What a superb owl! Perky pre-Colombian finial.

Now THAT is a superb owl! Even has a mustache. Nice! From, of course, the great Hieronymus Bosch. #SuperBowl

I still think a Muppet Pride and Prejudice would be brilliant. Human Darcy and Elizabeth everyone else is a Muppet except for maybe Mr Collins. With the same attention to costume as A Christmas Carol..

I will always share handmade artwork that I find whimsical and delightful in an attempt to fill my corner of Bluesky with human art.

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Silver funeral bowl, Jacob C. Ten Eyck, 1730-1750. Meant to hold a mixture of brandy and raisins eaten with a silver spoon by pall-bearers and guests at funerals. www.albanyinstitute.org/details/item...

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Sunderland Lustre Pearlware bowl commemorating Princess Charlotte who died in 1817.

O is for Obelisk, brilliantly illustrated by @landisblair.bsky.social in A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death (available worldwide). "We have seen a ground so full of pyramids and obelisks, that one could almost fancy it a gigantic cabinet of minerals, being all crystals set on end."

A superb owl with crowned skull. Vanitas in silver, Paul and Eugène Massat, after Jean-Baptiste Clésinger, Paris, c. 1865 www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/... #TheVictorianBookoftheDead

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com

#AI #Gmail

My latest Lichfield Lore post is about a sailor’s skull and some other spooky goings on in Shifnal. I think this might be the first time I’ve written about a phantom who haunts both its house and its local pub. Have a read here >>> lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/02/07/a...

LEGENDS AND LECTURES welcomes @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social for a full hour discussion on the history of fairies! youtu.be/3XpB5OqaEpU?...

#Caturday 🐱: #Cat Studies with Straight Lines Fig. 81 from _Design in Theory and Practice_ (NY, USA, 1910) by Ernest Allen Batchelder, p. 157: archive.org/details/desi... ℹ️ Ernest Allen Batchelder was a key figure in the American #ArtsAndCraftsMovement. #CatsInArt

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead A plaited hair mourning ring for "E.G", who died April 1856, Aged 108.

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead An antique hearse, c. 1856-1858, with a large, flattened oval window, used in Washington D.C., displayed in front of F.L. Edwards Funeral Home, Kinston, North Carolina, in 1939. collections.ncdcr.gov/mDetail.aspx...

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Four classes of French funeral biers for children: Service Ordinaire, Neuvième Classe, Huitième and Septième Classes, Sixième Classe. 1856

A mid-Victorian illustration of the sudden appearance of the woman in 'The Black Veil', in the creepy mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published in 1836. #BookWormSat #Dickens #Victorian #gothic

#Caturday Kitty Noir with poison claws - illustration for Peter Steven's 'The Black Mask' 1949.

For a #WinterOympics #Caturday, very intent cats sledding. Going for gold. #MilanoCortina #Olympics

Ghosts. I finished writing this book twenty years ago. Still very pleased with it. You can buy the paperback new or e-book for around £12-15. link.springer.com/book/10.1057...

Skeleton tea ceremony (Kawanabe Kyosai 1831-1889) #PhantomsFriday

Occasionally I have come these curious styles of commemoration where the deceased appears to be seen in two parts - they appear in Lichfield Cathedral too. This one at Lenham is of an unnamed priest who is thought to have died in 1327 and is inserted into the wall.

As it is #PhantomsFriday I give you the ‘Phantoms at the Priory’ who are currently haunting Norton Priory Museum in Runcorn. What tales they could tell! Well worth a visit if you are in the area! @theghostmonk.bsky.social

The Apparition by Charles W. Stewart 1973 #PhantomsFriday

So glad we got to commission this new book for the Palgrave series. Explores how #colonial exploitation of natural resources came to #fashion female bodies. Thanks to editors Audrey Murfin, Victoria Pettersen Lantz & Sibyl Buchell for a fascinating book on #materials #ecologies #specimens

Cover reveal for the paperback (and hopefully more affordable) edition of ‘Paganism Persisting’ (co-authored with @robincdouglas.bsky.social) which releases on 21 April with @uexeterpress.bsky.social. I'm especially pleased with the Lithuanian cover image 😉 www.exeterpress.co.uk/products/pag... 📚

Sir William Crookes, the discoverer of Thallium, standing next to the spirit known as Katie King, as manifested by the medium Florence Cook. Crookes was able to photograph, speak with, and even weigh King several times. However, some believe King to be no more than Cook dressed up. #PhantomsFriday

