'Great flakes of snow blotted out all the distant view. The bushes in the garden were upholstered with fat snow cushions. The yew trees by the house were like huge tattered snow umbrellas ' A world transformed by snow in Lucy Boston's Children of Green Knowe #BookWormSat ❄️

'No hawk hangs over in this air: The urgent snow is everywhere. The wing adroiter than a sail Must lean away from such a gale' -Edna St. Vincent Millay 🎨William Morris Hunt #BookWormSat

“There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.” (Washington Irving) 🎨 Josef Mandl #Phantomsfriday

Misericord at Sherbourne Abbey of a Lady having hanky panky with a demon

Good morning. Witches AND cats. I really do spoil you.

Winter Landscape with Bullfinches - by Swedish artist, Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939) Imagine being able to paint like this... #art #birds #birdart #winter

Fallen angels. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, Bruges ca. 1455. BnF, Français 308, fol. 13r. #medieval #medievalart

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. A Dust of Snow Robert Frost 🖼️ Jo Grundy #BookwormSat #Winter

‘ I wonder if the snow 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓈 the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”’ 📚 L.Carroll, Through the Looking Glass 🖼️ C. Monet #BookWormSat #winter

🖼️ Jane Crowther.

'Yellow Eye O Yellow Eye Yellow as the yellow Moon. Out of the Black Hole of the North The Ice Age is flying! The Moon is flying low- The Moon looms, hunting her Hare- The Moon drops down, big with frost And hungry as the end of the world.' 'The Snowy Owl', Ted Hughes #BookwormSat

The Arctic moon hangs overhead; The wide white silence lies below. A starveling pine stands lone and gaunt, Black-penciled on the snow. Weird as the moan of sobbing winds, A lone long call floats up from the trail; & the naked soul of the frozen North Trembles in that wail. Lew Sarett #BookwormSat

'Clouded with snow The cold winds blow, And shrill on leafless bough The robin with its burning breast Alone sings now.' #Winter, Walter de la Mare #BookwormSat allpoetry.com/poem/8494519... 🎨 Lucy Grossmith www.heart-to-art.com/paintings-fo...

Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄🌟 We all love a good reindeer at Christmas! These ones were painted in Font-de-Gaume cave in France 18,000 years ago! Rudolph the Red-backed Cave deer? 🎶🦌 #RockArtThursday #archaeology 🏺

Christmas is hard for many. The years roll, the ghosts at the table increase. We’re haunted by the absence of voices, of laughter engines who drank and ate with us. This can be day of remembrance rituals. For what it’s worth, Hooklanders near and far are in my candles today. Be gentle on yourselves.

"Who is this who is coming?" "What I want for #Christmas is please go away." Happy Christmas all!

Three wise hedgehogs on a journey 🤍 Wishing everybody a gentle and joyful Midwinter Season 🌠

The Ghost Story, Alfred Bestall, 1930 #Christmasghoststories

Day 24 of #HooklandChristmasTree decoration. We place miniature ceramic bee hive on the tree. Time to tell the sleeping bees all our news, tell them of the year. All its joyful arrivals, all its harrowings and sad exits. We sing them the land and ask for honeyed blessings.

Long before GenX kids sniggered at suggestively shaped carrots on "That's Life", Oaxaca in Mexico celebrated 'La Noche de los Rábanos' (the Night of the Radishes) each Dec 23rd. Curiously wrought taproots have been the centrepiece of their Xmas markets since the mid 18th cent #WyrdWednesday

New BBC Ghost Story coming up this evening at 10 o'clock on BBC2 with an adaptation of E.F. Benson's 'The Room in the Tower'. (Although I'll probably have to watch it later on iPlayer.) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This encounter also inspired @thenightmonitor.bsky.social to capture the eeriness and wonder of them in this fine recording thenightmonitor.bandcamp.com/album/percep...

Choice of reading for the evening: 'Chill Tidings: dark tales of the Christmas season' (edited by Tanya Kirk) from the @blpublishing.bsky.social Tales of the Weird book series.

