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A Weatherford man says we need to channel our penchant for lying into something productive—or at least entertaining.Q: Why did Texans quit coming up with tall tales? I imagine that there are a lot of lying, stinking polecats out there who need a higher art form to aspire toward.Scott McNutt, Weatherford A: Texans have been telling untruths for the sport of it for a long time. The tradition, in fact, dates all the way back to Native American folklore and the earliest days of the frontier. As the legend goes, our pioneer forebears arrived in Texas steeped in the literary...

When growing up, there are certain stories children are told. These stories are typically whimsical, often magical, and sometimes even spooky. However, these stories almost all the time convey a moral lesson that could be useful in later life, ending on an educational but heartwarming note. For example, “friendship makes life fuller,” “stealing is wrong,” or even “doing the right thing can be difficult, but it is always the correct choice.” The lessons vary depending on the tale, but typically, the lesson learned is the central reason the story is told. In the case of Hansel and Gretel, children learn...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

The Slavic crone, known for living in a house built on chicken legs and feasting on children, is a complex, and arguably feminist, figure – as a new book shows, says David Barnett. I In fairy tales, women of a certain age usually take one of two roles: the wicked witch or the evil stepmother, and sometimes both. A key figure from Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga certainly fulfils the requirements of the wicked witch – she lives in a house that walks through the forest on chicken legs, and sometimes flies around in a giant mortar and pestle. She usually...

To history experts, the scenario goes something like this: A Union officer stationed on enemy Southern soil drops a handful of iron nails into a bottle, adds some personal effects — clippings of his hair or fingernails, maybe some urine — corks it up and buries it near his hearth. He likely offers up a fervent prayer that he’ll survive the Civil War and return home to Pennsylvania. And the bottle of nails was his good luck charm. A century and a half later, in 2016, archaeologists excavating the remains of a Civil War outpost on a broad highway median...

Click on the link to relive some tragic American folk history.

1. WHY Why do men's clothes have buttons on the right while women's clothes have buttons on the left? BECAUSE When buttons were invented, they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid's right! And that's where women's buttons have remained since. 2 ... WHY? Why do ships and aircraft use 'mayday' as their call for help? BECAUSE This comes from the French word m'aidez -...

One of the surest signs that late summer is here in the northern hemisphere is the arrival of the Milky Way in the early evening sky....the star-dappled plane of our home galaxy sits almost due south and stretches far to the north. This is also why we refer to the triangular shaped asterism formed by the bright stars of Altair, Deneb and Vega as the Summer Triangle. Two of these stars are the focus of a fascinating mythos from the Far East, and a poetic celestial configuration that commemorates star-crossed lovers lost. We first heard of tales of Tanabata while...

An 18-year-old Egyptian girl who shed ‘blood tears’ claimed she had been touched by jinn, which are ghosts and spirits popular in Upper Egyptian folklore. According to a report in the Arabic language quotidian, Sabea’a, a girl named Dawa’a appeared on Al Nahar Television, to share her experience. She said she had been touched by tribe of about one-thousand jinn. Amr Al-Laithi, a Muslim scholar, recited verses from Qur’an as the teenager fell unconscious. When she woke up after about 20 minutes, she claimed she could not remember anything but was suffering an intense headache. The Muslim scholar explained that...

History, Customs and Folklore of Advent Directions In 490, Bishop Perpetuus of Tours officially declared Advent a penitential season in the Frankish Church of Western Europe, ordering a fast on three days of every week from November 11 (the feast of St. Martin of Tours) till Christmas. This forty days' fast, similar to Lent, was originally called Quadragesima Sancti Martini (Forty Days' Fast of Saint Martin's). The Readings for the Eucharistic Liturgies were taken from the Masses of Lent. By contrast, the Advent season of the Roman liturgy, developing a century after that of the Frankish Church, was a...

Kuang Jinbi, the author of the famous Chinese fable The Magic Ox and Other Tales of the Effendi died from cancer in Zhuhai City at 2:30 a.m. on August 15. Kuang was born in Doumen County, Zhuhai City in 1939. Since his first published work in 1958, he had engaged in writing for several years and created a large quantity of praised literary works for young readers, among them, the fable The Magic Ox and other tales of the Effendi, enjoyed great popularity with children. Kuang combined the aesthetics of Chinese traditional stories with the rationality of Western allegory and...

