Happy New Year/ Blwyddyn Newydd Dda - may the Mari Lwyd bring you good luck in 2026! ❄🐴

Happy birthday to Ivor The Engine, the little Welsh railway engine from the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company, who first appeared on our screens today in 1959. Toot-toot! #onthisday #otd #wales

Nadolig Llawen / Merry Christmas, all! ❄️🎄

Celebrating Christmas Eve 1989 style with Gothic TV classic The Woman in Black, ahead of this year’s A Ghost Story for Christmas - The Room in the Tower. Anyone hear a horse and carriage?

Happy Easter! 🐰

"Have a swingin' pagan solstice" The Simpsons #WinterSolstice

This is Bolly the Christmas cat, who’s come to spend the festive season with me. She wishes you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year! 🎄🐾 #caturday

The Mari Lwyd in Swansea! 🐴👻 Huge thanks to everyone who came to my "Christmas Ghosts & Folklore of Wales" talk at Y Storfa – and to anyone who joined any of my talks this year. We ended 2025 with a suitably chaotic wassailing finale thanks to the amazing Mari Lwyd Annwn crew!

Tonight! Get festive with the Mari Lwyd in Swansea...

"The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went" ❄👻 Arthur Rackham illustration for 1915 edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Happy International Tea Day! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 #InternationalTeaDay

😱 Edvard Munch, Norway’s master of existential dread, was born today in Ådalsbruk, 1863. 🎨 "The Scream" (1893), The National Gallery, Oslo

Christmas Ghosts & Folklore of Wales – FREE talk in Swansea! 👻 Join me for a festive hour of eerie tales, seasonal traditions and a *possible* visit from a certain Mari Lwyd… 📍 Swansea Central Library, Y Storfa 📅 Wed 17 Dec, 5.30–6.30 No booking needed.

A master of disguise, the Mari Lwyd subtly blends in with her surroundings to stalk the festive streets of Wales. Hiding in plain sight, she waits until the ideal moment presents itself to pounce and steal your cake and ale...

This is the first known photograph of a snowman. It was taken in Swansea, Wales, in 1853 by Victorian photography pioneer Mary Dillwyn. 📷 National Library of Wales - Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru #christmas #snow

A Tudor Christmas & Green Man in Shakespeare country 🎄🕯️ Made the pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon today - not for the Bard but the RSC's BFG. Shakespeare’s Birthplace was decked out for a Tudor Christmas, and the wonderful Alvechurch Morris dancers danced through the rain. ✨

Happy Krampusnacht! Have you been naughty or nice? December 5 is when St Nicholas travels Europe to reward the good, while Krampus - "the Christmas devil" - punishes the bad. If you have been wicked, you can try to appease him with schnapps... #Krampusnacht #Krampus

"Winter in South Wales" (1886) by J. F. Proctor 🎨 Oil on canvas, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery

Happy 1st of December! ❄ The Mari Lwyd is coming... 🐴

Folk Horror & Folk Crafts at Hay Festival Winter Weekend 🌙❄️ A wonderful night in a very festive Hay-on-Wye with live music from Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk and talks inc. "Bog People: A Collection of Working Class Folk Horror" by Hollie Starling and "Craftland" by James Fox.

Happy Thanksgiving, America!

How amazing is this? Wonderfully spooky print crafted by Steve Balsamo - pride of place in my office! 👻💀🌙

It’s that time again - the M. R. James ghost story Christmas countdown! 👻 There are 31 days until Santa arrives, so if you read one* story a day, you’ll finish the Collected Ghost Stories in time to get merry. Like a haunted advent calendar! ❄️ #Christmas #GhostStories

Pumpkins still going strong in Port Talbot... 🎃🎃

The greatest team-up in art exhibition history: "Art gallery to host Monet and Moomins in 2026: Hull will showcase an iconic children's tale and work by a master of impressionism as part of a programme of events in 2026." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A Wicker Man sculpture - which has been part of the landscape near Kirkcudbright for years - has been burned down by the artist who created it: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'll be talking Welsh folklore and the Mari Lwyd with Jason Mohammad on BBC Radio Wales at 1:30pmish today. She gets earlier ever year!

Art detectives! 🎨🕵️‍♀️ This image has been circulating on social media with the incorrect caption: "engraving by Thomas Burke titled The Nightmare, published in 1783, after a famous 1781 oil painting of the same name by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli." Any idea where it actually came from?

