prof. Owen Davies of the University of Hertfordshire, ‘Witches and Walpurgis Night‘. He traces the folkloric origins of the supposed sabbat of witches through Goethe and Bram Stoker to contemporary popular culture.

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Ring-a-ring-a Widdershins: It’s Walpurgis Night and Halfway to Hallowe’en!

Posted on 30th April 2017 by Sam George

  It’s Walpurgis Night  (Walpurgisnacht or Valborgsmässoafton),  the night that marks the transition from winter to spring, falling on the eve of the first of May. It’s also halfway to Halloween!! Kaja will like that!  In folk tradition, witches and … Continue reading →

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Disco Magic

Posted on 1st May 2016 by William the Bloody

But what I’m dancing to tonight, when I’m not swirling in the air on my besom, is this great generic mutation of Mussorgsky–very apt for the hedonism of the 1970s New York club scene.

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Disney’s Walpurgisnacht

Posted on 30th April 2016 by William the Bloody

Witches and magical transformations are themes that OGOM will be pursuing over the next year or so. Disney’s wonderful adaptation of Walpurgisnacht in Fantasia (1941) makes full use of the potential of cinematic technology to depict the transformative powers of … Continue reading →

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Walpurgisnacht: Musical and textual variations

Posted on 30th April 2016 by William the Bloody

Sam has posted some fab items on witches below to celebrate Walpurgisnacht, so I’d better follow suit before dawn arrives and the wild partying has to end. The Walpurgisnacht motif has inspired artists in all sorts of media. It’s a … Continue reading →

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Night of the Gorgeous Goth Girls: A Paranormal Romance

Posted on 13th March 2016 by William the Bloody

I’ve done a little retouching and extending to my poem, which envisages a comic Walpurgisnacht scene, with witches wildly celebrating their creativity. It’s a homage to lecturers and students of the Gothic and fantastic. Not sure if it quite works; … Continue reading →

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Mussorgsky – Night on the Bare Mountain (Bernstein)

Posted on 1st November 2015 by William the Bloody

Continuing the witches theme. Not strictly for Hallowe’en, but an eerie accompaniment to my Walpurgisnacht poem: Mussorgsky – Night on the bare mountain (Bernstein)

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Happy Walpurgisnacht!

Posted on 30th April 2015 by William the Bloody

Tonight is the night that witches party. There is a wild, fantastic depiction of this in Goethe’s Faust and there are memorable reworkings throughout literature and the arts–in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Joseph Heller’s … Continue reading →

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