'See’st thou yon gray gleaming hall, Where the deep elm-shadows fall? Voices that have left the earth Long ago, Still are murmuring round its hearth, Soft and low.' ~Felicia Dorothea Hemans 🎨John Anster Fitzgerald #PhantomsFriday

For #ForteanFriday stories of ghosts who appear in grave-clothes, usually archaic in style. hauntedohiobooks.com/news/ghosts-... #TheVictorianBookoftheDead #PhantomsFriday

#PhantomsFriday A 1914 illustration of the classic tale of a person dared to drive a stake into a grave (preferably at midnight), who then tries to leave and thinks they've been caught by a ghostly hand. For an additional frisson, the person is found dead or raving on the grave in the morning.

Although the 1540s was a time of religious upheaval in England, faith was still important to the crew of the Mary Rose, as many of them carried paternosters. Eight paternosters were found onboard, from simple boxwood rosary beads to more expensive silver and coral beads with intricate designs.

In his article in Wide World Magazine in 1898, Graves said he three times saw ghosts that led him to the skeletons of people who had been murdered in the the #Australian Outback (Victoria and NSW). The header and illustration are by Warwick Goble, no less. #ghosts #gothic #Victorian

ok ghost but have you ever had to deep-clean the kitchen

Well, you’d certainly hope they wouldn’t make you pay for a weekend of dead children, moor-wandering, exhumation, dog attacks, alcoholism, death in childbirth, misery, unhappy foundlings, a bit more death, domestic violence, ghosts...

2nd Hound Dog of the month is from WWII when a large dog ran across the bare earth of a garden in Snitterfield but left no footprints. Is there a connection to a separate occasion when the home owners saw an oval-shaped "ectoplasm" float in the parlour of what was a former inn? #PhantomsFriday

For #PhantomsFriday, the shore at Durdle Door, Lulworth, where ghostly figures are said to dance on the beach and in the surf beneath the arch before they disappear into the water. Memories of staff who fled a fire at nearby Lulworth Castle in 1929 may be a recent source of the legend…

“There isn't a living man who dares stop me!” Our hero ends up taking on two ghostly knights on the cover of 'Unknown Worlds' #37, published by the American Comics Group. #PhantomsFriday #60s [🎨Kurt Schaffenberger]

"You can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds & do groans" #PhantomsFriday

"You will think I am beside myself; but as the light went out and I sank almost paralysed into an armchair, I saw two barred eyes looking at me!" (E. and H. Heron “The Story of Yand Manor House”) 🎨 Benjamin Edwin Minns #phantomsfriday #goldenageofillustration #bookillustration #booksky

Hello Thursday. 🖼️ Diane Kremmer

‘Spring Ritual’ Embroidery by Turkish textile artist Irem Yazici #womensart

Our language becomes fluid, blurred. Gateway. Threshold. Portal. All these things imprecise and yet signalling what we feel as a truth: beyond this opening is the strange. Whether we go through becomes a litmus test. Do we want that possibility of encountering the uncanny? – Dr. M. Benn

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead A trade card for Margaret Smith, Chaser. Makes & Sells all sorts of Plates for Coffins. Bodleian Library, John Johnson Collection.

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Coffin plates were often given to the family as a memento. They also were sometimes photographed with funeral flowers. The floral basket contains the coffin plate of Amelia Brown, age 24 years, died 1892, buried at Gloversville, New York. www.findagrave.com/memorial/240...

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead "Our Darling" coffin plates for a child's coffin. The first is pressed metal; the second is cast metal, silver-plated. c. 1870-1880. These may be dead-stock; may have been removed from the coffin and given to the family; or sold as a set: 1 for the family; 1 for the coffin

Huipil, traditional garment created by Ingenous Maya women from the small towns of the Guatemalan highlands, who formed their own union to stop large fashion corporations stealing their designs. #WomensArt

Good morning from the Friends of Lister Lane Cemetery.

Christi Belcourt, contemporary Métis visual artist known for her paintings which depict floral patterns inspired by Métis and First Nations historical beadwork art #WomensArt

Over on ‘All Old Strange Things’, in a new free post I tackle the relationship between folklore and faith: open.substack.com/pub/drfranci...

@tealcartoons.bsky.social and I are going on BBC Radio Northampton to discuss our kids' book. He told me I didn't need to worry about my appearance since it's radio, so naturally I spent all morning getting ready.