The Phantom of the Opera turns 100 today! 💀🎭 On this day in 1925, one of cinema’s most iconic horror figures first terrified US audiences (after a NY premiere in Sep). Lon Chaney’s Phantom, with his self-devised make-up, remains a silent horror icon, still spooky 100 years on.

When in Cornwall... 〓〓

Hello Cornwall/ Dydh da Kernow 〓〓

Today is St. Martin's Day, Old Halloween! 🍂 Marking the end of harvest/start of winter, it is a liminal time for bonfires, lantern processions, feasts and wine. Welsh folklore tells us to watch out for eerie omens: owls hoot, meteors fall & the Cŵn Annwn (spectral hounds) roam.

Richard Burton Centenary children’s drawing competition in his hometown of Port Talbot is on display at Aberafan Shopping Centre. Congratulations to the winners! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 #richardburton100

Richard Burton (1925-1984) was born 100 years ago today. For his centenary, I recently visited his final resting place in Céligny, Switzerland - the idyllic Genevan village he called home for nearly 30 years. “Seren Cymru a’r byd” – star of Wales and the world. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

On a recent trip to Geneva , I visited the Holy Grail of Gothic literature: Villa Diodati. It was here that Lord Byron, Mary & Percy Shelley and John Polidori wrote ghost stories in the stormy “year without a summer” of 1816 - giving us Frankenstein and The Vampyre. 🦇🕯️

This is the Mametz Wood memorial in the Somme, France, sculpted by Welsh artist David Petersen. A red dragon faces the woods, clawing at barbed wire, in honour of the 38th (Welsh) Division who fought here in July 1916. #RemembranceSunday #Wales

Ahead of his centenary on 10 November, I travelled to Switzerland to follow in the footsteps of Wales’s greatest actor, Richard Burton - who made the Genevan village of Céligny his home for nearly three decades. Read about the full journey in today’s Western Mail Weekend magazine.

Looks like I've been adopted by a lucky black cat 🐈‍⬛️

Today is the feast day of St Illtyd - Welsh saint and cousin of King Arthur. His school at Llanilltud Fawr is one of Britain’s first centres of learning, and legend says he turned two robbers to stone - one still stands on the misty slopes of Mynydd Illtud, Bannau Brycheiniog. 🌫️

Fireworks over a Gothic Revival Castle: Bonfire Night 1994 at Bodelwyddan Castle, Wales. 🎆🏰

Remember, remember, this 5th of November... always check inside your bonfire before lighting it! 🔥 #BonfireNight

Don't forget to check for hedgehogs this Bonfire Night! 🦔🔥

...and that’s a wrap! 🎃 Final Halloween talks of 2025 done and dusted at "Night of the Spirits" in Margam Park last night. A perfect way to end spooky season - until 2026! 👻🍂

Happy All Souls’ Day!✨ Welsh folklore tells us to give our eyes a blessing today: “In almost every parish there was a holy well, and on All Souls’ Day old women generally washed their eyes in the waters so that their eyesight might retain its strength” 📸 St Non's Well #folkloresunday

TONIGHT! I’ll be talking ghosts, folklore & Halloween (Nos Calan Gaeaf) at "Night of the Spirits" in the Orangery, Margam Park, Port Talbot. My final talks of spooky season, it’s going to be extra spooky - with a quick walk to one of the park’s “most haunted” spots afterwards!👻🎃

Happy November the 1st! Halloween is over, Christmas is coming. It's Mari Lwyd time... 💀🐴

Gwaed ar y Sêr is on S4C (and BBC iPlayer)! A little Welsh-language folk horror for Halloween/ Nos Calan Gaeaf... 🎃

A cheeky autumnal coffee before they all get replaced with gingerbread tomorrow. Happy Halloween! 🎃

Happy Halloween! 🎃🍂 It's the most wonderful time of the year... #halloween

Check out this amazing Nos Calan Gaeaf (Halloween in Wales) papier-mâché wassail bowl at National Trust’s Dinefwr! 🎃 Created by artist Melissa Petitt, it features the Ladi Wen (White Lady), the Hwch Ddu Gwta (tailless black sow) and the three ravens of the Rhys family. 👻🍂