Bone and Sickle

Al Ridenour
Bone and Sickle
BONUS EPISODES

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BONE AND SICKLE explores historical topics related to folklore and horror. With acerbic wit and a scholarly penchant for the grotesque, rogue folklorist Al Ridenour delves into a wide but carefully curated range of topics illustrated by stories from historical texts. Narratives are given dramatic readings by “Mrs. Karswell” (Sarah Chavez) backed by richly produced soundscapes blending original music, sound design and effects. The source books, though real enough, are said to be pulled from an imaginary library on Ridenour's imaginary estate situated somewhere in the neighborhood of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey. Each episode begins with our hosts briefly discussing goings-on in this world before diving into the topic to be explored. Occasional alternate-format episodes are devoted to readings of classic horror stories or curious texts of antiquarian interest. Ridenour is the author of “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas” (2016) and “A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters, and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival” (Jan. 2025). Sarah Chavez produced the podcast “The Cabinet of Curiosities” (2011-2012) and contributed to “Death in the Afternoon” (2018-2023).

  1. DEC 4 • BONUS EPISODES ONLY

    Meeting the Krampus

    As the day itself is approaching, I thought a little Krampus content was in order. This material is from my book, "The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas," and describes my first encounters with Alpine devils, along with some related traditions and history of the region in Salzburg where this transpires.

    16 min

  2. DEC 1

    Vlad the Impaler

    A figure of mythic proportions during his lifetime, Vlad the Impaler’s notoriety receded over the centuries only to be resurrected in the 1970s, when a pair of Boston University scholars went public with theories connecting him to Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula. We begin with snippet of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the first film to connect the literary vampire with the Eastern European prince — a rather ironic departure from Stoker’s novel, which references the historic figure only in passing. Vlad’s 15th-century  notoriety was sparked by two German texts both published around 1463, or shortly thereafter. Probably the earliest of these,written anonymously and published in Vienna, was titled, The History of Voivode Dracula, is sometimes called “the St. Gallen manuscript” named for the Swiss city where it is preserved. (“Voivode,” is a Slavic term, used in this context to mean, essentially, “Prince.”) The second  is a rhymed narrative written by Michel Beheim, a poet associated with the Meistersinger tradition and a performer at the court of the King Friedrich III. About three decades later, in 1490, Vlad’s story appeared in northwestern Russia. We don’t know its author but the monk who copied it from a lost original, mentions that his source was written in 1486. All three of these narratives provide plenty of gruesome anecdotes detailing the voivode’s cruelties.  Before going further into Vlad’s history, and as a quick appetizer, Mrs. Karswell reads a description by Beheim of a ghastly picnic said to have been enjoyed  by the voivode. Next, we clear away some misconceptions regarding Vlad the Impaler, the first having to do with his name. Called “Vlad Țepeș”  (Vlad the Impaler) in Romanian, he is less dramatically referred to as Vlad III. His father, Vlad II, was also known as  “Vlad Dracul.”  His son, using the Slavonic possessive form of that was referred to as Vlad Drăculea (that is, “of – the son of – Vlad Dracul). The father’s epitaph means “Vlad the Dragon,” referencing Vlad II’s  (and later Vlad III’s) membership in The Order of the Dragon, a society of Christian knights dedicated to staving off incursions of the Muslim Turks into Christendom. We then have a look at Vlad III’s over-emphasized association with Transylvania, one of the three historical regions (along with Moldavia and Wallachia) that would later become Romania. In fact, it was not Transylvania but Wallachia over which both Vlad II and Vlad III served as voivodes.  While Transylvania was his birthplace, at the age of 4, he and his family departed for Wallachia, and Vlad’s historical relationship with Transylvania was later anything but friendly. We then look at Wallachia’s role as a buffer between Ottoman regions to the south and Hungarian/German controlled regions to the north, as well as the regrettable deal Vlad II made with the Turks to keep the peace. The last involved  the “child levy,” or “blood tax” demanded by Sultan Murad II.  Known in Turkish as “devshirme,” this was a sort of ransom imposed on Vlad II, requiring that he leave his sons Vlad and Radu with the Turkish court to ensure the ruler’s compliance with the sultan’s demands.  We hear some interesting details on this four-year exile, some of which likely shaped Vlad III’s actions later in life. Before Vlad III is released, his father and eldst brother Mirea are murdered by Hungarian forces, who install their desired ruler on the Wallachian throne. While Vlad III manages to briefly seize his father’s throne while the Hungarians are distracted in conflicts with the Turks, he’s again forced into exile after only serving one month.

    55 min

  3. NOV 29 • BONUS EPISODES ONLY

    Exorcist's Log Book

    In the previous public episode, “Devil Boards," you heard some selections from the log book kept by one of the participating priests during the 1949 exorcism of Ronald Hunkeler. Those passages focused specifically on Spiritualism and spirit-boards, but in this bonus show, we read more from the diary, highlighting anomalous incidents that occurred before the exorcism as well as some unusual reactions and interactions that transpired once the exorcism were begun.

