Journals, articles, books & texts, on folklore, mythology, occult, and related -to- general anthropology, history, archaeology.
Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources.
tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.Journals (open access)
— Folklore, Occult, etc
- Culutural Analysis – folklore, popular culture, anthropology
— The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture- Folklore – folklore, anthropology, archaeology
— The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes- Incantatio – journal on charms, charmers, and charming
— Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript- Oral Tradition
— Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry- Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics
— Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms- International Journal of Intangible Heritage
- Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English)
— Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography- Folklorica – Slavic & Eastern European folklore association
— Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic- Esoterica – The Journal of Esoteric Studies
— The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral- The Esoteric Quarterly
- Mythological Studies Journal
- Luvah – Journal of the Creative Imagination
— A More Poetical Character Than Satan- Transpersonal Studies
— Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes- Beyond Borderlands
— tumblr- Paranthropology
- GOLEM – Journal of Religion and Monsters
— The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914- Correspondences – Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism
— Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom— History, Archaeology
- Adoranten – pre-historic rock art
- Chitrolekha – India art & design history
— Gomira Dance Mask- Silk Road
— Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China- Sino-Platonic – East Asian languages and civilizations
— Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions- MELA Notes – Middle East Librarians Association
- Didaskalia – Journal for Ancient Performance
- Ancient Narrative – Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions
— The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel- Akroterion – Greek, Roman
— The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas- Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
— Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass- Roman Legal Tradition – medieval civil law
— Between Slavery and Freedom- Phronimon – South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities
— Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy- The Heroic Age – Early medieval Northwestern Europe
— Icelandic Sword in the Stone- Peregrinations – Medieval Art and Architecture
— Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings- Tiresas – Medieval and Classical
— Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages- Essays in Medieval Studies
— The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan- Hortulus – Medieval studies
— Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue- Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU
- Medieval Archaeology
— Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall- Medieval Feminist Forum
— multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres- Quidditas – medieval and renaissance
- Medieval Warfare
- The Viking Society – ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011
Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)
- Al-Masaq – Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean
— Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue- Mythical Creatures of Europe – article + map
- Folklore – limited free access
— Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves- Digital Philology – a journal of medieval cultures
— Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography- Pomegranate – International Journal for Pagan Studies
- Transcultural Psychiatry
- European Journal of English Studies
— Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issueBooks, Texts, Images etc.
— Folklore, Occult etc.
- Magical Gem Database – Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]
- Biblioteca Aracana – (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc.
— Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon- Curse Tablets from Roman Britain – [x]
- The Gnostic Society Library
— The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory- Grimoar – vast occult text library
— Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic- Internet Sacred Text Archive – religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts
- Verse and Transmutation – A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry
— History
- The Internet Classics Archive – mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts
- Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection – [x] [x] [x]
- Virtual Magic Bowl Archive – Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x]
- Vindolanda Tablets – images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]
- Corsair – online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]
- Beinecke rare book & manuscripts
— Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur’ān—1813- LUNA – tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography
- Maps on the web – Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]
- Bodleian Library manuscripts – photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts
— Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts- Early Manuscripts at Oxford U – very high quality photographs
— (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]- Trinity College digital manuscript library
— Mathematica Medica, 15th c.- eTOME – primary sources about Celtic peoples
Websites, Blogs
— Folklore, Occult etc.
- Demonthings – Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project
- Invocatio – (mostly) western esotericism
- Heterodoxology – history, esotericism, science
— Religion in the Age of Cyborgs- The Recipes Project – food, magic, science, medicine
— The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)- Morbid Anatomy – museum/library in Brooklyn
— History
- Islamic Philosophy Online – tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English
- Medicina Antiqua – Graeco-Roman medicine
- History of the Ancient World – news and resources
— The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt- Διοτίμα – Women & Gender in Antiquity
- Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online
— Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures- Medievalists
— folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags- Atlas Obscura
— Bats and Vampiric Lore of Pére Lachaise Cemetery
Category: Uncategorized
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All right guys, I’ve decided to put together another masterpost for you – this time on historical fashion. This could get lengthy so… bear with me. (Forgive me also if some of the dates are a touch inaccurate – I’m not a historian and I’m going with what Google gives me.)
Prehistory –
Neolithic Clothing – The beginnings of textiles, some woven materials, leather, etc. Circa 102000 BCE – 2000 BCE
Bronze Age Britain – The development of more sophisticated textiles, including wool and some ornamentation, including brooches. Circa 3200 BCE – 600 BCE
Iron Age Clothing (Europe) – Even more sophisticated, ornamented clothing, textiles, hairstyles. Dyed clothing arises. Circa 1200 BCE – 1 BCE (in Europe)
Fashion of the Ancient World
Clothing of Mesopotamia – i.e, Babylon. Also Mesopotamian jewelry. Circa 3000 BCE – 300 BCE
Clothing of Ancient Egypt – All eras.
Clothing of Ancient India – An overview.
