Ashes to Ashes

Seriously, I would not be happy about ending up as an ashtray.

But if I do, could someone please make sure I end up on Norman Reedus's nightstand?

Thx

The Blood Countess

Elizabeth Bathory, the woman who came to be known as the " Blood Countess," was born into Hungarian nobility in 1560. She is said to have suffered from fits and outbursts of rage -- possibly even epilepsy. From an early age, she witnessed her father's officers torture the peasantry that lived near her family's estate. Most historical analysis of the countess includes young Elizabeth as witness to a captured thief being sewn into the stomach of a dying horse and left to perish.

­This story underscores two major aspects that may have influenced Bathory: exposure to incredible violence and her family's condoning attitude toward it. Accounts depict her penchant for inflicting pain on others and claim that she wo­rked with accomplices. One may have been her husband, Ferencz Nadasdy, and others were members of her court.

Nadasdy married Bathory when she was 15. A soldier, he spent much time away from home. There's speculation that Nadasdy may have taught his wife new torture methods, while other researchers believe he was ignorant of her actions. What's agreed upon is that Bathory practiced most of her crimes in his absence.

Bathory had a penchant for torturing young girls in particular -- historians posit that she was bisexual. The acts she committed ranged from driving needles through her servants' lips and fingernails, to leaving her victims naked in the snow, dousing them with water and letting them freeze to death. One servant girl was beaten by Bathory and an accomplice for stealing a pear. The clubbing was so bloody that Bathory had to change her shirt. The girl was beaten for hours and finally stabbed to death with a pair of scissors.

Bathory's acts have a way of engendering a hybrid of truth and legend. Perhaps the most notorious legend about Bathory is that she bathed in her victims' blood. Inevitably, this led to rumors that the countess was a vampire. This legend was first published in 1720 by a Hungarian priest who interviewed local peasants and read testimony from the trials of Bathory’s accomplices. She reportedly claimed to use blood to keep her skin young -- she wanted to remain beautiful for her husband.

The official testimony of Elizabeth Bathory's murders, which is still extant in Hungarian archives, is both questionable and convicting in nature. Late in 1610, Elizabeth's cousin conducted a raid on Bathory's castle. Inside, there were already dead victims and some imprisoned, supposedly awaiting death. Bathory's accomplices were arrested and put on trial -- she never was. These testimonies still survive.

These testimonies are questionable because they were most likely culled from acts of torture inflicted on Bathory's own accomplices. But the fact that there even were trials regarding Bathory's murders lends some credence to the stories surrounding the woman. From the testimonies, the number 650 was settled upon as her victim count. One witness testified that Bathory kept a registry of her crimes (numbering 650).

None of this testimony amounted to a trial for Bathory. Instead, she was walled into her room, with just enough space for air and food to pass through. She spent the remaining four years of her life there, until she was found dead on the floor in 1614.

by Josh Clark

The Devil's Tramping Ground

One of my all-time favorite websites is The Devil's Tramping Ground.

If you've never been there, you must check it out! There's a zillion things to click on and play with, but make sure you watch the mournful tale of The Banshee before you leave!

Unclean!

Dracula - Chapter 21

The Violation of Mina Harker

“His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.”

~Bram Stoker

Illustration by Ben Templesmith.

More Spooky Vintage

Halloween Postcard

The Mendicant

The term mendicant (Latin mendicans, begging) refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive.

In principle, mendicant orders or followers do not own property, either individually or collectively, and have taken a vow of poverty, in order that all their time and energy could be expended on practicing or preaching their religion or way of life and serving the poor.

Many religious orders adhere to a mendicant way of life, including the Catholic mendicant orders, Hindu ascetics, some dervishes of Sufi Islam, and the monastic orders of Buddhism. In the Catholic Church, followers of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic became known as mendicants, as they would beg for food while they preached to the villages.

The picture is an old Cabinet Card Photo, and thanks to Wiki for the info.

A ghost story

THE WHISTLING TEA KETTLE

Back in the 1890’s when trains of the Santa Fe Railroad first began to run in the vicinity of Ardmore, Oklahoma, one was held up by bandits seven miles from town where the tracks crossed Caddo Creek. Afterwards the robbers retired to an old house, where they divided and quarrelled over the spoils. One robber was shot and killed. It is a tradition that part or all of the booty was hidden for a time in or about the house. People soon began to say that the ghost of the murdered bandit walked about the place trying to find where the money was hidden and for many years nobody was willing to live there.

However, about seven years ago, a family named Lynch moved into the deserted building. One afternoon, in the summer, Mrs. Lynch left her two oldest children at home and crossed the fields to visit some neighbors. An hour later, she heard her children screaming and ran out with her friends to learn the cause. Almost in hysterics, the youngsters came flying along shouting that someone was tearing the kitchen to pieces and that the tea-kettle was laughing and singing. Mrs. Lynch and others went to investigate. They found the tea-kettle steaming in the middle of the kitchen floor. A fire was burning in the cook stove, though none had been burning in it when Mrs. Lynch left home. The mystification of the onlookers was changed to horror when they observed that drops of blood were sprinkled about. The next day, the Lynches moved out and no family has lived in the building since . . . .

