Dear bookworms, we have added themes for #BookWormSat until April! If you would like to know what's to come, you can have a look over here: signemaene.com/bookwormsatu... Happy reading and see you Saturday! 📚🐛

#WyrdWednesday falls on St Distaff’s Day this year, when in olden days spinning commenced again after the holidays. A great time for storytelling, so we give you: "Wyrd Women's Tales!" As this week’s topic – come and tell your story!

"Does she resume her ages old walk again, liked eternally damned Ahasverus, in search of her infant son, slain by Herod the Great in the Massacre of the Innocents, all those years ago?" www.tumblr.com/whatthecrowt...

Italy has a Christmas Witch. La Befana. She gives gifts to the little ones on the Eve of Epiphany. But what does she do after a job well done, today, on Epiphany? La Befana starts walking again and… - read more in our last #yulefolklore tale below! 🎨 Botticelli (detail)

'Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow.' -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 🎨Akira Kusaka

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep – Lord Byron, 'Don Juan', Canto XIV, 1823 #poetry #booksky #gothic #art #painting by J. H. Füssli

‘Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding.’ ~ Barrett Browning. 🖼️ John Northcote Nash

… and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him.” (Kipling) 🎨 Pascal Campion #wintersky

A bit more on La Befana's origin story can be found on my blog below: wunderkammertales.blogspot.com/2017/01/vien...

'There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.' -Louis MacNeice 🎨Stasys Eidrigevičius

A poem from my collection, In the Shadow of Gods. It’s called January. 🖼️ Winter Tale, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, 1904.

"Out in the woods she saw others, walking stooped with a lantern held before them, one first, then two, three, on the old path that led through the forest to the old minsters on the great river and further away, to Jacob’s grave in the far West." www.tumblr.com/whatthecrowt...

"For beings more extraordinary than owls inhabited the old castle." (E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen "River Legends". Ill- Gustave Doré, London, 1875) #OwlishMonday

Silent processions walk tonight on the Eve of Epiphany, so they say, made of the living and the dead. Join those at your own peril, but we may at least watch them in a forest somewhere in Germany, in our 36th #yulefolklore story below! 🎨 Robert Paterson

'Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last.' -Robert Frost 🎨Louis Apol

A poem from my collection, In the Shadow of Gods, Hoar Frost. 🖼️ Hoar-frost And Stars, Gustaf Fjaestad.

Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person. Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath Ph. Edward Steichen, 1904

Stanisław Wyspiański, “Chochoły”, (Straw Wraps), 1898, pastel on paper, National Museum, Warsaw "It was very early spring […] and roses were still wrapped in the winter straw cover. ‘Look over there, they are dancing, they are clearly dancing‘, Wyspiański said." culture.pl/en/work/choc...

Goodnight. ‘They made her a grave, too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe.’ ~ Thomas Moore’s The Lake of the Dismal Swamp.

"That year, young Henry Piper claimed to have seen her, the Witch of the Wold, as he staggered home past the dark fields. "She led the horse," he whispered, his voice tight with the memory. "Its bones gleamed like the moon, but its eyes burned red as coals." www.tumblr.com/whatthecrowt...

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'Woods in Winter' 1839 #art by Louis Apol #poetry #booksky

“…To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run: How many make the hour full complete, How many hours brings about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live.” (King Henry VI, 3) 🎨 Ayami Kojima #Shakespearesunday

“In the woods where snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.” (Catherine Mansfield) 🎨 Eyvind Earle #wintersky

Bone horses still walk the village streets. ‘tis the season! But they are mummers, right? Well, let’s go to Kent and find that out, in our 35th #yulefolklore story below. 🎨 Mark C. Greene

#bookwormsat “It's a strange thing that most of your imaginative literature about life on the other planets always assumes that each planet would have only one intelligent race, one type of society, one language, one government… 1/2

🎶💚🎶"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." 📖J R R Tolkien #HappyBirthdayTolkien #BookWormSat

For this #bookwormsat, choose your path carefully Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow by Miriam Allen deFord. 1971, cover art by Richard V. Corben. #booksky

The Raven Rings Trilogy go against conventional patterns in the genre, and while it contains the classic fantasy elements as evil and magic, it also reinvents the whole genre. With her feet firmly rooted in the Norse mythology. #BookWormSat 🧵

