Chris Woodyard
@chriswoodyard.bsky.social
Author A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, The Victorian Book of the Dead, 10 books on ghostlore. Death, mourning, dress history, Forteana. No politics. Podcast: Boggart and Banshee Blog: https://thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com
For #ForteanFriday, "The Man in Black of Blood & Co." A chilling story of an 1853 Man in Black seen by multiple witnesses. hauntedohiobooks.com/news/creatur... An excerpt from The Ghost Wore Black: Ghastly Tales from the Past, available worldwide. hauntedohiobooks.com/fact-sheets/...
If you want to support your favourite author, but don't have the money to buy their books, most libraries have a Recommend a Purchase" link somewhere on their website. Or a "Notify me if the library purchases this title" option in their catalogue, which tells staff that there is interest.
Goodnight from Kirsty Claythorpe, staring frustratedly at her mother’s tin of pins as she tries to move them with her mind. Goodnight from the vanished village of Little Braxted, returned as half-there phantom to haunt the harvest fields of Temple Gore Farm. Goodnight from Hookland.
UK lacemakers who found #BobbinLace on the "red list" of heritage crafts are taking action to do more outreach and encourage new lacemakers. They have a new YouTube channel: Lacemakers of Tomorrow www.youtube.com/@lacemakerso...
Lacemakers of Tomorrow
A grass roots initiative started in 2026 to help keep the craft of bobbin lacemaking alive after it was classified as Endangered in 2025 on the UK's Heritage Crafts Red List. Co-created by Caroline W...
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Forthcoming walking tour of @fownc1837.bsky.social on Saturday 15 August from 11am. You can book your place via Eventbrite. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/walking-to...
Walking Tour of West Norwood Cemetery
Discover this stunning Victorian cemetery established in 1837
eventbrite.co.uk
This week's #ThirtiesThursday garment is this Grecian-inspired c. 1937 blue and red chiffon and silk dress. The dressmaker is unknown but they created a style that wouldn't look out of place on the catwalk today. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa collection. #fashionhistory
Clearly this woman could paint a stunning frock like nobody's business:
Obsessed with this black chiffon/polar bear situation:
Tor Ekeland@torekeland.bsky.social · 21h agoAsta Nørregaard (1853–1933) blew me away. A fantastic portrait painter. Her first-ever retrospective, ‘Truth and Beauty’ is now at the National Museum in Oslo.
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead The coffin torpedo, patented in 1878 by Ohio artist Philip K. Clover, to deter bodysnatchers. I discuss the torpedo in the "Resurrection Men" chapter of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death. (available worldwide.) patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a0/18/04/0c5...
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Dried and wax flower wreath framing a coffin plate for Tillie Ryerson who died Feb 10, 1878, aged 13 years. The dried flowers were preserved by "Le Moult's Natural Flower Preserving Laboratory, NY," as a label on the back notes. www.doyle.com/auction/lot/...
#Onthisday in 1878, Kate Bionda was the first person to die in Memphis, TN, from yellow fever. The resulting epidemic killed at least 20,000 people including half of the town's doctors. Memphis, John Henry Walker, 1878 collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/8... #TheVictorianBookoftheDead
Thank you! A very nice image, which is new to me, and I especially like the children's details of dark sash, kerchief, and bonnet. I wonder if there is a bit of snark in the soldier looking on--implying that she might be susceptible to future advances.
The Ghost Monk@theghostmonk.bsky.social · yesterdayThomas Rowlandson, 'Widow At A Tomb'. 1820, so a bit early for the period focused on by @chriswoodyard.bsky.social but I thought I'd bring it to his attention anyway since it's such an affecting image.
Writing about inquests as a source. ONE set of inquests have been digitised. One. They comprise about a third of all inquests held in West Yorkshire 1852-1899 There are NINETEEN THOUSAND of them.
My last speaking engagement this year will be at the wonderful @treadwells-books.bsky.social where I will be talking about re-enchantment as resistance; communities of story and the importance of links between folklore and place. www.tickettailor.com/events/tread.... I hope to see some of you there.