    22 min

  4. OCT 28

    Devil Boards

    The devilish reputation Ouija boards enjoy in horror films is a relatively new phenomenon.  In the Victorian era, they were regarded by “psychical researchers” as something to be embraced in a spirit of calm scientific inquiry, while Spiritualists saw in them a means of reaching out to those who’d passed into the “Summerland,” an anodyne realm of sweetness and light. While these were the dominant attitudes of the day, the idea of spirit communications has  always been fraught with a sense of the uncanny, tainted even by an association with witchcraft and the Devil. We’ll see this element already present in those first communications of the Spiritualist movement, the dialogues the Fox sisters with an unseen presence at first presumed to be a sort of devil. As we saw in our previous episode, spirit-boards represent a particular danger to those with psychologically fragile constitutions. Beyond the instances of obsessive madness detailed previously, this episode examines a handful of cases from the 1920s and ’30s involving actual bloodshed — murder, suicide, and explicit invocations of the Devil. Of  course these remained isolated incidents, and historical distrust of the Ouija was generally low, and all but non-existent during the spiritual and occult explorations of the 1960s. But all of this would soon change with William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel, The Exorcist, and its 1973 cinematic adaptation, both of which famously depict the Ouija board as a channel through which the Devil enters. Some listeners may know that Blatty’s novel was inspired by actual reports of an exorcism that took place in America of the late 1940s, one involving a teenage boy rather than girl, a change Blatty said he’d made to help preserve the privacy of the boy. Within the last decade, as individuals involved in these incidents have passed on, more information on this case has made its way to public scrutiny.  In the last half of our show, we examine the role spirit-boards and Spiritualist practices played in these events as revealed by a day-to-day log kept by the lead exorcist during the rites . Mrs. Karswell reads for us the passages from the journal. An element Blatty wove in with this source material was a specific identity of the demon possessing his fictional victim — Pazuzu, an ancient Mesopotamian wind spirit bringing dro ught, famine, storms, and all manner of ill fortune.  As this figure was digested into pop culture over the next decades, a version of its name, “Zozo,” would eventually appear in the  early 2000s as a destructive entity often channeled by unwary Ouija user.  We take a look at this bit of evolving web-lore, showcased in paranormal shows, like Ghost Adventures and at the heart of the 2012 indie horror film I am Zozo. Facebook Twitter

    35 min

  5. OCT 18

    Missing Intro for Episode 133

    Apparently, I clipped off the beginning of the show during the initial upload.  It’s been fixed, so this would only effect those downloading yesterday, but for those who missed it, here it is.. Facebook Twitter

    5 min

  6. OCT 17

    Spirit Boards

    Ouija boards, or more generally, “spirit boards” have antecedents going back to the very first days of the Spiritualist movement.  We begin our show with a seasonally spooky visit to the cottage of the Fox sisters in Hydesville, New York, where the ghost of a murdered pedlar supposedly began communicating with the family through a series of mysterious knocking sounds. While the method used by the Fox sisters to translate these knocks into messages anticipates the process of pointing out letters on a Ouija board,  the evolution of spirit boards was not so straightforward. We learn how the  planchette, used on board as a pointer, appeared long before any boards were printed and was initially used as a writing device.  It was  equipped with a pencil inserted through it like a third leg.  As the planchette was guided by the user (supernaturally and/or unconsciously), “spirit writing” was produced. We next hear from a number of contemporaneous accounts describing the pencil planchette as if it were inhabited by a ghostly presence and how these devices first appeared in Paris and London. Once imported to America, the homeland of the Spiritualist movement, merchants in Boston and New York did brisk business in producing versions of their own. By the 1880s, the planchette was finally beginning to be used as a pointer, and W. S. Reed Toy Company of Massachusetts became one of the first merchants to produce boards printed with letters. Reed’s model was known as the “Witch-board.”  Along the way, we hear of an unexpected connection between President Grover Cleveland and Witch-boards. We then go to Baltimore, where former fertilizer salesman Charles W. Kenner partners with attorney Elijah to create their own version of the ghostly spelling board, one they name Ouija.  Lore around the naming of the board (through a seance) and peculiar happenings at the US Patent office in Washington DC are discussed along with the passing of rights to manufacture the novelty to William Fuld, who manufactured the Ouija board from 1897 to his untimely death in 1927. We discuss the phenomenon of “Ouija-mania,” which generated a number of songs and (questionable) literary works. Ouija-mania also generated a certain degree of misery among unstable users.  Several absurd and tragic stories from newspapers of the day are read by Mrs. Karswell, and we close with a particularly dramatic story told in a letter preserved in the William Fuld archives.  It conceives of the Ouija as a tool of the Devil, something we will explore more in our next episode. Facebook Twitter

    39 min

  7. OCT 9

    Announcement: Trick or Treat by Mail

    A special short announcement regarding the October 20 deadline for Trick-or-Treat-by-Mail for listeners joining our Patreon.  Find out how you can  receive a hand-packed candy bag from the home of Bone and Sickle Podcast. Each bag this year contains a special MYSTERY ITEM from Egypt! Visit: https://www.patreon.com/boneandsickle Facebook Twitter

  8. TRAILER • BONUS EPISODES ONLY

    Bonus Episode Announcement

    A bit about our Bonus Episodes available by subscription.

    2 min
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Trailer

4.8
out of 5
280 Ratings

About

BONE AND SICKLE explores historical topics related to folklore and horror. With acerbic wit and a scholarly penchant for the grotesque, rogue folklorist Al Ridenour delves into a wide but carefully curated range of topics illustrated by stories from historical texts. Narratives are given dramatic readings by “Mrs. Karswell” (Sarah Chavez) backed by richly produced soundscapes blending original music, sound design and effects. The source books, though real enough, are said to be pulled from an imaginary library on Ridenour's imaginary estate situated somewhere in the neighborhood of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey. Each episode begins with our hosts briefly discussing goings-on in this world before diving into the topic to be explored. Occasional alternate-format episodes are devoted to readings of classic horror stories or curious texts of antiquarian interest. Ridenour is the author of “The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas” (2016) and “A Season of Madness: Fools, Monsters, and Marvels of the Old-World Carnival” (Jan. 2025). Sarah Chavez produced the podcast “The Cabinet of Curiosities” (2011-2012) and contributed to “Death in the Afternoon” (2018-2023).

Information

  • Creator
    Al Ridenour
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2024
  • Episodes
    143
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Bone and Sickle
  • Provider
    Al Ridenour

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