Between garlands of garlic on doorways, wolves finding their voice in the dark, and the undead rising from their graves, Romania’s celebration of St. Andrew’s Eve (November 29th-30th) blurs the line between the living and the dead. Join Alyson in exploring this magical and uncanny Romanian holiday.

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On All Hallows’ Eve, the veil thins and the folklore gets...fun. In this episode, I count down 10 strange superstitions, from turnip jack-o’-lanterns and mirror magic to dumb suppers, bat omens, and haunted crossroads. Light a candle and let's begin!

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From whispered charms and buried witch bottles to torture chambers and Salem’s gallows, this episode of The Strange and Unusual Podcast traces the haunting story of the witch as healer, heretic, and scapegoat. I explore the folklore, the fear, and the witch hunts of Pendle, Würzburg, Bamberg, and Salem. Through historical accounts and chilling firsthand testimonies, in this episode I go into how ordinary people became legends, monsters, and martyrs, including my own ancestor, Elizabeth Howe.

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On this episode we trace the vampire’s long, shadowy journey, from 18th-century graveyard panics and Slavic strigoi to the seductive aristocrats of Gothic fiction and the conflicted immortals of modern pop culture. We also will go into how the myth evolves on screen, from Nosferatu and Bela Lugosi to Anne Rice, Buffy, and beyond. We explore why the vampire keeps returning to embody everything we fear (and secretly crave): mortality, contagion, seduction, power, and immortality.

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In this episode, we head back to school, but not the way you remember it. From abandoned high schools and haunted classrooms to urban legends whispered in bathrooms and tragedies that linger in lecture halls, autumn brings with it eerie campus lore.

We’ll uncover chilling, and often sad, tragic tales from New Jersey, Texas, Africa, Cambodia, and Mexico. These are the stories that blur the line between history and folklore, fact and nightmare.

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For this episode we're exploring harvest folklore throughout the world, and how it connects to the genre of folk horror. From the sunlit dread of Lady Midday stalking the fields of Eastern Europe to the vengeful rice paddy ghosts of Japan, nearly every farming culture told tales of spirits among the grain. We’ll wander those stubbled fields and deserted farms, listening for the whispers of harvest-time spirits: the Harvest Watchers and Field Spirits that people once believed lurked within the furrows.

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In this episode, we'll explore the folklore of the night, from the Sandman to Sleep Paralysis demons, and more. We'll get into the history of the lore, the scientific studies, and how these creatures manifest around the world.

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