Ancient Greek Clothing + Wikipedia for Definitions
Ancient Roman Clothing + More Rome
Biblical Clothing – i.e., Primarily Ancient Hebrew
*Note: I’m not including many cultures here (such as Asian/South American) simply because of my own lack of expertise + time and space limitations in this masterpost.
Medieval Clothing
Anglo-Saxon Clothing – (Pre-Norman Invasion)
England 1066-1087 – Ish
1100 – 1200 in European Fashion – Wikipedia
1200 – 1300 in European Fashion – Wikipedia
*A Note on Women’s Fashion – Tight lacing did NOT appear until about 1340, which means that shapely, comely bodices would not have appeared in fashion before this time.
14th Century Women’s Fashion – The stereotypical “medieval” look with wimple, long sleeves, etc.
Suits of Armor & Their Component Parts
Suit of Armor – Labeled Photo for Reference
The Renaissance
History of the Corset – Italian in origin. Introduced to France in the 1500s.
*Note: For the Tudor and Elizabethan eras of fashion it’s important to note that there were laws in place which dictated what clothing you could wear due to your social class.
Tudor Era Clothing – King Henry VIII, et al
Tudor Dress & Its Component Parts
Tudor/Elizabethan Corsets – Corsets during this time created a shape with a flat chest and narrow waist.
Jacobean Era Dress – 1603 – 1625
And Beyond
Baroque/Rococo Fashion – France 1650 – 1800
What to Wear in the English Civil War
The “Naughty” Side of 18th Century French Fashion – NSFW. Ooh la la.
American Revolutionary War Costumes
Colonial Clothing – 18th Century Murica
Overview of Native American Clothing – *Note: Please use this as a starting point only and do your own research. Remember that different groups have fashions specific to their cultures. This is more to know what NOT to do than to know what TO do.
Fashion Under the French Revolution
Regency Fashion – 1800-1845 England
History of the Victorian Corset
Victorian Women’s Clothing By Layer – All 5 yo.
Women’s Fashion During the Civil War
Twentieth Century
More 1920s – 1920s Hairstyles – 1920s Makeup
1930s Fashion – 1930s Hats and Hair – 1930s Makeup
1940s Fashion – 1940s Hairstyles – 1940s Makeup
1950s Fashion – 1950s Hairstyles – 1950s Makeup
Early 1960s – Mid/Late 1960s – 1960s Makeup History
1970s in General – 1970s Makeup – 1970s Hair
And I’m stopping here. You should have it after this point, kiddos.
You better appreciate this.
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Doot doot doot doot doot doot doot- doot doot doot- dooooo
(10:00)
In the hall of the mountain king
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So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…
I’m aiming to fix that.
Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!
General resources
PubMed: The source for biomedical literature
Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain
Burns
General overview: Includes degrees
Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected
Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees
Incisions and Lacerations
Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)
When to stitch (Journal article–Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)
More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)
Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.
Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images–beware!
Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected
Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.
Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics
More about gunshot wounds, including medical proceduresTourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research
Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts
General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.
Broken bones
Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available
Healing time of common fractures
Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back
Broken digits: Fingers and toes
General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it–probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.
Concussions
Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3
Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.
Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms
General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.
Character reaction:
Shock (general)
Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2
Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2
First aid for emotional trauma
Treatment (drugs)
Treatment (herbs)
Miscellany
Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes
When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten
First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.
Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea
Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.
Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2
Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.
The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.
Electrical shock
Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart
Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury
Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury
Electrical and lightning injury
Delayed effects and a good general summary
Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities
Please don’t repost! You can find the original document (also created by me) here.
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Maybe you’re like Old Me and you suck at editing/revising so when you’re trying to fix your novel after the 2nd read through you panic and think “I HAVE TO REWRITE EVERYTHING” and after crying for a long time you give up and rewrite everything. You do this approximately a dozen times–and sure, every time you rewrite certain aspects of your story get better and better. But every time, there are new negatives that arise that keep your story from ever being the best it can be. So you panic and rewrite everything again.
If this is you–try this method. Now, you will need to customize this method to yourself as a writer and to your story. I’m just going to tell you how I am doing mine, and you can tweak and turn this method to match your needs.
Organized in:
Initial Notes, Beginning Edits, Being Nice to Yourself, and Plot
First – Initial Notes
You want to have some idea of what you’re looking to change in your MS before you start making changes. I always do one simple read through before printing off, and I make notes of things I want to make sure I address when editing–this list will get added to as I go along (You’ll notice things are in different colors but I’ll get to that in a minute)

It is possible to use this method on the computer so you don’t have to print everything off, but my brain doesn’t work like that, so I printed off my entire manuscript, and I had used the “comment”s on MS Word a few times so it naturally prints leaving a large amount of room for notes in the margins.

Next I have my multi-colored pens and hi-lighters.

