The Ipswich Portal on the Corn Hill. You can step through it into the streets of Vilnius. Not really. But we can see them, and they can see us. Give us a wave! (I've reposted this, edited on a PC, because the one I edited on my phone got labelled as 'AI generated content'.

Somehow safeguarding goes out of the window when it comes to trendy technologies that it would simply be Luddite not to allow into every aspect of our lives

TIL the Primary Chronicle of Rus’ blamed the Mongol conquest of Kyiv on divine punishment for ‘trumpets and clowns’ 🎺🤡

Every year my mother-in-law insists on receiving sugar mice for Christmas, and every Christmas she gives me sugar mice that I don’t eat, so there’s always a temptation to to re-gift her the sugar mice from last year

Why has no-one published a book of Hertfordshire ghost stories called ‘Lost Herts’

It's weird that the small Roman town between Lackford and Icklingham (Camboritum) isn't on any known Roman road

My daughter very much wants a Blue Peter Badge, so I wondered aloud if she could wear mine on the right hand side like the campaign medals of a deceased relative

Do share! The Catholic Historical Society of Ireland’s annual conference is on Daniel O’Connell and his Legacies - 22 Nov in @dculibrary.bsky.social - all welcome! (Small fee on the day) @nmireland.bsky.social @nlireland.bsky.social @jdmccafferty.bsky.social www.eventbrite.ie/e/oconnell-a...

What the Royal Family could do is lure Andrew into an RC church and hire a private detective to photograph him walking in on an RCIA class or something; with plausible evidence of conversion, even if he denied it, he could be removed from the succession www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11...

In my area people gather on the highest point of ground to watch the fireworks go off - and since we’re in the Fens you can see them a long way off 🎆🎇

I don’t want to be *that Guy*, but…

There should be the odd sporadic complaint fired off as dusk is falling, with complaints being registered in both organised and more reckless forms during the evening, culminating in a spectacular volley of complaining emails to the council around 9pm

The latest @folkloresociety.bsky.social newsletter FLS News is out today, and contains a CFP from me and @magicnotwitches.bsky.social inviting proposals for our new @universitypress.cambridge.org series 'Elements in Folklore':

I feel seen

Other work by the Ladybird artists ‘Autumn scene’ Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Hugely excited to get hold of a copy of Sigitas Narbutas’s new translation of the Latin epic Virtus Dexterae Domini (1674) which was the subject of my recent paper at Vilnius University

It's the little Christmas-tree cherub like a bauble from a garden centre that really makes it 👌 www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Epos de S. Casimiro (Epic about St Casimir) by Vilnius University student Jan Kraykowski (1604). The publication date is quite cleverly done...

Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł has the feel of a guy you wouldn't mess with

#OTD in 1539 Abbot John Reeve surrendered the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds to the King's commissioners, 519 years after the foundation of the Abbey and 650 years after the establishment of the shrine of St Edmund there

Surely the truly progressive solution to AI making up non-existent citations is to get AI to write the cited imaginary works, so they are no longer non-existent

My daughter just alerted me to this Blue Peter Halloween special at Kentwell Hall - which made for quite a weird watch as I've stayed the night in pretty much all the allegedly haunted rooms there...

This depiction of standing stones in stone is so meta, I love it

Over on Substack I wrote a new free post on the rising phenomenon of spookytuality - in which I hail @dannyrobins.bsky.social as the Joseph Glanvill of our age open.substack.com/pub/drfranci...

Gosh - one of my books on display in an exhibition at the Society of Antiquaries 👀

A very good point - the right to refuse to use genAI must be enshrined as a principle of academic ethics

I was in Huntingdon at around the time of this evening’s incident and saw multiple police cars and ambulances rushing towards Huntingdon on my way back to Peterborough, although only later did I learn what had happened. Absolutely awful to see such violence in my locality

Just over a week to go until my talk at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow as part of the brilliant Aye Write festival - if you fancy hearing about my adventures in search of Scotland's ancient past, come along! Tickets available here: www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/the-... #RomanSiteSaturday #AyeWrite

Wayland's Smithy in its autumnal coat.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral’s InHarmony project, Cantus Firmus Trust and Churches Together in Bury St Edmunds and District present an Advent event on Sunday 14 December, at 7.00 pm. “Sharers in the Promise” will be at St Mary's, Free tickets: cantusfirmus.org.uk.

This rare gilded bronze Roman head probably belonged to the cult statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva from her temple by the sacred spring in Bath. It was found in Stall Street in 1727 and can now be seen in the Roman Baths Museum. #FindsFriday

It's nightfall on Halloween, so here's a video about a mysterious cauldron. Did it come from a witch, or from the fairies? Thank you to @owenstaton.bsky.social & @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social youtu.be/zhdH7rPAglM

Behind this door lies an absolutely unique piece of English church art. It is an extraordinary survivor of the dark days of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics, and I’ve longed to see it for years

A timeline cleanse. Just images of pages of digitized old books that went wrong...

Keel ja Kirjandus: Lennart Mere „Hõbevalge” aitas hoida elus muistset, ilusat ja ainulaadset Eestit, kui tugevamad jõud seda varjutasid ja rõhusid, kirjutab Francis Young. keeljakirjandus.ee/ee/archives/...

Tonight I am staying in Sir Thomas Tresham’s gaff #TresTestimoniumDant ♣️♣️♣️

Su Truppu Tomba Megalitica: Megalithic tomb in Sardinia (Sardegna). The megalithic tomb of Su Truppu, either a Neolithic allée couverte or Bronze Age Nuragic tomba di giganti, is located few hundred metres NW of the nuraghe of the same name, in the Cossoine commune.

Consider yourself an academic? But where is your hat with tassel, the hair worn in a plait, the spotted suit and checked tights, like this fella from 1773 - called: the Academic Mac - is wearing? #academicchatter

I think I found my favourite Old Prussian compound adjective, ‘gruntpowirpingin’ 🐧

Some of the many deities available at Stockholm’s Historiska Museet

OK can anyone pronounce this 😵‍💫

A stroll around Gamla Stan this evening

A terrific visit this afternoon to the Department of Baltic Studies at @stockholm-uni.bsky.social, where I delivered a guest lecture on pre-Christian Baltic religion 🇱🇹🇱🇻🐍🔥🌳

I’m never quite sure what the ‘woke right’ is, but in my imagination it means someone who includes a land acknowledgement to the local aristocratic landowner in their email signature

This afternoon I also visited the Baltic Sea Science Center, which has a Baltic Sea carpet. I want to know how I get one for my house

Some images of Skansen today 🇸🇪🍁

I never knew he also wrote a pasta cookbook 🍝

It was great to rage to Paul Bavill about our neglect and misrepresentation of Eastern Europe’s deep history - it isn’t all about the 20th century, and it’s certainly not all about Russia

Socketed spearheads from the Bronze Age - part of the collections at Corinium Museum in Cirencester. 📸 My own. #BronzeAge #CoriniumMuseum #Archaeology #Cirencester

OTD in 1623, the Fatal Vespers tragedy occurred: a building hosting a secret Catholic service in Blackfriars collapsed, killing around 100. The aftermath saw vicious anti-Catholic violence, but, as I explored, it also reveals much about tolerance & Catholicism in London. doi.org/10.1017/bch....