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Crystal Ponti

@crystalponti.bsky.social

1.4K followers 710 following 2.4K posts

A freelance writer exploring the intersection of history and folklore. Bylines: The History Channel, The New York Times, BBC, etc. Also @HistoriumU (Historium Unearthia); Grieving mom of Adam. muckrack.com/crystal-ponti

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 7d

The Civil War didn’t just change the nation. It gave rise to embalming, and America’s funeral industry as we know it. Here's my latest for HISTORY. #history #funeral #Americanlife

👉 www.history.com/articles/civ...

How Civil War Deaths Advanced America’s Funeral Industry

Embalming advanced as a way to preserve and disinfect remains.

www.history.com

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 7h

Shape-changers walk between worlds. Beast and man, life and death, human and divine. Their stories are warnings and wishes both: be careful what power you crave. #FairyTaleTuesday

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 10h

In the Alps, stories tell of tatzelwurms, cat-faced serpents hiding in snow caves. Whether demon, dragon, or mountain spirit, they embody the wild shapes nature takes when feared from afar. #FairyTaleTuesday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 12h

In Transylvania, people carried garlic, rowan, or holy symbols to repel vampires. Garlic’s strong scent symbolized life. Its rootedness in the earth opposed the vampire’s exile from it. #FairyTaleTuesday

Art: Joseph Vargo

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 14h

In Romanian legend, werewolves and vampires share the same bloodline - creatures of the night called strigoi. Some were said to transform between wolf and man before fully rising from the grave. #FairyTaleTuesday

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 16h

Folklore warned that werewolves could be cured by naming them aloud, or by touching them three times with a silver knife. Some said they were cursed souls, others said they were chosen. #FairyTaleTuesday

Art: Daniel Eskridge

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 18h

The oldest werewolf tales come from ancient Greece. In one, King Lycaon fed Zeus human flesh. As punishment, the god turned him into a wolf - the first to walk between man and beast. #FairyTaleTuesday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 20h

In Eastern Europe, the first vampires were not elegant but bloated, red-faced corpses rising from graves. They brought disease and drought, not seduction. Only later did literature teach them to whisper. #FairyTaleTuesday

Art: Munch

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

Meditation, in myth, is rarely peaceful. It is descent into silence, shadow, and truth. The gods who sit in stillness are not escaping the world but holding it in their hands. #MythologyMonday

Art: Cheryl Kanuck

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

Mystics across ages agreed that revelation is not shouted but whispered. Whether at the foot of a fig tree or inside a cave, the divine is found in listening, not noise. #MythologyMonday

Art: Shijun Munns

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

The short story is a postcard from the subconscious. It says only what it must, leaves space for what it can’t, and signs off with the silence of an unfinished dream. #MythologyMonday

Art: Hendrikje Kühne und Beat Klein

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

In Taoist myth, Laozi left the world on a water buffalo after writing the Tao Te Ching. His teaching: the stillest water reflects the most truth. Contemplation was the path back to harmony. #MythologyMonday

Art: Zhang Lu

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

In Celtic legend, the salmon of wisdom swam in sacred waters. Fionn mac Cumhaill gained its knowledge not through conquest, but by waiting, cooking, and touching - a quiet revelation. #MythologyMonday

Art: Justin McCarthy

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

The Buddha’s enlightenment began beneath the Bodhi tree, where he sat unmoving for seven weeks. His meditation was not escape but confrontation; the quiet battle against illusion. #MythologyMonday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 1d

Greek philosophers practiced theoria, a kind of sacred contemplation. To observe the cosmos was to commune with it. Thought itself was a form of worship. #MythologyMonday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

Every culture has its magician. The Egyptian priest reading stars. The Yoruba babalawo casting divination shells. The hedge-witch whispering charms to the moon. Each one a keeper of the world’s secret grammar. #FolkloreSunday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

Folk magicians worked smaller wonders. The cunning man healed with herbs and charms, the wise woman found lost cattle or love. Theirs was kitchen magic - practical, sometimes dangerous, but deeply human. #FolkloreSunday

Art: Joe Gilronan

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

The Book of Abramelin taught the magician how to summon their guardian angel. It warned that demons would appear first, testing resolve. Those who faltered were lost to their own shadows. #FolkloreSunday

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

Merlin straddles myth and history, part prophet, part madman. In Welsh tales, he speaks to beasts; in Arthurian legend, he vanishes into the forest with the Lady of the Lake. Wisdom always walks a lonely path. #FolkloreSunday

Art: Tony Quimbel

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

John Dee, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, claimed to converse with angels through a crystal. His scryer, Edward Kelley, spoke in tongues. Some said they glimpsed heaven. Others said they unleashed something else. #FolkloreSunday

Art: Henry Gillard Glindoni

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

In legend, Faust sold his soul for knowledge. The pact became Europe’s great warning... beware the hunger to know too much. Yet his story endures, because we all long to ask the same forbidden questions. #FolkloreSunday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 2d

The word magic comes from the Persian maguš, meaning “wise man.” Once sacred, it became suspect - wisdom turned witchcraft as old gods fell and new faiths rose. #FolkloreSunday

Art: John William Waterhouse

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 3d

In Iceland’s Snæfellsjökull Glacier, legends say a gateway to other worlds lies buried beneath the ice. Travelers claim to feel vibrations underfoot, like something ancient stirring below. #31DaysofHalloween #31DaysofHaunting

Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 3d

In fairy tales, each short story is a ritual. The repetition of “once upon a time” and “they lived happily ever after” is a spell that teaches endings can exist. #BookWormSat

Art: Nancy Lee Moran

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 3d

In Cornwall, Jamaica Inn still creaks with the memory of smugglers and shipwrecks. Guests wake to footsteps in empty halls and the sound of tankards clinking long after last call. #31DaysofHalloween #31DaysofHaunting

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 3d

Modern flash fiction carries the same DNA as ancient myth; brevity sharpened to blade. A story in 500 words can wound, heal, or haunt longer than a novel. #BookWormSat

Art: Natalie Schorr

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