Ellis Perkins, who lives in the vicinity, had the latest known experience in the old dwelling. One afternoon, about four years ago, he was caught in a heavy rain storm while hunting. The only shelter . . . was offered by the old house, so he and his bull dog ran into it to get out of the rain. He walked upstairs and looked around the second floor, but there was no sign of recent occupancy. He shut the door at the top of the stairway and descended. As his foot left the lowest step, his dog sprang around and looked toward the top, his hair bristling; then began to bark as though he scented the presence of a stranger. Mr. Perkins said that he also looked back toward the top of the stairs. Under his gaze the door knob turned. The door opened, as though to permit someone to pass on to the stairway, and closed noiselessly. The hunter waited for nothing more. Followed by his yelping dog, he sprang to the front door and rushed out into the downpour. The wind must have blown the door open, friends tell him, but his invariable retort is, How could the wind have turned the door knob?

-- From the New York Times Reprinted in a textbook, Basic Writing
By Harold Y. Moffett and Willoughby H. Johnson
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1937

Trick Or Treat

I have such wonderful memories of my childhood and the fun of Trick or Treating. It is truly sad to hear of the decline of this annual practice. Enjoy a little wikihistory on this cherished childhood event!

Trick-or-treating is a custom for children on Halloween. Children proceed in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as confectionery, or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The "trick" is an idle threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.
In the United States, trick-or-treating is now one of the main traditions of Halloween and it has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase treats in preparation for trick-or-treaters. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults in the United States planned to give out confectionery to trick-or-treaters, and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating. The tradition of going from door to door receiving food already existed in Britain and Ireland, in the form of souling, where children and poor people would sing and say prayers for the dead in return for cakes. The North American Halloween custom of saying "trick or treat" has become more common. The activity is popular in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Central America, South America, Western Europe and Scandinavia, but over the recent years has become popular in Australia and New Zealand.

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain. although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas." The custom of wearing costumes and masks at Halloween goes back to Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, In Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.

However, there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, where trick-or-treating may have developed independent of any Irish or British antecedent. Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe'en, makes no mention of ritual begging in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America." Kelley lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town with about 4,500 Irish immigrants, 1,900 English immigrants, and 700 Scottish immigrants in 1920. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearances of the term in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.

Welcome Mrs. B's Visitors!

Welcome visitors from Mrs B's Blog! The Gothic Tea Society is a collaborative of several eclectic and unusual individuals, each selected for her unique sense of style. Please do peruse our archives (not for the faint of heart!) and take a wander to the Etsy shoppe where there is a a sale on all Skull masks! Also the individual blogs of the authors are a bevy of the arcane and odd so check them out as well.

If you would like to follow The Gothic Tea Society you can do so from Facebook as well as Google! Thank you so much for visiting us today! Please come by again soon!

Witches on Stuff ~ 1

These are found photos- many were sent to me- of Witches on Stuff, other than Brooms that is.

Black Cats

Black Cats are one of the most familiar symbols of Halloween. Most often associated with Witches and bad luck. As a Witch it isn't necessary that you have a black cat (although I do have one) but I also have 6 others in various colors. Below is a little Wikihistory on the Black Cat and culture.


Since the 1880s, the colour black has been associated with anarchism. The black cat, in an alert, fighting stance was later adopted as an anarchist symbol.
More specifically, the black cat—often called the "sab cat" or "sabo-tabby"—is associated with anarcho-syndicalism, a branch of anarchism that focuses on workers' rights.
In testimony before the court in a 1918 trial of Industrial Workers of the World leaders, Ralph Chaplin, who is generally credited with creating the IWW's black cat symbol, stated that the black cat "was commonly used by the boys as representing the idea of sabotage. The idea being to frighten the employer by the mention of the name sabotage, or by putting a black cat somewhere around. You know if you saw a black cat go across your path you would think, if you were superstitious, you are going to have a little bad luck. The idea of sabotage is to use a little black cat on the boss.

Le Chat Noir (French for "The Black Cat") was a 19th-century cabaret in the Montmartre district of Paris. It was opened on 18 November 1881 at 84 Boulevard Rouchechouart by the artist Rodolphe Salis, and closed in 1897

Closed On Account of Rabies

This spoken word double CD

is sadly out of print,

and carries a hefty price tag

over on amazon,

but for Poe devotees

this is a must!

Poe's tales and poems are read

aloud by the likes

of Marianne Faithful, Gabriel Byrne, Iggy Pop and

Gavin Friday.

And, of course,

Christopher Walken's reading of

The Raven: