Justine's Halloween: British

Showing posts with label British. Show all posts

Sunday, July 9, 2017

British Ghost Stories Under Tonight's Thunder Moon

I was so fortunate to get some photos of tonight's full moon! It looked like it was going to be too overcast out there to get a shot of it.

I was all prepared to show a pic I took of the nearly full moon last night. But tonight's moon popped out for maybe 30 seconds tops, and then went back under a cloud. I was lucky to have my camera ready.

Going...

Gone!

I took those photos in succession. Click, click, click. So that shows how fast the moon was being covered!

July's full moon is called the "Thunder Moon". If you're wondering, this moon got its name because there are more frequent thunderstorms in July than in other months. For those who'd like to get into the nitty gritty of what else is going on in the sky alongside that moon, space.com has an informative page: July Full Moon 2017: When to See the 'Thunder Moon'

Because I didn't think I was going to get a photo of the moon tonight, I took a number of photos of the neighborhood. That way, I thought I'd have something to share. I'll still include two of my favorites here. I love the look of this yard at night. It's like a happy little campground or festival with those lights. And the silhouette of the fence and trees frames the light so perfectly. There's something so old fashioned about it.

So, onto those ghost stories! I discovered a few new ghost shows on YouTube recently. New to me, anyway. I think they'd been filmed sometime back. I was searching on there for "haunted pubs" because sometimes I'm in the mood for British ghost shows. First I found this one:

Most haunted pubs & Inns in Britain With Richard Felix

It just occurred to me that this is the same Richard Felix who is on the Most Haunted TV series.

After watching that show, I read a conversation in the comment section where people were talking about a man named Chris Halton who made similar videos. So I looked him up and enjoyed this episode of his show very much. Here it is:

England's Most Haunted Villages: A Day and Night Investigation of Pluckley, Kent

For those who get my blog posts in email form, I know the videos don't come through. So here are some links to them:

Most haunted pubs & Inns Britain With Richard Felix

England's Most Haunted Villages: A Day and Night Investigation of Pluckley, Kent

These are like "ghost show comfort food", because you're not going to get scared. It's more like someone is giving you a tour around town, teaching you history, and sharing a few local stories. There are some interviews too. It's pleasant ghost show viewing. It's dare I say, relaxing viewing. So enjoy these ghost stories. It's a perfect night to watch them with that full moon out there!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Here Comes the Sun

Today I'm posting my addition to the Witches Yuletide Ball. You may have noticed a little badge about the event on the side of my blog this month. I signed up to write a Yule themed post on December 10th, without knowing much about Yule. I only associated the holiday with the Yule Log and Christmas. After doing some research, I learned that Yule is an ancient Pagan holiday. From what I found, there have been mentions of the holiday dating back to the 4th century.

Yule is also known as the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere due to the seasonal differences. This year's winter solstice occurs on December 21st. The nights leading up to the solstice are longer and the days shorter. After the solstice, the nights will get shorter and we'll see more light throughout the day. Just wait a little over a week, and things will look up. I look forward to days where the sun doesn't set around 4:30 PM!

Speaking of the solstice, I have some neat trivia about Stonehenge. Some of you may know this already, but Stonehenge was built so that the sun will always set between two of the stones on the winter solstice. It will set in such a way that the stones resemble a portal filled with glowing light. I ran across a video that's really worth watching. Someone has staged a replica of how Stonehenge looked 4,000 years ago, to show how the solstice sun would have interacted with it.

Stonehenge is such a mystery. The thought of humans being able to move and lift these stones without modern machinery is astounding enough, but the thought of them aligning these stones to perfectly fit the sun on certain days of the year blows my mind!

I found quite a few videos of the solstice celebrations at Stonehenge from previous years. I'm sure there will be more celebrations this year. From what I saw, there's a drum circle, dancing, and a poetry reading. If you can't make it over to Britain, here's at taste of what will be happening:

From what I read, the guy in the crown is supposed to be King Arthur.

It looks like a cool ceremony to witness. I was reminded a little of our Renaissance Faire while watching these videos. In part because of Arthur and Merlin, but also because of the accents and drum circle.

Yule or winter solstice is still celebrated today. I have some Wiccan friends who celebrate the winter solstice, but I don't know much about their traditions. I do know that many of the modern Christmas traditions stem from Yule. The Yule log, tree, holly, and candles originate from early Yule celebrations. If you want to learn more about the first Yule traditions, I found an excellent web site:

The Winter Solstice ~ Yule Lore

The Yule Wikipedia page also goes into depth about how ancient Yule celebrations varied by country and culture:

Yule Wikipedia Page

There are plenty of other bloggers taking part in The Yuletide Gathering today! Here's a list of them all. I hope this list of links doesn't look too funky on your computer screens. Let me know if I need to rearrange the names. Also, let me know if you wrote a Yule themed post today and aren't listed here. I'll make sure to add you to the list!

1.	Miss Peach aka Karla	16.	Laughing Vixen Lounge	31.	Dana from Land, Sky & Sea
2.	Aine	17.	The Village Witch	32.	aw
3.	Amythyst Raine	18.	Elderflower	33.	Grey Catsidhe
4.	Hannah	19.	Zombiegirl Shambling	34.	Rue
5.	Autumn Wind	20.	Cordelia	35.	Treegold & Beegold
6.	Briana Desmond	21.	Druid- in- training Liz	36.	Mina
7.	Briana	22.	Spiritdog Studios	37.	New Moon Summer
8.	Astraea Sapphire	23.	Danni	38.	Toriz
9.	Kristina	24.	Sherry Byrum	39.	Unleashed Diva Living Out Loud
10.	Dee Ellwood	25.	The Multi- Faceted Experience	40.	Little Gothic Horrors
11.	Sue the Wicked Faerie Queen	26.	Elderflowery	41.	Pensive Pumpkin
12.	Sophiadawn	27.	Magaly from Pagan Culture	42.	EmKat Creations
13.	Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust	28.	The Domestic Pagan REAL LINK
14.	Susan G	29.	Aisha
15.	Willow Silverhorse	30.	Hedgefaery Herbals

Also, I should mention that the 13 days of Creepmas is going on! Creepmas is Christmas with a creepy twist. I was so busy that I barely got my Yule post up, so I wasn't able to participate in Creepmas. Lots of my blog friends did, though. They've put together some pretty entertaining posts so far! The Creepmas blog is here:

http://creepmas.blogspot.com/

If you look at the column of "participating creeps" on the right, you'll be able to read some of these great posts!

I'll leave you with the perfect song for winter solstice:

Just think of this song when you're feeling cold this winter. With every day after December 21st, the sun stays with us a little longer!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Bold and British

While watching The Royal Wedding today, I wondered how I could incorporate some part of it into my blog. The wedding wasn't Halloween themed (how cool would that have been?) but some of the hats I saw today were bold enough to be part of a Halloween costume. I'm trying to make a segue here. :)

These hats were so elaborate (and in some cases bizarre). I realize that British styles are different from American styles, so these might look a little foreign to us Americans. I did like some of the fascinators I saw, though.

So here are some of the boldest hats from today.