Buy tickets – Hookland with David Southwell – In-Person Lecture – Treadwells Books
Hookland with David Southwell – In-Person Lecture – Treadwells Books, Thu 24 Sep 2026 - The creator of England's imagined lost county on re-enchantment as resistance. Through near-daily postings in th...
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Goodnight from Terry Day, stuck out at The Devil’s Knuckles Lighthouse and noting that he’d make much quicker work of repairing it if the ghosts didn’t keep pinching his tools. Goodnight from Poppy Callow, dreaming of swan-cloaked witches at flight. Goodnight from Hookland
According to locals, the steps at Maryworth are ghosted by the drunken dead who fell down them after a session at the pub and my those who succumbed to heart attacks trying to climb then. Once you know this, your can't help but feel yourself in the company of phantoms. – #MattAdams
What to wear for #WorldElephantDay Elephant crinoline skirt, Walter van Beirendonck, 2010-2011 MOMU Fashion Museum Antwerp Green bathing suit w/ elephants, Carolyn Schnurer, 1953 The Metropolitan Museum Elephant vanity case, Van Cleef & Arpels, 1925, Christies Bakelite necklace & bangle, Bonhams
In the Finnish and Karelian national epic The Kalevala, the Mistress of Pohjola, Louhi, steals the sun and moon and hides them in a stone mountain.She also steals all household fire, plunging Kalevala into bitter cold and total darkness. #WyrdWednesday 🧵
The moon doing his #solareclipse thing, looking slighty pissed to be honest on this Dutch broadside from 1654...
The sun quits us, we are forsaken by light. — Anne Carson, Totality: The Color of Eclipse 1970 • Solar Eclipse in Nebraska
A Vârcolac in Romanian folklore may refer to several different figures. In some versions, a vârcolac is a wolf demon, which, like the Norse Hati and Sköll, occasionally swallows the moon and the sun, and is thus responsible for eclipses. #WyrdWednesday Art by Johan Egerkrans
The rest of the county got Keep Britain Tidy and the Tidyman as its reduce rubbish scheme. Hookland got: 'Don't Litter or the Sprite will bite!' I suspect the latter was marginally more successful. The Litter Sprites were a lot more fearsome as mascots than the bloody rabid Wombles. – Joy Ash #VOH
You should be able to see a partial solar eclipse 🌕️ 🌖 🌗 🌘 this evening in Oxford, with the maximum eclipse a little after 7pm! Ahead of the event why not view some of @bodleian.ox.ac.uk 's historical accounts of solar eclipses in like this one from 1806, "Darkness at noon" buff.ly/2dWSPBZ
Who else spent their childhood cutting out paper dolls? This collection was made by Anne Sanders Wilson for her sister Mary in 1832 & accompanied a morality tale called The History of Miss Wildfire charting the perils of fashion. I still have some of mine, anyone else? #V&A #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡
#WyrdWednesday Nightfall (1941) by Isaac Asimov. On a planet with six suns, the first full solar eclipse in two millenia may be approaching. A news person, a psychologist, a religious leader, and a group of astronomers debate the outcome in an observatory. Art credit in alt text.
Getting married on the day of an eclipse meant your life would be full of sorrow. Dreaming of eclipses could indicate sorrow on the way, or a loss of money. (I made the image in Adobe Fresco!)
2/2 Infantas Isabella Clara Eugenia (birthday girl, later my patron) & Catalina Micaela, with their pets. Pets mattered a lot to Isabella, a fine person! Here painted in 1570 by Sofonisba Anguissola.
Born OTD in 1566, Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, here painted in a book of hours for her granny Catherine de' Medici.
#WyrdWednesday Death by Eclipse and Other Coronal Curiosities Strange deaths, insanity, and portents associated with the eclipse. The image is of an eclipse with solar streamers, (Or Eye of Sauron) from 1913. thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com/2024/04/03/d...