Each of the pens and hilighters has a specific purpose so I know when I’m looking at my notes how I intended to handle the issue when I was reading through. To make sure I have everything straight, I make a list of what each color means

That way the actual MS won’t be cluttered with explanations of what I intended–I know that if something is hilighted in yellow it means it sounds clunky or OOC and it needs to be reworded. If there is something specific I want my future self to know about these notes, I will put it in My Edits Notebook
Second – Beginning Edits
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There are lots of character development worksheets out there, but in my opinion nothing that really examines a character’s growth and development, which is what I’m aiming to do with mine. You can use this to better understand your character, spot “holes” in their development, or to build a character from scratch!
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Ancestry
- What is this character’s lineage?
- Are there any genetic factors that may affect them? (Mental illness/disabilities that run in the family, magical lineage, etc.?)
- What is/was their parents’ social class?
- What are their parents/caregivers like prior to their being born?
- If not raised by their parents, then by whom? Are their caretakers of a different social class than the character? How are they treated as a result?
- In the case of non-human characters, what is the status of their “kind” prior to their birth/construction/etc.? (E.g., are they the first generation of a new AI? Are they the first generation of vampires to live in the light?)
- Are there changing social values between prior generations and their own that may affect them?
_____________________
Circumstances at Birth
- What is their parental status at birth? (Single mother, both parents, etc.)
- What social class is your character born into?
- What is expected of your character based on the social class that they are born into? By their parents/caregivers? By the society they live in?
- How are they advantaged/disadvantaged at birth? Disability? Poverty? Etc.
- Are there any circumstances surrounding their birth that may affect their early childhood? (For example, they were unwanted by their parents/caregivers, they were the long-awaited heir to a kingdom, or they were born (assigned as) a girl when the parents were hoping for a boy?)
_____________________
Childhood
- If they lose a parent/are orphaned/adopted/parents divorce, etc., at what age does this happen? a.) How does the age at which this happened affect them? Do they remember this change? Are they affected by the change?
- Does their social status/class change at any point during childhood? Why?
- What is their relationship with their parents/caregivers like? How do these interactions affect them in later life? (For example, a perfectionist character may have only received approval from their parents for big achievements.)
- Do they have siblings or other close relationships with family members of a similar age? (Do bear in mind that early relationships with siblings can play a strong role in the way that people approach friendships in later years.)
- If they have siblings, what is their birth order, and how does this affect them?
- What are some of the most impactful moments from their childhood? How do these moments affect them? What do they learn from these experiences? (E.g., “authority figures aren’t to be trusted).
- Was their childhood a happy one? If not, how do they see their childhood as an adult? Does this make them angry, do they try to ignore it, or have they moved on?
- What are their typical social interactions like as children? Do they have a lot of friends, are they shy, etc.?
- Do they exhibit expected behaviors or have difficulty conforming? (Conforming to gender roles or not, for example.)
- What are their primary interests as a child?
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Adolescence
- Is there a turning point that moves your characters from childhood and into a more “mature” perspective? (For example, the death of a loved one.)
- Does their social status/class change at any point during adolescence? Why?
- How does their relationship with their parents develop from childhood to adolescence?
- Do any major changes occur in their life during adolescence? How do these changes affect them?
- In the case of MOGAI characters, at what point does your character realize they are “different” than the expected social norm? What are the circumstances surrounding that?
- What is your character’s attitude toward sex and sexuality? How does their interaction with their parents/caregivers affect them?
- How much independence is your character granted as an adolescent?
- Does your character have more/less responsibility than the typical adolescent? In what ways? (For example, having to take care of a younger sibling.
- How does their social life change (or not change) from childhood to adolescence?
- How are they prepared for adulthood as an adolescent?
- When in their society are they expected to become an “adult”?
- How do their interests evolve from childhood to adolescence?
- Is there a defining moment that transitions them from adolescence into adulthood? (Joining the military, moving out, etc.)
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Adulthood
- What is their primary attitude towards life based on their experiences in childhood and adolescence?
- What kinds of events would be necessary to change these attitudes?
- Does their social status/class change as they reach adulthood, or at any point after? Why?
- Are they generally independent as an adult? Why/why not?
- Do they retain their relationship with their family on reaching adulthood?
- Do they retain their social group from adolescence?
- How/where do they meet new friends/love interests?
- What is their attitude toward romance/love/family? What are their main goals regarding this as they enter adulthood?
- What is their main goal as an adult? (A high-paying career, romance, family, to have fun, to survive, etc.)
- How do their goals change over time? As they meet old goals and set new ones?
- How do their interests mature from adolescence to adulthood? (For example, an interest in writing as a teen may lead them to a career in publishing.)
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Older Age
- Do they accomplish their goals as set out in earlier adulthood? How do they feel if these goals are not met?
- As they approach older age, what is their social class?
- Do they build a family in their adulthood? What is this family like?
- If they become a parent, how is their relationship with their children affected by the relationship they had with their own parents?
- What do they want to “leave behind” in the world?
- Do they become a mentor/teacher to others?
- As they grow older, how do they feel about the concepts of aging? Weakening? Death?
Think outside the box as you answer these. Remember that if you bend and stretch them enough, these questions can fit into virtually any world.










