The purple mirror

 An urban legend from Japan is about a purple mirror. The actual words are "murasaki kagami", and it means purple mirror. According to a certain story, there was a girl who was extremely vain and loved looking at herself in the mirror. She was given a present by her mother and it was a nice hand-mirror. She was very happy and cherished the gift., which she loved looking at. She decided to paint it purple but then afterwards, she became upset by how she looked in that mirror so she smashed it into pieces but when her 20th birthday arrived, she died. The last thing she said had been "purple mirror". There was never any trace of that broken purple mirror to be found again. 

This caused rumours to spread and a number of people mysteriously died on their 20th birthdays with bits of purple glass in their possession. In some versions, the age is not 20 but 18, sometimes 15, or until leaving school. A different legend goes that a teenaged girl was in hospital for immune deficiency. Her parents gave her a hand-mirror that she painted purple by mistake and regretted it. She tried removing the paint but it was already done. She died uttering the words "purple mirror". It's now a popular curse story in Japan, which has sparked off many horror stories. 

The Japanese folklore about mirrors is that they can reflect a person's nature, and not just their actual face. Some could see themselves looking horrible because it's how they felt. And it's believed mirrors can be a tool to trap spirits. There is the Ungaikyo, which is a Yokai (spirit) of a possessed mirror. These are haunted mirrors with ghosts, monsters and demons who can be revealed in the reflection. However, with the colour purple, it was so rare, as it was a very expensive colour  used from dye found in the purple gromwell plant. Purple has always been associated with the ruling classes and worn by emperors and gods until modern times. 

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Alicanto

This magical creature is a strange nocturnal bird that looks golden in colour. It's feathers are believed to appear beautiful like metal, golden and silver, sometimes with shining green at its wings. The bird is believed to be from folklore of Chile, but some have claimed to have seen it for themselves. This amazingly golden bird eats metals, making them look what they eat so that gives them a metallic appearance.  The alicanto is a flightless bird, or perhaps it just can't fly because of the weight of metals. If these birds feed on more gold, they will shine like the sun. If they eat more silver, they will shine like the moon. They lay two eggs, that would display colours of silver or gold, depending on what they have eaten.

The alicanto lives in caves and seen in areas with mountains. Miners have tried looking for it, in the hopes of finding the alicanto's food, which is part of the entierro treasure horde legend. The bird is clever and will lead them astray, going deep into the tunnels until the miners get lost, or lead them off a cliff.  It's assumed that a famous Chilean miner named Juan Godoy had encountered an alicanto bird that led him to a grotto of silver in 1832. This led to a silver rush in Chile at the time. 

Source Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges.

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Wold Newton Triangle

Inside England is a place called Yorkshire Wolds, a district of hills of the Chalk Group, limestone rocks and an arc formation that appeared during the Cretaceous era. The Rudston Monolith is the tallest megalith in England which is located in the area. The Wold Triangle is a term given to the mysterious nature of that location. It was the place of a huge meteorite crashing into this very place back in 1795, called the Wold Cottage Meteorite. It's recorded as the second biggest meteor crash in Europe. This space rock was collected and it's now on display at the Natural History Museum in London. On the crater now stands a monument to remember the meteorite event. 

Within the Wold Newton Triangle is folklore and local legends of werewolves, ghosts, fairy folk and dragons. Visualising the triangle, the eastern tip is at the North Sea, and the northern point is further inland at the Yorkshire Wolds, but the southern tip of the triangle is near a crossroads where the A614 and B1249 meet. 

The shape of the triangle itself passes along the coastline, main modern roads and old Roman roads. A certain river appears and disappears, called the Gypsey Race, which is a winterbourne stream that rarely breaks and causes flooding. This particular river is said to be cursed, and when it floods, bad things happen. It flooded soon before the outbreak of the bubonic plague, the 12th century Anarchy, the English Civil War, the Great Fire of London, the meteorite crashing in the Wolds, then bad harvests and storms, World War One, World War Two, harsh winter of 1947 and 1962, then also it flooded in 2012. 

In centuries past, wolves roamed the countryside and dug up graves to feast on the dead, making them turn into fearsome monsters. It was believed that an 8 foot tall werewolf lives in the area and is half man, half wolf. Alongside this terrible werewolf are the phantom black dogs running around the hills. Sightings of a black bear have been reported. It's believed that anyone who can hear howling coming from the wolds will perish the next day. 

There are plenty other weird goings on that it would be too much to mention in one brief post. There is a book about it called A Travel Guide to Yorkshire's Weird Wolds: The Mysterious Wold Newton Triangle by Charles Christian, and recently an added edition of same book with subtitle "New Werewolf Update!". 

A detailed map of the Wold Newton Triangle:

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Wildlife picture of the month

"Hey, I think spring is coming now!"

 Each month I've been doing "wildlife pictures" to represent an animal in their natural habitat. The images and animals are tied in with the season, and may have a story and info or a script!

This badger is checking out the new growth of plants and the first flowers of the year, snowdrops. European badgers (there are many more types of badgers but I'm focusing on this one here), have homely looking setts, with perfectly cute doorways! Their setts are like underground houses with about two or three floors (storeys) and maybe more, depending on the size of family, and there are spacious little rooms. It's warm and dry in there and they hurry indoors from the cold weather. Badgers may have underground neighbourhoods and passages connecting with other badger houses! There are even badger setts made larger to suit each time of the year. Talk about architecture, these animals are the perfect engineers. 

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