Skionar
@skionar.bsky.social
Roger Clarke. Author of A Natural History of Ghosts, published by Penguin Books (2012). Former writer for the Independent Newspaper, Sunday TimesUK, Sight & Sound. In it for the long haul with severe chronic illness, dealing with NHS on a weekly basis
'The Mowing-Devil', printed in 1678. It recounts, as fact, an alleged incident in #Hertfordshire. A farmer saw a fiery light over his oat field one night, and then found it had been mysteriously mowed. The illustration encouraged some to believe it depicts the first Crop Circle. #WyrdWednesday
I consider my illnesses as guests, unwelcome, but you know, they come in and sit around and make themselves cups of tea out of your own blood. Yesterday after an invasive test I was diagnosed with guest number 26 which will require surgery. And this being the NHS I may have to wait a while.
Not so much petrichor as an aery festival of the enlivened dry-rotten #Shoreditch #rain
Sometimes on my way home alone from the village primary school I would glance left, and if the church door was open, I would see the medieval painting of St Christopher with the Christ Child wading the Solent Sea. Doing so meant I would not die that day, I found out later. #Hookland
hookland.bsky.social@hookland.bsky.social · 3d agoWe 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
Look it's quite simple we sacrifice a maiden at midsummer to beg for mercy from the sun's powerful rays and then we burn a lad in midwinter to beg for the life-giving warmth to return. We do these things and the balance is kept, okay?
A pipe organ dating from 1876 is being installed at St Barnabas’ Church in Jericho. Built originally for Bargeddie Church near Glasgow, it is being combined with pipework from Bow Common in London by Henry Willis & Sons Organ Builders, the firm that built the original instruments.
The entrance canopy on the medieval Jacob's Well, the church hall of Holy Trinity, Micklegate in York is a rare, highly ornate 15th-century wooden projection. It was originally from the demolished Old Wheatsheaf Inn on Davygate. It was added to the Grade I listed building in the early 20th century
‘She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening.’ ~ Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories #SpookySunday 🖼️ Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott, 1902.
Today is the 30th anniversary of my father's funeral at Mottistone church. How appropriate it was that the church was decorated for Lammas. My favourite childhood memory was of him at harvest, red 1960s combine-harvester without a cabin: so he was by evening covered in wheat-dust like a Lammas ghost
2/2 As installed at Dyrham Park: Samuel van Hoogstraten's View Down a Corridor. Can you tell where reality ends and painting begins?
#SpookySunday An inventive twist on the headless horseman, Lionel Feininger, 1898, has instead illustrated a headless cyclist using his skull as a lamp. Be seen & be safe! Or in this case, be scared!
#SundayPixFavColours Cornflowers along the verge of the road by the water where I go walking. So pretty.
I'm not sure what is worse, an Angine De Poitrine earworm or a John Shuttleworth earworm. I've had both, recently.
Monty Rhodes James, born on this day, eighteen sixty two! 👻 Here are my lino prints made over the years based on a bunch of his fine ghost stories...
A trait after all M. R. James knew only too well open.substack.com/pub/britishm...
Why Victorian Men Confessed to Raising the Devil
Victorian boys drew rings and sacrificed cats to raise the Devil, then cheerfully confessed it all, decades later. Children as the originators of folklore.
open.substack.com
The decommissioning of Jodrell Bank feels like the decommissioning of Alan Garner. No to disenchantment. Yes to re-enchantment and the filaments thereof. #Hookland
Today’s hare was cooling her ears in the breeze 🌾
No rain here, but it came within a field or two. Close enough that we could hear the rain laughing, hear the rain handing out crisp new five pound notes, hear the rain praising home decoration choices of the houses it fell upon.
Orchids revived, the corpse ambulant and a poetic ruined abbey. These are the news stories I want to read.
The wonderful @treadwells-books.bsky.social have signed copies of 'Hookland Fragments Volume One' with a free Right To Reside card back in stock if you want to buy from one of my favourite bookshops. www.treadwells-london.com/product-page...
Hookland Fragments Volume One - David Southwell | Treadwells
Discover the Fortean mysteries and folkloric history of Hookland, England's lost county. Created by David Southwell and documented extensively on social media for many years, the fictional Hookland ha...
treadwells-london.com
