A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the European countryside, the American frontier, the Canadian Northwest, the Australian outback, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Selkies are mythological creatures that can shapeshift between seal and human forms by removing or putting on their seal skin. They feature prominently in the oral traditions and mythology of various cultures, especially those of Celtic and Norse origin. The term “selkie” derives from the Scots word for “seal”, and is also spelled as silkies, sylkies, or selchies. Selkies are sometimes referred to as selkie folk, meaning 'seal folk'. Selkies are mainly associated with the Northern Isles of Scotland, where they are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land.
"Black Betty" is a 20th-century African-American work song often credited to Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter as the author, though the earliest recordings are not by him. Some sources say it is one of Lead Belly's many adaptations of earlier folk material.
Red Rice is a hamlet and country house in the civil parish of Upper Clatford, south-west of Andover in the English county of Hampshire.
Jenny Greenteeth a.k.a. Wicked Jenny, Ginny Greenteeth and Grinteeth is a figure in English folklore. A river-hag, similar to Peg Powler and derived from the grindylow, she would pull children or the elderly into the water and drown them. The name is also used to describe pondweed or duckweed, which can form a continuous mat over the surface of a small body of water, making it misleading and potentially treacherous, especially to unwary children. With this meaning the name is common around Liverpool and southwest Lancashire.
Fairy Ointment or "The Fairy Nurse" is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales. It has been told in many variants. Andrew Lang included one in The Lilac Fairy Book.
SS Florizel, a passenger liner, was the flagship of the Bowring Brothers' Red Cross Line of steamships and one of the first ships in the world specifically designed to navigate icy waters. During her last voyage, from St. John's to Halifax and on to New York City, she sank after striking a reef at Horn Head Point, near Cappahayden, Newfoundland, with the loss of 94 including Betty Munn, a three-year-old girl, in whose memory a statue of Peter Pan was erected at Bowring Park in St. John's.
Morgens, morgans, or mari-morgans are Welsh and Breton water spirits that drown men.
Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales is a 1958 anthology of 34 fairy tales from Cornwall that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders and illustrated by Raymond Briggs. It was the first in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders.
Sir Richard Carnac Temple, 2nd Baronet, was an Indian-born British administrator and the Chief Commissioner of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and an anthropological writer.
Ona "Oney" Judge Staines was an enslaved woman owned by the Washington family, first at the family's plantation at Mount Vernon and later, after George Washington became president, at the President's House in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital city. In her early twenties, she absconded, becoming a fugitive slave, after learning that Martha Washington had intended to transfer ownership of her to her granddaughter, known to have a horrible temper. She fled to New Hampshire, where she married, had children, and converted to Christianity. Though she was never formally freed, the Washington family ultimately stopped pressing her to return to Virginia after George Washington's death.
German submarine U-94 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down on 9 September 1939 at the F. Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel as yard number 599, launched on 12 June 1940 and commissioned on 10 August 1940 under Kapitänleutnant Herbert Kuppisch.
The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, formerly known as the Museum of Witchcraft, is a museum dedicated to European witchcraft and magic located in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall, south-west England. It houses exhibits devoted to folk magic, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and Wicca, with its collection of such objects having been described as the largest in the world.
HMCS Calgary was a Royal Canadian Navy revised Flower-class corvette which took part in convoy escort duties during the Second World War. She fought primarily in the Battle of the Atlantic. She was named for Calgary, Alberta.
Adventure was an American pulp magazine that was first published in November 1910 by the Ridgway company, a subsidiary of the Butterick Publishing Company. Adventure went on to become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed of all the American pulp magazines. The magazine had 881 issues. Its first editor was Trumbull White. He was succeeded in 1912 by Arthur Sullivant Hoffman (1876–1966), who edited the magazine until 1927.
Jane Austen's House Museum is a small independent museum in the village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire. It is a writer's house museum occupying the 17th-century house in which novelist Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life, during which time she wrote, revised and made ready to be published all six of her novels, and the fragment Sanditon. The museum has been a Grade I listed building since 1963.
A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as "Hansel and Gretel". Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as The Morrígan or Badb, who are seen as neither wholly benevolent nor malevolent.
Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. The incident came to be called the "Hill Abduction" and the "Zeta Reticuli Incident" because two ufologists connected the star map shown to Betty Hill with the Zeta Reticuli system. Their story was adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television film The UFO Incident.
Jane Hicks Gentry was an Appalachian folklorist and singer, born in Watauga County, North Carolina. She was known for her riddles and the "Jack, Will and Tom Tales", in addition to the songs she recorded for Cecil Sharp. All were believed to have originated in England, Scotland or Germany, and passed down through Jane's family to her.
Lady Featherflight is an American fairy tale first published in 1891, by W. W. Newell, and collected from an oral source in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the tale, a traveler is offered hospitality by Lady Featherflight, a giant's daughter. He is forced to perform a number of tasks for her father, but Featherflight offers him assistance through her control over birds. They eventually elope and steal her father's treasure.