I would highly recommend listening to this programme - it is fascinating 👻🎄

Not listened to this yet but this looks like a fascinating history of Christmas ghost stories www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Foliate head in the choir stalls at Poitiers Cathedral. He's in-between two angels holding crowns. #WoodenWednesday

Spooky Advent day 24: Quis est ist qui venit? Plucky Prof Parkins comes a creepy cropper with bolshy bespooked bedding in M R James' Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad. And thus ends my creepy countdown, thank you all for following along. Merry Christmas!!

#WyrdWednesday One of my favourite weird Christmas tales, the classic account by Jean Hingley of Rowley Regis, Birmingham, of being visited on the 4th of January 1979 by three fairy-like UFOnauts who discussed Jesus, the Queen and Tommy Steele with her before she offered them some mince pies.

#ChristmasCardDay "Christmas Mourning" and "Sincerest Wishes for your Christmas." A rare depiction of mid-winter Druid robin sacrifice. [wrong-headed theory entirely my own.] #TheVictorianBookoftheDead www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/749084

Krampus isn't the only child-snatcher: on Cuba and beyond in the Hispanophone, El Cuco walks the streets at night looking for children who do not listen to their parents, putting them in a black bag and taking them away from exasperated parents. #FairytaleTuesday 🖼: F. de Goya

As we're now on the approach, I thought a little bit of practical Christmas folklore was in order. Today, it's what to include in your Christmas wreath...🎄🌿☃️🎁 #HouseholdLore #WatkinsWisdom #Folklore #Christmas #Booksky #Witchsky #Herbsky #FolkloreSunday #BookChatWeekly

Day in Winter by Xavier Mellery (1845–1921)

Tufted Titmice are perfection with their big dark eyes and sassy tuft.

'Around us hover the shades of The dead of long ago.' -A Christmas Eve, Victor James Daley 🎨Wilhelm von Gegerfelt #BookWormSat

Midwinter - Hookland's Queen of Owls. Suited in ways that are understood in the blood.

An old favourite for Christmas Eve and #WyrdWednesday. According to a little practised Flemish superstition, you'll have the power to recognise witches if you go to an intersection on Christmas Eve with a black chicken on your head. 🎨Heather Murray

Your Christmas Eve viewing sorted: here are all the ghost stories you can watch tonight... 👻🎄

Hans Trapp is a frightful being said to emerge on Christmas to terrorize misbehaving children. He was once a proud Knight named Hans von Trotha who turned to foul magic and cannibalism. As punishment, God transformed him into a scarecrow and cursed him to eternally wander the Palatinate woods.

"They looked towards the hilltop and saw a yellow flame rising against the sky. Too-ticky had lit the bonfire. It wrapped itself in flames at once, from ground to top, it gave a roar like a lion and threw its reflection straight down on the black ice" Moominland #Midwinter, Tove Jansson

Hare in the Snow, Ferdinand von Rayski, 1875.

Here are a few more of the UK's weirdest spooks. A spectral blue donkey haunted the village of Cobham, #Surrey. A ghostly grandfather clock was seen lurching round a suburban London garden. And in a lane at Crowborough, #Sussex, travellers would be accosted by a phantom bag of soot! #WyrdWednesday

"Come ... It is time to keep your appointment with The Snowman."

Oh HELL naw...

Happy Christmas From Little Mari who is giving gifts (of toast) to Ickle Krampus and the Christmas Ghost. Little Mari takes Toastmas very seriously.

All our other #BBCGhostStoryForChristmas reviews can be found here general-witchfinders.teemill.com/blog/bbc-gho...

Day 23 of the #HooklandChristmasTree. Time for the Empress Eel garland to be draped across the branches. No tawdry tinsel, but shimmer and reflecting gleam of stuffed eel skin. The Empress Eel’s head watching from the deep needles with black glass eyes and a polished tin crown.

Glam Art Deco Winter Maiden looking like Elsa Lanchester playing the Snow Queen, following a stint as an extra in Odin's Wild Hunt. Sort of. (artists signature too small to make out)

Folk Horror Revival/Wyrd Harvest Press - donation of £300 to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's Species Recovery Appeal. Visit the link below for more info & links to donate personally to The Wildlife Trusts and/or to buy Folk Horror Revival/WHP books (profits go to charity) tinyurl.com/folkhorrorre...