Coffin Boffin
@coffinboffin.bsky.social
Convener Open Graves Open Minds Project. Writer & academic. Purveyor of enchantment via the gothic, the fantastic, the folkloric & the magical!
THE BEAUTIFUL VAMPIRE The longing & allure of the female #vampire is celebrated in this stunning 1927 story by French writer Théophile Gautier (c.1843). 'I am beauty. I am youth. I am life. Come to me. Our lives will flow on like a dream in one eternal kiss’ #FairyTaleTuesday
MERMAID HELMET dated 1643 & made by Filippo Negroli (The Met Museum NY). In the mythical scenes, the #mermaid siren forming the helmet's comb holds a grimacing head of Medusa by the hair #MythologyMonday
WINGED WOLF-HEAD HELMET of Emperor Charles V, c.1540, Patrimonio Nacional, Real Armería, Madrid. The #wolf, often reviled as a fearsome predator, is a noble and brave beast in heraldry #MythologyMonday
DRACULA COUNTRY Stoker made extensive studies of the uncanny clifftop top headstones in Whitby Parrish Churchyard. They form the backdrop to the vampire's arrival in a storm. Just look at those tombs! Loved this visit! #YorkshireDay
So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.
WHITBY'S WINDSWEPT HEADLAND I saw today the abbey and parish church that are central to the gothic tension and sense of dread surrounding #Dracula's arrival. Gothtastic conference trip with @igagoths.bsky.social
A massive congratulations to @coffinboffin.bsky.social and @billbloodyhughes.bsky.social on being awarded the @igagoths.bsky.social Justin D. Edward’s prize for an edited collection!! So proud of you both for Polidori’s justice! 🧛
A quick reminder, especially to those who kindly tend to post early, that #PhantomsFriday is no more but has been replaced by #SpookySunday. @beesincampanula.bsky.social @warksfolklore.bsky.social @finnfolklorist.bsky.social @ruinsofdespair.bsky.social @selmerguy.bsky.social Hope to see you then!
Absolutely thrilled that our @ogomproject.bsky.social book won the Justin D. Edwards award @igagoths.bsky.social conference. Big thankyou to the IGA and all those on the awarding panel. This really does mean a lot!!!
Picked up my gothic swag from Hull Gothic conference. Great to catch up with those who have supported me and @ogomproject.bsky.social over the years.
CULT OF PAN God of Fields & woods in Arcadia; has a Roman counterpart in Faunus. The devil's horns & cloven feet may have derived from Pagan images of Pan, who was demonised by the church #WrydWednesday Images: Paton 1894; Arnold Bocklin's Faun, 1863
PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN Is the chapter in the Wind in the Willows when mole & rat are awed by the presence of the horned god PAN; a drawing together of classical myth, landscape & English whimsy illustrated by Rackham,1940 #WyrdWednesday
In Hull for the @igagoths.bsky.social conference. I will be speaking on the folklore of losing one's shadow. Peter Schlemihl sells his shadow; Dracula the undead casts no shadow; Peter Pan loses his shadow, & most disturbing of all, Hans Andersen’s scholar is put to death by his own shadow!
VAMPIRE COLLAGE by Max Ernst (1891 – 1976), From 'Une semaine de bonté' a novel and artist's book published in 1934. The #Vampire images are created by cutting up and re-organizing found illustrations from Victorian encyclopedias and novels
GOTHIC PETER PAN Inspired by folklore & fairy tale, he's named after the unpredictable goat god Pan & inspired by Peter the Wild Boy, who was trapped into a childlike state forever. Like Barrie's beloved dead brother David, who died aged 13, he can never grow up.
Wyrdlings! With the Buck Moon rising late in July this year, we give you: “Taken by the… Horned Beings, Horned Hats, Horned Moons” as this week’s #WyrdWednesday topic! Let’s meet by moonlight and share tales of all horned things.
NO COWARD SOULS The unsettled gothic beauty of the Brontë family home & churchyard in Haworth, Yorkshire. Posted in celebration of Charlotte, Emily and Anne this #FolkloreSunday No coward souls reside here. Images taken last autumn and fondly remembered.
PHANTOMS Are you the ghosts of fallen leaves Or flakes of snow, For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go? Image: Young Girl Chased by Phantoms, Arthur Rackham, 1905
THE TENANTS of the TOMBS Just another gothic Saturday. Yorkshire UK.
GOTHIC PETER PAN Inspired by folklore & fairy tale, he's named after the unpredictable goat god Pan & inspired by Peter the Wild Boy, who was trapped into a childlike state forever. Like Barrie's beloved dead brother David, who died aged 13, he can never grow up.
SUMMER NIGHTS IN FAERY Theodore von Holst captures the antics of a #fairy couple in love in 1833; John Anster Fitzgerald imagines his fairy lovers secreted in a bird's nest being watched by a white mouse in 1860
CAT-RIDING WITCHES The Black #Witch of Fraddam is supposed to have ridden a huge black #cat through the air while looking for magical herbs (Robert Hunt, 1830) Cat-riding witches are found earlier too shown in the image of a witch riding a cat backwards from 1489 #WitchyWednesday #caturday
QUESTING BEAST This creature has a serpent's head, a leopard's body, a lion's haunches & deer's feet. It's difficult to capture but not to hear. It's belly makes the sound of baying or questing hounds. Images: Rackham, Romance of King Arthur, 1917; H. J. Ford, 1908 #FairyTaleTuesday
SHADOWS Lotte Reiniger created this fairy tale film by hand using paper cut outs and stop motion photography
Interesting talk about John Polidori, in his burial place of St Pancras Old Churchyard, by @coffinboffin.bsky.social. His grave's lost and he doesn't get his due as the writer of the 1st modern vampire tale, but she's really redressing that. Great too to pay respects again to Soane & Wollstonecroft.
Looking forward to seeing folk who have booked on our Vampiric Origins and Gothic Afterlives Tour in London later. Doing some prep amongst the tombs
TOMBS The poet Shelley was drawn to young Mary Godwin due to her melancholy habit of reading on her mother's grave; the site of their courtship & where they consummated their passion🎨This tomb features in our GOTHIC AFTERLIVES TOUR on 18 July join us in London at the booking link below
MERROW or Murdhuacha are the Irish equivalent of #mermaids with fishes' tails and webbed fingers. You can read about them in Croker's Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland, 1882. Said to appear before storms, they can couple with humans but their offspring are covered in scales! #FairyTaleTuesday
