hookland.bsky.social
@hookland.bsky.social
Phoenix Guide to Strange England: #Hookland. Run by David Southwell #Hauntology Re-wilding #Folklore #FolkHorror #Psychogeography #LandscapePunk Re-enchantment Is Resistance https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1068598123
Goodnight from the Brackley Crafting Circle and largely unsuspected coven, meeting in the snug of The Old King pub to make a list of local perverts in need of a cursing. Goodnight from Matthew Wrench, his mermaid tattoo singing him salt-kissed lullabies. Goodnight from Hookland.
Rereading @alexlangstone.bsky.social’s beautiful ‘Liminal Shore’ which I was honoured to write the foreword for. Not only a fantastic resource on Essex folklore, a poetic, insight-packed examination of the dance between lore and land.
The narrow, high-banked path that carves a channel through the boneyard of St. Urian’s at Wormford is notoriously ghost-soaked. We would expect nothing less for a old wraith way, yet it has a pleasing diversity of phantoms: giant spiders made of smoke; flaming wheels; floating pillars of blue light.
Locals used to call the cliffs at Dedwick 'the place of a thousand skulls'. Given that the clifftop cemetery was collapsing onto the beach below, it wasn't an unreasonable name. Even now, storms sometimes pull bones onto shore, feeding it new ghosts. – #MattAdams, 1981
“All writers are making maps of the cicatrix of their lives, disturbing the ghost soil, unearthing artefacts of unreliable memory. Being an English child of the 1970s, there is possibly a little more need than usual for exorcism. For there’s no getting away from the fact it was a bloody weird time.”
Goodnight from Beryl Brewer, wishing the cleaning supplies for the County Museum weren’t stored in the basement next to a room labelled Bone Depository. Goodnight from the cloud pond on Weland Hill, where a Harrowhound pack has come to slake their thirst. Goodnight from Hookland.
We drive darkening, ghosted roads. In these last minutes of solar alchemy, every turn is towards folklore. We become one with the land's long memory. One with a hodology where every traveller is another time's temporal shade. We become high strangeness. – #DAKilroy, 1982
I try to refuse sentiment, but few words stir my heart more than Free Public Library. However, I will admit that the phrase Free Local Museum comes exceedingly close. How can one not adore an eccentric collection of obscure objects acting as ghost-magnets? – #CJosiffe
Those feral churches – beyond diocesan office, enjoying green communion – call the imagination. Even before visiting, we've a knowing their ivy-blinded windows, their ghost-congregation cooled interiors, refuse this barbarous heat. Offer spirit-shaded sanctuary. – #DAKilroy
Goodnight from the passengers of the glass-bottled SS Hookland Star, wondering why they never reach their intended port. Goodnight from Jemima Wooton, stretched full of wicked dreams of how to punish her brother for immolating her favourite Sindy doll. Goodnight from Hookland.
Wood edge and hedge offer me constant treasure. My garnering bag sings for me to walk them, my kerping knife begs to be unclasped in their presence. While witchcraft is often witch graft, when I am beside them, witchcraft is also an act of joy. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
We walk the early lanes out of the village, as open to wonder as any child on its school holidays. We check beneath our feet for any bird-footed footprints made by half-transformed witches, scour hedges for snagged Woodwose or Harrowhound fur. Lore as a lens for marvels. – #DAKilroy, 1982
Goodnight from DS Hallam of the mispers unit, bracing himself for a busy tomorrow after the closing of this weekend’s Puck Fairs. Goodnight from Patty Gartbridge, reading omens in the map of bruises her husband acquired at the stick-fighting championships. Goodnight from Hookland.
It means so very much when someone you’ve admired for decades enjoys your work.
Diane Coyle@dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 4d agoI’ve enjoyed reading this about @hookland.bsky.social - one for fans of Essex weirdness, JG Ballard, Dr Who …
When they hear the bells of its submerged churches ring, the crab fishers of Dedwick won't take their boats out. You can call it superstition or folklore. I call it wisdom born from grieving widows. You don't ignore warnings when it comes to the King-Under-the-Sea. – Evie Dellow #VOH
It's rumoured there was once a government team monitoring all of England's stone and wooden sleepers for signs of omenic twitching. While certain records do suggest that the Department Recording And Measuring Anomalous Statues (DRAMAS) once existed, there's no trace of it now.
Some stone pilgrims come to connect to the energy they feel. Some to make communion with the dead, to sit with the stones' stories. In this brutal heat, I slump in the shadow of the Long Neolithic, grateful for bothi it shade and ongoing mysteries. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday
Goodnight from Martha Ings and Will Thorne, making a barn their 24-hour marriage home and not caring if its ghosts are voyeurs. Goodnight from Daniel Hartley, unsure if he is lost in five-pint dreams or has crossed the borders into the two moon land of Faery. Goodnight from Hookland.
A defining problem of living in Hookland is so many of its buildings refuse to stand still. It has wandering pubs, chapels stone circles and even castles. I find those the most perplexing not only because they seem overly sprightly for ruins, but for the question: where do they go? – #CLNolan
Above us were omen skies with clouds for the telling of tomorrow. Above were the wires carrying The Hum, telling us the electric ley of the land, giving us our directions of march. The media called us a lost generation, but we had found our way. – Tattoo Labyrinth Dave, ex-Pylon Person
No work will be done in Hookland today. It's the Puck Fairs. Epic bouts of storytelling, drinking, love-making and other funs of the fair. #Lughnasadh
Goodnight from Alan Lester fixing the change machine at the Starman Amusement arcade, spooked by its Vulcan Bomber cabinet activating itself despite being unplugged. Goodnight from Ann Day, wondering if her resident Hob will accept teacakes in lieu of its usual biscuits. Goodnight from Hookland.
The land at drought cries to the sky for rain. Cries through cracks in fields, through its dusty lane coughing. Everywhere distressed spirits at lamentation. Everywhere a tormenting thirst. In this time of withering, we forgive the coming of storms. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982
Ridiculously kind-worded piffle from this award-winning writer.
Owen Booth@owenbooth.bsky.social · 6d agoYou will, of course, already have your copy of this lovely thing from @hookland.bsky.social - but if by any chance *you haven’t* then you need to sort that out right away. I would happily give up whatever remnants of a literary career i have left to read another nine volumes of this instead…
The decommissioning of Jodrell Bank feels like the decommissioning of Alan Garner. No to disenchantment. Yes to re-enchantment and the filaments thereof. #Hookland
Goodnight from Marty Holden, going tharn in Oldfield Lane as a shadow is cast by something impossibly huge flying across the full moon. Goodnight from Ursula Till, setting out a midnight picnic for the invisible things that laugh in her garden. Goodnight from Hookland.
