#guisers

[maypoleman1]

31st December

New Year’s Eve

Allendale Tar Barrel Burning. Source: Pinterest uploaded by Catherine Donaldson.

Today is New Year’s Eve. The turning of the year was traditionally marked by fire customs, some of which survive. In Allendale in Northumberland a parade of gaudily-attired Guisers still takes place on the night of 31st December. Shortly before midnight the all-male procession sets out with each Guiser balancing a barrel of burning tar on his head, the conclusion of which results in the barrels being thrown onto a huge bonfire. This is followed by singing and dancing until the midnight bells chime. In Stonehaven in Grampian, the revellers launch fireballs into the air, or whirl the cloth balls, lit by paraffin, around their heads, the balls being attached to them by strings. The whole event is highly dangerous.

These ceremonies are of course memories of pagan practices designed to light the skies in midwinter to encourage the return of the sun in spring. Bonfires were common, and households should keep their New Year fire burning for at least 24 hours to ensure the coming year is a prosperous one. The horse and bull-worship of the ancient Celts was maintained by men dressed in bull hides and horse costumes who visited homes throughout the Christmas season in order to bestow good fortune in return for alms. The Church objected to such blatant pagan survivals and most died out, but on New Year’s Eve the horse-skull totems of Mari Lwyd visit the farmhouses of Wales still, although the tradition may owe as much to old mumming plays as it does to pagan memories.

Bell ringing is a very prevalent Christian-era New Year’s Eve tradition, and the New Year is rung in to this day at midnight by the chimes Big Ben in London.

[mindnumb-opus]

Funny Jericho man

[parasprite]

having grown up in an evangelical "halloween is sinful and devil worship" household its like. every october i wish someone would find out i never celebrated halloween as a kid and gasp in horror and pull me into their arms and coo in sympathy and tell me i didn't deserve being treated that way by my parents and then they throw me a huge halloween party with all my friends with apple dooking and fake blood and horror movies and karaoke and im the guest of honour and everyone gives me a big hug and kiss and head pats and cuddles and gifts and tells me im special. U get me?

[craboon]

The Guiser- A creeping fiend who lurks the streets at night in a horrible costume. You should not be unduly frightened though, unless he starts eating bullets that is.

The Fiend is nowhere to be seen, part of his costume must have fallen off in the scuffle,

Monster Gloves- Item description: They are gaudy lumpy things, they stink of rubber. Putting them on fills you with rage.

[strangedarkage]

I was trying to inject testosterone into a syringe earlier to do my shot (bc I forgot to do it on Thursday lol) and I accidentally let too much pressure build up in the needle. So it popped off and exploded T *everywhere.* It got all over my arms and in my eyes...

Needless to say, I have to go to the pharmacy this week bc I did not have enough left over for my full dose after wearing most of it. 😂

[arolesbianism]

The sadness and agony that emerges everytime I start a new oni save and am forced to remember what it's like to have a dupe without a hat only to put them in a hat because I think they'd look cute only to remember hats make half of them look bald but I spent this long maxing out a skill for them so Im too stubborn to back down and remove the hat

[weequay]

I wish I could be into my own culture in the way some Americans are. Like spouting off Lore and Quirky Factoids like Scotland is Middle Earth. It seems so joyous and insane. I saw a Reddit post of a woman determined to visit Inverness for Hallowe’en because she thought it would be amazing because of the gaelic Samhain roots…if only 😩

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant in Golaschin! - A Guiser's Play For Hogmanay (1989)

Okay Oh My God I did it! I promised to feature an upcoming obscure David Tennant work, and here it is!

I've bitten the bullet and recorded (probably badly!) a minisode about an up-until-now unknown part of David Tennant's body of work as a young Scottish drama student. This information didn't really fit into my theatre-centric podcast, but I didn't want to see it get lost in obscurity because it wasn't a theatre production. Besides, it might've been his first foray as an actor on radio! Enjoy! (Click below to listen - critics welcome!)

[fallbabylon]

The Ragadaziow (forefathers) Guisers performing the trial of the Beast of Bodmin- a mock trial in the style of a mummers play dating back to 1549. The Bodmin Play (An Gwary Bosvenna) sees the beast captured and paraded in the streets- St Petroc’s Ossery Casket watching over the event.

The Beast of Bodmin is not just a recent cultural reference but refers to the local tradition of a dragon at Halgavor. Legend states that St. Petroc removed a splinter from the creature’s eye and thus tamed it. Historical records of Riding Day Revels refer to people being tricked into searching for and fighting the dragon. - Bodmin, Kernow

[simplydm]

Cleo and Joe are talking about what ASMR videos they could do like the guppy guiser vid, my suggestion is “hermits complaining for one hour”

[maypoleman1]

28th January

Sir Francis Drake/ Up Helly A’

Sir Francis Drake. Source: The Guardian

Sir Francis Drake died on this day in 1596. The famed soldier, explorer, courtier and adventurer was also rumoured to have been in league with the devil. He owed his nautical skills to a satanic pact, it is said. When the Armada approached, Drake was rumoured to have cut slivers of wood from a tree and magically launched them onto the ocean as a fleet of fire ships to disrupt the Spanish galleons. The storms that did so much to wreck King Philip II’s expedition to remove Queen Elizabeth from her throne, was also apparently instigated by Drake who got a coven of witches at Devil’s Point at Devonport to summon up wind and rain to disperse the enemy ships. Apparently, while away exploring North America a devilish assistant informed Sir Francis that his deserted wife was marrying another man. Drake fired a canon through the earth and the canon ball emerged in the church in between the happy couple who soon cancelled their wedding plans.

