Skeptophilia

Sometimes, with folk tales, you can pinpoint exactly when a legend entered the public awareness.  Someone writes and publishes a story in on...

Thursday's post -- about a strange legend from England called the "fetch" and similar bits of odd folklore from Finland, Norwa...

The oral tradition presents anthropologists and historians with a difficult, sometimes insurmountable, problem; given that by definition its...

We'll end the week on an appropriately surreal note. Every once in a while, I'll run into an off-the-wall claim that admits of no pa...

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was a fantastic collection of Japanese folk tales called The Case of the Marble Monster and Other...

It's seldom that we can pinpoint the exact moment of origin of an urban legend.  Much more commonly, they start out from a campfire tale...

A couple of days ago, I was doing some genealogical research on the family of my Scottish grandmother, whose forebears mostly settled in Mar...

Every once in a while, I'll run across a piece of scientific research that is so creative and clever that it just warms my heart, and I ...

I've been interested in the paranormal for a long time.  It started with my uncle's scary stories about the feu follet and loup-gar...

I've been interested in the paranormal for a long time.  It started with my uncle's scary stories about the feu follet and loup-gar...