SYDNEY: An Australian Aboriginal 'Dreaming' story has helped experts uncover a meteorite impact crater in the outback of the Northern Territory. Duane Hamacher, an astrophysicist studying Aboriginal astronomy at Sydney's Macquarie University, used Google Maps to search for the signs of impact craters in areas related to Aboriginal stories of stars or stones falling from the sky. One story, from the folklore of the Arrernte people, is about a star falling to Earth at a site called Puka. This led to a search on Google Maps of Palm Valley, about 130 km southwest of Alice Springs. Here Hamacher discovered what...

<p>Bess writes: Surely Icelanders don't believe in Elves? It's a matter of earnest debate on the New York Mag where John Moody, who lives in Iceland responds to this Vanity Fair article on the country's financial meltdown. The debate centres on this VF claim that Alcoa, Iceland's largest aluminium company had to "defer to a government expert" in 2004 while scouring a potential site for a smelting plant to "certify that no elves were on or under it." The writer, Michael Lewis reports "It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”</p>

Just don't mention the golem. According to legend, Prague's most famous rabbi, the 16th-century Judah Loew ben Bezalel, magically made a mute clay being who alternately protected and rampaged through the Prague ghetto where Jews were required to live. But ask Czech Jews about the golem and you most likely will be met with eye rolling and heavy sighs, especially if you’re asking about plans for the upcoming 400th anniversary of the death of Loew (pronounced LEV). “Everyone hates the golem,” said Peter Gyori, a Prague Jew. “Loew was one of Europe's most famous teachers and, sadly, people come here...

** LIFE IN THE 1500'S ** The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s: Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water....

Kenyan Proverbs The leopard is only as fast as the rearmost of his tail. The wisest man in the village is only as wise as his goats are fat. Keep you kalebasa wet and it will last a long time. The rich man keeps his goats in the barn only so long as he keeps my sharp stick out of his rib cage. The moon is the herdsman. The stars are his goats. The sun is the leopard who is hungry at dawn. My lawyers are eager to send you my many TREASURE. If you talk to women, don't refuse...

Sweden's own version of the Loch Ness monster, the Storsjoe or Great Lake monster, has been caught on film by surveillance videos, an association that installed the cameras said Friday. The legend of the Swedish beast has swirled for nearly four centuries, with some 200 sightings reported in the lake in central Sweden. "On Thursday at 12:21 pm, we filmed the movements of a live being. And it was not a pike, nor a perch, we're sure of that," Gunnar Nilsson, the head of a shopkeepers' association in Svenstavik, told AFP. The association, together with the Jaemtland province and local...

HOUSTON - Maria didn't mean to poison her children. Quite the opposite. Worried about her daughters' lack of appetite, the young Houston mother was merely following her grandmother's advice when she gave the two girls and a niece a dose of "greta" - a Mexican folk medicine used to treat children's stomach ailments. What Maria, who asked that her last name not be used, did not know then, but now will never forget, is that the bright orange powder is nearly 90 percent lead. Fortunately, doctors detected the dangerously high levels of the toxic metal in the little girls' blood...

Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was a New England spinster and central figure in the brutal axe murders of her father and stepmother on August 4, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Although acquitted on June 20, 1893, no one else was ever tried, and she has remained notorious in American folklore. The slayings, trial, and the following trial by media became a cause célèbre; and the fame of the incident has endured in American pop culture and criminology. Dispute over the identity of the killer or killers continues to this day.

All over the world, threading through a multitude of diverse cultures, and as some scholars assert, perhaps originating in prehistoric times, there has been passed down a legend of a heroic, selfless greyhound[1]. The beloved companion to a nobleman, chief or king, and the guardian of this esteemed person's only heir. And always the story ends in tragedy, with a case of hasty judgment, rash actions, inconsolable regret, and lifelong penance. But, only in Medieval France did this story take such a hold upon the hearts of its people and grow roots so deep into the Gallic soil and soul,...