Up Helly A’. Source: viator website

On the last Tuesday in January (the 30th in 2024), the Up Helly A’ fire festival is held at Lerwick, on Shetland. The name of the festival is translated as ‘end of the Holy Days’ and is supposed to trace its origins back to old Norse celebrations marking the end of the winter feasts of Yule. The highlight of the event is a procession of some 500 men marching in full Viking regalia through the streets, led by Guiser Jarl, bearing firelit torches. At the harbour, fireworks are set off and the torches thrown into a launched longship, commemorating the Viking practice of a warrior’s funeral. Although Up Helly A’ has all the appearances of a genuine Norse survival, it does not appear to date back any further than the early eighteenth century. It is nontheless the earliest of several such festivals across Shetland over the forthcoming weeks, celebrating, perhaps a little prematurely, the end of winter.

[pomea]

But the girl who put on Ashes with her tattered coat walks silent, flown with night and firelight and masking. She is giddy with the wheel of stars. She sees the brands whirled upward, sees the flash of teeth, of eyes. The guisers shout and jostle. They are sharp as foxes in her nostrils: smoke and ale and eager sweat. She moves among them, nameless; she wears her silence like a cloak of night. Ah, but she can feel the power in her marrow, like a vein of stars. Her feet are nightfall. She could tuck a sleeping hare within her jacket, take a hawk's eggs from its breast. Her hand could beckon like the moon and bid a crone come dancing from the chimneynook to sweep about her and about; could call the sun to hawk at shadows, or a young man to her lap, and what he will.

And in the morning, she will lay by Ashes and her rags, and wash her face, and comb the witchknots from her hair; but Ashes in the tale goes on.

greer gilman, cloud and ashes

[aldudagga]

Skin Riddle Cult: The peripatetic god-guiser cultists of Ruptga speak not except through elaborate displays of color and motion, acting out prophecies unraveled from star equations in intricate dance ensembles. They travel in troupes from city to city reading fortunes and reenacting foundational myths through pantomime, accompanied by witty interpreters who narrate their exaggerated physical gestures into unempathetic comedies. The Skin Riddle Cult has no formal hierarchy, instead resembling that of a traveling theater, and their performances often communicate open-ended or abstract messages meant to invoke intuition and inspire personal meaning on the part of the audience. Their Elinhir temple is a grand theater-like cathedral and is the destination of paupers, aristocrats, and tourists alike attending their biannual Rainbow Choir; a sensational chorus in which their god-guisers project streams of chromatic light and smoke from their mouths to puppet visages of the Yokudan gods.

(Art made by Pound for Tamriel Rebuilt)

[polkadotmotmot]

Elaine Woo MacGregor - Guisers, 2022

[sketchnyan]

Keita arrives a moment too late, the poor boy witnessed his friend expel purple liquid out of his mouth like a violent guiser. Jibanyan falls to the ground, unmoving. Keita rushes over to him and holds the cat in his arms, yelling out his name and shaking him. But Jibanyan couldn’t hear him, he was already so far away. There was nothing Keita, lord Emma, or anyone could do. Grimace had consumed him entirely. 

[thebansacredbanned]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

I was tagged by both @yletylyf and @nemainofthewater so I guess I'm like legally obliged to actually respond (or something)

3 Ships You Like: Wen Xu/Meng Yao (The Untamed); Mei Changsu/Lin Chen (Nirvana in Fire); Prince Langya/Tang Lianyue/Sikong Changfeng/Li Xinyue/Ji Ruofeng/General Lei/General Ye (The Blood of Youth) (sort of) (3 of them are dead before the show even starts) (I do NOT have it in me to write prequel fic but if I did)

First Ship Ever: probably ExR from Les Mis

Last Song You Heard: uhhhhhhhhh I was listening to Mozart l'Opera Rock when i was writing yesterday so something from that

Favorite Childhood Book: what a QUESTION I read so much as a kid and now I can't remember anything. I will place Percy Jackson in honourary position as it's the only one I still care about

Currently Reading: I just finished Godkiller by Hannah Kaner this morning and am now currently between books

Currently Watching: Love Between Fairy and Devil with @nemainofthewater and @luzzeagain; rewatching The Disguiser on the dis(guiser)cord [it's not called that 1 million apologies to everyone involved]; the great pottery throwdown on channel 4 with my parents

Currently Consuming: uhhhhh water? I had toast like an hour ago

Currently Craving: sleep. i so eepy

tagginggggg @vaynglories @sinni-ok-sessi @dcderringer@circumference-pie @wishthefish which isn't 9 but also. yeah. if anyone else wants to join in then be my guest i'm tired