old words. new day. no pictures.

"I love a good hometown song. I love a good hometown. I think everyone should pack their bags and leave though. Separate yourself from what makes you, from your identity. Leave the posters on the walls and your half empty bottles of shampoo in the shower. Disregard your magazine subscriptions and drive east for as many miles as you can in two and a half days. Stop for abandoned industrial complexes and etched marigolds and estate sales. Pull over for graveyards, abandoned cars, and church bake sales. Listen to the local radio, whatever comes in, through the entire desert stretch. flat yellow and subversive. This is not a road trip this is a growing pain. A groan and a baptism, trial by fire, by sun, by dust, by grip and smoke and dehydration. Eat in your car at night. Be invisible for the time being, be the mystery diner in a wasted town. Guess the secrets of patrons and passers by. Imagine them in bed, with their eyes closed and mouths open, gaping and gritting. Don’t keep a journal, it ruins the myth and desecrates the memories. The memories will forever be that cryptic silent laugh the instant before the drag the slant of your eye to the side the shuffling foot, the perfect kink in a steady character."

magical creatures, insidious creatures!


Sitting outside in a muggy thunderstorm listening to the rain on the porch roof seems like the right time to embrace your inner mystic and believe in those creatures we fear and hunt and desire. Those creatures we don't even know we believe in until we hear something behind us in the dark, hear our name called but not with our ears, feel ourselves pulled in a direction without a path. xo Sarah


The Huldra or Skosgra of Scandinavian Folklore

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Seen from the front she is a stunningly beautiful, naked female being with long hair; from behind she is hollow like an old tree trunk. In Norway she has a cow's tail, and in Sweden she may have that of a cow or a fox. In Norway she has often been described as a typical dairymaid, wearing the clothes of a regular farm-girl, although somewhat more dazzling than most girls. 


The huldra lures men into the forest to have sex with her, rewarding those who satisfy her and often killing those who don't. She often steals human infants and replaces them with her own ugly huldrebarn (changeling Huldre children). She has long been associated with hunting; she might blow down the barrel of a huntsman's rifle, causing it never thereafter to miss a shot. Some are not so lucky, or perhaps skilled, and escape her only after surrendering their sanity.

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Huldra would also sometimes try to marry human men, keeping their identity secret until marriage; only that blessing could rid them of their tails. If mistreated, a huldra would visit terrible vengeance upon her husband. 


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A boy in Tiveden went fishing, but he had no luck. Then he met a beautiful lady, and she was so stunning that he felt he had to catch his breath. But, then he realized who she was, because he could see a fox's tail sticking out below the skirt. As he knew that it was forbidden to comment on the tail to the lady of the forest, if it was not done in the most polite manner, he bowed deeply and said with his softest voice: Milady, I see that your petticoat shows below your skirt. The lady thanked him gracefully and hid her tail under her skirt, telling the boy to fish on the other side of the lake. That day, the boy had great luck with his fishing and he caught a fish every time he threw out the line. This was the Huldra's recognition of his politeness. (text source)