"In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room... [The] pictures on the wall... seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece... had got the face of a little old man." —Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll #BookWormSat

"Lord Asriel is just a man, with human power, no more than that. But his ambition is limitless. He dares to do what men and women don’t even dare to think. And look what he’s done already: he’s torn open the sky, he’s opened the way to another world." —The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman #BookWormSat

"Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?" "A man may do both," said Aragorn. "For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time." - J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Two Towers' Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien! #BookWormSat

#BookWormSat "[She was] in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal ..." Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere

#BookWormSat 📚 #TolkienDay 🎉 Were he still among us, J.R.R. Tolkien would turn 134 today—born this day in 1892! His Middle-earth legends continue to inspire generations. #TolkienBirthdayToast #JRRTolkien "Not all those who wander are lost.” — The Fellowship of the Ring 🎨 John Howe

The Fionavar Tapestry is a book series of fantasy novels by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, published between 1984 and 1986. The novels are set in both contemporary Toronto and the secondary world of Fionavar. #BookWormSat 🧵

And every one said, ‘If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,— To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’ Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. The Jumblies by Edward Lear #BookWormSat

“Then Turambar summoned all his will and courage and climbed the cliff alone, and came beneath the dragon. Then he drew Gurthang, and with all the might of his arm, and of his hate, he thrust it into the soft belly of the Worm, even up to the hilt.” (J.R.R. #Tolkien) 🎨 Rackham #bookwormsat

#BookWormSat Sindarin, the everyday language of Tolkien's Elves, was inspired both phonologically and grammatically by Welsh. One interesting example is the use of consonant mutations in both languages, where the first consonant of each word can change depending on its grammatical context.

#BookWormSat Tolkien owned multiple copies of the Mabinogion in his own personal library, and was undoubtedly influenced by ancient Welsh myth. An obvious reference is the Red Book of Westmarch, a clear nod to the Red Book of Hergest, one of the original source texts for the Mabinogion.

In a land where sorcerers come thick.. you may see a raincloud blundering slowly from side to side and place to place as one spell shunts it on to the next, till at last it is buffeted out over the sea where it can rain in peace. Ursula K. Le Guin #BookWormSat

The landscape was misty and vague … I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The Time Machine / H G Wells Tom Shropshire #bookwormsat

“She longs for tonight, she longs to skip the day that’s just begun and plunge headlong into the night as if into a pool; a pool with the moon reflected in it. She longs to swim in liquid moonlight” Margaret Atwood from the speculative world of MaddAddam #BookWormSat 🖼️ = Victoria Hutson Huntley

Can’t resist sharing my favorite panel from Watchmen Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for DC Comics #BookWormSat 🖼️ = Dave Gibbons and John Higgins

The rugged majesty of The Mourne Mountains was the inspiration for Narnia. "I have seen landscapes (in the Mourne Mountains) which...made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge." C.S. Lewis #BookWormSat 📷Nigel Killeen

To Conan's ears came a vast torrent of sound, rising and rising in frenzy: "The king is dead! The king is dead! Flee! Flee! The king is dead!" ~ The Hour of the Dragon, also known as Conan the Conqueror (1936), Robert E. Howard. #BookWormSat [🎨Frank Frazetta.]

“…but when the autumn came he saw seven great swans flying south, and he knew them for a sign that he had tarried overlong, and he followed their flight along the shores of the sea. Thus he came at length to the deserted halls of Vinyamar beneath Mount Taras...” (J.R.R #Tolkien) #Bookwormsat

“I can’t begin to convey to you the power of Lindsay’s vision; I found it overwhelming when I first read the book, thirty years ago, & I’ve seldom seen its equal outside Blake.” —Philip Pullman David Lindsay’s A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920) is a major influence on much of modern #fantasy #BookWormSat

☀️🕊️🌙"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks." 📖 J R R Tolkien - The Hobbit. #BookWormSat

‘Meanwhile,' said Mr Tumnus, '…Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?’ ~ C.S. Lewis. #BookWormSat

"How do you know but every bird That cuts the airy way Is an immense world of delight Closed by your senses five?" - William Blake, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' (Picture is the title page from the 1790 edition) #BookWormSat #WilliamBlake

‘I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes.’ ~ Swift, Gulliver’s Travels. @racheldeering.bsky.social here for the rest of a fantastical #BookWormSat