Supernatural

The Ghosts of Iceland

“These spectres make those who are ignorant of their death receive them as though they were alive and offer their right hands; nor is the mistake detected before the shades have vanished.” […]

Supernatural

Alien, Airship, or Mass Hallucinations?

“They saw a ship with men on board floating before the anchor cable; and soon they saw a man leap overboard and dive down to the anchor as if to release it. The movements of his hands and feet and all his actions appeared like those of a man swimming in the water.” […]

Greek and Roman

The Queen of Monsters

“The goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin, eats raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth.” […]

Britons and Celts

The Magic of Music

“When the fish heard him singing, they came up from the bottom and began to swim in a circle round the boat – in such a way that the brothers could not see beyond the fish anywhere, so great was the multitude of the different fishes swimming.” […]

Supernatural

Doomed to the Dance of Lust

“This nocturnal play of supernatural being the natives call ‘the dance of the elves’, and this is their belief about them: that the souls of people who devote themselves to bodily pleasures (becoming as it were their servants), giving way to the incitements of their lusts and profaning the laws of God and man, assume corporeal form and are whirled about the earth.” […]

Britons and Celts

What Makes a Man Turn Neutral?

“We wander through various regions of the air and the firmament and the earth, just like the other spirits that travel on their missions. But on holy days and Sundays we are given bodies such as you now see so that we may stay here and praise our creator.” […]

Greek and Roman

Caesar and the Ghost

“When Caesar had concluded the campaign he turned towards Rome, marching with his forces across a river, distinguished by the name of Rubicon. Here a phantom of immense stature, standing in the middle of the water, opposed his passage.” […]

Greek and Roman

The Origin of Inspiration

“Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spread abroad, and the peaks of snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals.” […]