Garnering ghosts for Halloween

There is such a creature as a ghost jellyfish (Cyanea nozaki), but I rather like this cute interpretation by pikaole on DeviantArt

It will soon be Halloween. At this time of year in the past I have looked for images of Jack o’ lantern and Will o’ the wisp, owls, cauldrons, skulls, black cats and bats.

This time I am running out of ideas. I could have chosen spiders, but that might put some people off their breakfast. So instead I have picked some ghosts, especially where they are connected to nature. Click on each image to find the source.

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Some batty images for Halloween

Cute bat from Andrew McIntosh (based in Australia) – I love the light through the translucent pink skin

With Halloween this week I thought I would put together one of my galleries of appropriate pictures that have caught my eye. This year the theme is bats and as usual I have chosen many of these images from the excellent DeviantArt website. Click on each picture to go to the source.

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Black cats for Halloween

Halloween cat by Alina Kurbiel

It will soon be Halloween. At this time of year in the past I have looked for images of Jack o’ lantern and Will o’ the wisp, owls, cauldrons and skulls. This time I decided to choose some images of black cats, believed by some to be witches’ “familiar spirits” or animal guides. Click on each image to find out more about the source.

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The cauldron: Symbol of life and death

Cauldron cake by The Cake Store – click on any of the images in this blog post to find the sources

As it’s Halloween, I thought I would take a look at the witch’s cauldron in history and myth. It turns out that as well as being an ancient household cooking vessel and a witch’s potion pot, the cauldron has been a mystical symbol of life and, in some stories, an instrument of death…

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Some colourful skulls for Halloween…

Rainbow skull by Chris Padgett on Flickr – click on the image to go to his page…

I like to do a post for Halloween and in previous years I have featured owls and Jack o’ lantern and Will o’ the wisp.

As a former archaeologist, I have always

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Designer birds: Owl

Blue owl by Fluro-Knife – love it, the colours are so cold and alien…

I heard a tawny owl (Strix aluco) in the garden last night, for the first time in months. It’s an eerie sound and how appropriate for this Halloween time of year.

But this post is not a nature ramble but a collection of modern images of owls – see also my posts on the art of penguins and peacocks.

In this post I will mention the goddess Athena, witches and wizards and share with you some owls depicted using various media. In most cases clicking on the image will take you to the source of the picture.

Owls are surely

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Jack o’ lantern and Will o’ the wisp

Cat and Jack o\’ Lantern by Robb Mommaerts

This is a swede lantern just like I used to make – click on the image to go to a Scottish \’tumshie lantern\’ article…

Halloween is drawing near so I thought I would look at pumpkin lanterns – and the swede lanterns I am more familiar with from my Welsh childhood. A swede? You may also know it as a Swedish turnip, yellow turnip or rutabaga.

Here in the UK there is a long tradition of making lanterns from turnips, mangelwurzels and swedes for harvest time in general, but it was the Americans who started to call them Jack o’ lanterns in 1837 and to associate them with Halloween, in 1866. Thanks Wikipedia for telling me all that.

American traditions have taken over in the UK now, not only by replacing root vegetables with jolly pumpkins, but also

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