Frogs, Folklore, & Fresh Heads

Whimsy on a Wednesday bringing you magic amphibians & Japanese punishment.

I was walking through the woods the other day, I know, there’s a continual theme here. Like deja vu. Thing is, I am in the woods daily like a wood elf. I have to walk the wolfits and I get my muse from nature’s abundance. Perhaps I am one of nature’s mischievous spirits and this blog should have been called ‘Folklore in the Forest’, but it’s not. It’s whimsical . Anyway, I am getting distracted. I think I may have been majicked by a Leshy.

As I was walking along looking at textures and greens, my most insane wolfit kept running back and looking behind me. It’s like the start of a horror film. Do you look behind you to see a psycho with one eye and an axe or do you continue and tell the dog to walk on and stop being stupid?

But he kept doing it.

Sometimes that can mean a horse has trotted up behind me and needs to pass. I turned around and nothing was there. Or was it…

Then he started to do that skitty thing that animals do. Running forward and back, a low, menacing growl forming. Ears back, hackles up. This is my defender, the one that is supposed to protect me from possible nasties.

And then I saw it. A thing hanging from a branch in a plastic bag.

“Thank you for saving me from this vicious tree dweller,” I praised as I walked up to snatch it out of the tree. Of course, as soon as I had grasped it with confidence, he wanted it. Now we had a tussle on who was going to rip this thing apart.

I opened the bag and pulled out a note from ‘Boots the Boggart’. First I read the spell:

Success is liking yourself,

Liking what you do,

And liking how you do it.

All of a sudden and straight away I felt highly successful and the spell had worked.

I also read that I must post about it to a magic group for the spell to continue and keep my random act of knitted kindness as a lucky charm. High up, away from a K9 wanting to tear its head off. It simply must be related to a squirrel and needs to die.

Meet Bliddy:

This is my third spooky find in the wild forest. I’ve had a real canary, a painted stone, and a knitted frog. I don’t think it will be long before I find a pot of gold and it all goes to my precious head.

Talking of Heads…

I saw an advert for a Japanese head spa at my local beauty salon. A special offer on this luxury, therapeutic treatment made me decide that, yes, I deserved this! I rarely treat myself to such things and always have a fascination for anything Japanese.

I arrived at the salon and they lay me on a massage bed that had a sink at one end where you lay your head on a plastic box with holes in.

“This might feel a bit weird”, she said as she blindfolded me with a self heating eye-mask.

A machine manoeuvred over my head with lots of little jets of water spurting out. It felt like a million insects running over my scalp. At one point I thought it might spill onto my face and I worried that this might be a form of waterboarding. After several potions and scrubs and more waterboarding, she put a weight on top of my eye mask and started another machine. The device spluttered and choked and made a high-pitched whining noise. This is very unnerving when you can’t see and the heat and weight on your eyes have made them feel fuzzy. Should I encounter danger and need to escape, I am already blind. What a clever Japanese tactic.

“I’m now going to close the steam lid over you. This may feel a bit odd.”

I’ve got to be honest, she wasn’t selling it to me.

Although I couldn’t see, I could hear the sound of my own breathing as the chamber my head was in filled with steam. The steam got hotter and started to become quite uncomfortable on the bare skin at the back of my neck. I wondered what was happening. How hot would it get? Is my head now like a new potato in a steamer? Will you be able to pinch my scalp clean off when I come out?

It got so warm at the back of my neck that I had to move down a bit. I think she thought I was trying to escape so she pinned my arms down. I was about to scream when I realised she had taken my arms out to massage them whilst my head boiled alive.

At the very end when I was released, I recognised it was quite a nice experience and my hair and scalp felt amazing. I also believe that a bit of Japanese head boiling clears all the detritus from the mind.

Now I’m ready to move on with my great success, botanical artistry, and fabulous hair.

If you need me, contact the frog.