Where the Map Ends

Sep 13, 2026

The Guardian Cat of Bubastis

A visit to the ruined temple town of Bubastis, seat of the cat goddess Bastet, and a look at how a working household animal became a ward against unseen harm.

Sep 12, 2026

The Laughter on the Ridge

A journal entry on the tengu, the long-nosed mountain spirits of Japan, recorded among the cedars of Mount Kurama where they are said to still watch the paths after dark.

Sep 11, 2026

The Spider Who Bought the Stories

In Akan tradition, every tale told under the stars is technically Anansi's property, won from the sky god through cunning rather than strength. I went looking for how that debt is still spoken of.

Sep 9, 2026

The Lantern That Walks Itself

A survey of the tanuki, Japan's shapeshifting raccoon dog, and the strange lantern-lights said to follow lonely mountain roads at dusk.

Sep 8, 2026

The Beast Mistaken for Land

A journal entry on the hafgufa, the vast Norse sea creature said to be so still and so large that sailors mistook its back for an island, sometimes at fatal cost.

Sep 5, 2026

The Worm in the Mound

A journal entry on the wyrm, the serpent-dragon of Norse and British tradition that coils through barrows, rivers and the roots of the world tree, always keeping close to buried gold.

Sep 3, 2026

The Ox-Headed Serpent of the Drowned Coast

Along Galicia's Costa da Morte, fishermen once spoke of the Urco, a vast sea serpent with the head of an ox, said to rise before wrecks and storms. The entry follows the beast through the memories of a coastline that has buried more sailors than it has ever given back.

Sep 2, 2026

The Thing in the Reeds

A journal entry on the bunyip, the water-dwelling being of Aboriginal folklore from the Murray-Darling basin, and how a warning about dangerous water became, in colonial hands, both a cryptid and an insult.

Sep 1, 2026

The Bough He Carried Instead

A look at the holly bough carried by the Green Knight in the Middle English romance, the small green sign that turned an armed intruder's arrival into something closer to a game than a threat.

Aug 31, 2026

Pukwudgie Country

An account of the pukwudgie, the small and sharp-tempered woodland spirits of Wampanoag and Algonquian tradition, and the wary respect they still command in the pine barrens of southeastern Massachusetts.

Aug 29, 2026

The Bird That Never Lands

In Persian tradition the Huma is a bird that lives entirely on the wing, and whose shadow, falling on a person, was once said to mark them for a throne.

Aug 28, 2026

Marginalia of the Deep

A journal entry tracing the sea serpent from Jörmungandr's coils around Midgard to the sightings and chart-drawings of Norwegian sailors and the naturalists who took their word seriously.