Bone and Sickle

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 histo

Listen to latest episode

Recent Episodes

Ghost Trains & Railway Terrors

Posted October 14, 2021 • 00:52:34

Ghost trains and real-life railway terrors intermingle in this episode’s exploration of old train-wreck ballads, nervous and funereally obsessed...

Marvelous and Rare III

Posted September 28, 2021 • 00:21:19

Duties in the library unfortunately prevent us from presenting a regular episode at this time, but to fill the gap, we’re offering listeners a taste...

Bird-Women of Greece and Russia

Posted September 18, 2021 • 00:47:18

Bird-women hybrids of Greek legend and Russian folklore are uniquely ambivalent, sometimes bringing death and destruction and at others, prophetic...

The Dybbuk

Posted August 22, 2021 • 00:49:52

A dybbuk is a “clinging spirit” of Jewish folklore, a ghost that can possess a human host.

Dybbuk, by Ephraim Moshe Lilien (1923)

Stories...

Ashtar, Orthon, and the Rosicrucians

Posted July 30, 2021 • 00:47:06

Messages delivered by the extraterrestrials Ashtar and Orthon to Contactees of the 1950s represented a sort of repackaging of 19th-century Theosophy,...