'The creatures, it seems, like most deep-sea organisms, were phosphorescent, and they had been floating, five fathoms deep or so, like creatures of moonshine through the blackness of the water, their tentacles retracted and as if asleep, rolling over and over...' H.G. Wells, The Sea Raiders #BOTD

'one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow.' – Melville, Moby Dick

Mrs Tulliver and her pet cat Seamus are among the ghosts that haunt the Snickleway Inn in York. Mrs Tulliver is sometimes seen sitting quietly at the bar and Seamus the cat is felt rubbing his way among the legs of unsuspecting customers. #BookologyThursday #PhantomsFriday 📸 Kenneth Barker

In the garden of Newby Hall, Yorkshire. Detail. The weatherworn inscription reads: This door was in Newgate Prison and led to the cell from which Jack Sheppard escaped, 30th August 1724. #AdoorableThursday #Ironworkthursday #NewbyHall 1/2

In 1869, Punch magazine caricatured fashionable Victorian ladies as mutating into wasps and beetles — "Mr. Punch's Designs after Nature. Might not Wasp-Waisted Young Ladies adopt this Costume with Advantage?" #WyrdWednesday

@taliskimberley.bsky.social #LatchlessDoor Whenever did August so taste of goodbye? Are the Seasons bereaved and bereft? I shall Borrow a heart from the wild, wild rose; she will Bloom with the ones she has left. –Talis Kimberly Double Portrait of Eliza Pareńska, Stanisław Wyspiański

In Stevie Smith's poem Deeply Morbid, Joan is sucked into a Turner seascape– She stood up straight The sun fell down There was no more of London Town She went upon the painted shore And there she walks for ever more Happy quite Beaming bright In a happy happy light All alone. #BookWormSat

This messy-haired ghost child by contemporary artist John Corbet made me think of the #Hookland children's rhyme from @taliskimberley.bsky.social wonderful #LatchlessDoor Berry-bramble, sorry-scramble Through the thicket thorn Button your coat, cover your throat Teasel, tangle, torn!

Emily Dickinson One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted – One need not be a House – The Brain has Corridors – surpassing Material Place – #PhantomsFriday Teodor Axentowicz, "The Old Man and the Ghost of a Young Woman"

#WyrdWednesday "And, mother, find three berries red And pluck them from the stalk, And burn them at the first cockcrow, That my spirit may not walk." From 'At Last' by Elizabeth Siddal, whose body was exhumed by DG Rossetti so that he could retrieve the manuscript poems he'd placed in her coffin.

Dark is the forest and deep The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite Outside is gold and white, Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet The others, day or night. – Edward Thomas #BookWormSat 🎨 Mrs Willingham Rawnsley

There have been numerous sightings of ghostly figures on the A616 Stockbridge bypass ever since its construction in 1988. The strangest are of children running round electricity pylons singing "Ring a Ring o' Roses" before vanishing from sight. #PhantomsFriday #Hookland Photo @hookland.bsky.social

The Spirit Medium "An old ghost's thoughts are lightning, To follow is to die" – W.B. Yeats Yeats's personal medium, his wife Georgie, had a gift for automatic writing by means of which she recorded the thoughts of 'secret instructors', providing Yeats with metaphors for poetry. #PhantomsFriday

[1] Julian of Goathland had Gythra walled up alive—with a spinning wheel because women should be kept busy. She haunted him as a white wraith with a spindle, and each year until his death a little more of Julian's body became striken as Gythra bound it with her supernatural thread. #Ghosts #Folklore

'Why should they be afraid of us?' 'It’s a feel-thing not a think-thing. And the more stupid they are, the more like everyone else they think everyone ought to be. And once they get afraid they become cruel and want to hurt people who are different.' John Wyndham, The Chrysalids #BookWormSat

When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone ... When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists. ~ John Wyndham, The Chrysalids #BookWormSat

We could pass for normal anywhere. So a proclamation has been posted describing the three of you and officially classifying you as deviants. That means that you are non-human and therefore not entitled to any of the rights or protections of human society. ~John Wyndham, The Chrysalids #BookWormSat

All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors. ~ Longfellow #PhantomsFriday Jacques-Henri Lartigue “Mon frère Zissou en fantome”, 1905

The Spectropia aimed to use science to reveal the "absurd follies of spiritualism" by allowing readers to create ghostly illusions for themselves. It was promoted by its publisher as a "toy book" and probably achieved greater success as an amusement than as an anti-Spiritualist tool. #PhantomsFriday

In the north of England, we have the Gabble Ratchets (or Gabriel Hounds) an airborne pack of spectral dogs. Sometimes human-headed, always a source of terror, to hear their yelping as they pass over your house presages disaster. #FolkyFriday #PhantomsFriday 🎨 Katie Marland www.katiemarland.com

The padfoot that haunts the streets of Leeds makes a distinctive 'shog...shog...shog' noise as it walks, and those who've seen it describe a dog 'the size of a small donkey, black with shaggy hair and large eyes like saucers.' #FolkyFriday #PhantomsFriday 🎨 Katie Marland www.katiemarland.com

"The Ballad of Sir David Graeme" by Charlotte Wylie or Wyllie, née Major (fl.1872-1893) A watercolour depicting the moment in James Hogg's ballad when the lady, guided by her lover's faithful hound, discovers his slain body. #WomensArt #ArtByWomen #WomenArtists

Taking rushes to the parish church each year to be strewn on the stone floor for winter warmth began as a practical measure. Over time, it developed into a popular ritual that centred around elaborate rush-bearing processions. #LegendaryWednesday 🖼 Frank Bramley, The Grasmere Rushbearing

A traditional Yorkshire rhyme for telling the bees of a death in the household begins: Bees! Bees! Death hath been, This dowly news tell to your queen, Tell her of the arvel feast – From the greatest to the least, (full in alt text) #FolkyFriday 🖼 Hans Thoma, The Bee Friend

An early 20th century spirit hand that raps out answers to questions while isolated on a board. These carved wooden hands were used by magicians to recreate or expose the methods of fraudulent mediums, rather than appearing to communicate with the dead themselves. #PhantomsFriday Thayer Spirit Hand

Peter Priestley, a Wakefield sexton, waiting for spirits to appear in the church on St Mark's Eve, fled home when a rushing sounded by his ear, an eerie light filled the tower and a breath of hot air fanned his cheek. His wife pointed out that his candle had burnt away half his wig. #PhantomsFriday

Alan Garner's Strandloper retells the story of Cheshire bricklayer William Buckley, transported to Australia in 1801. He absconded and, encountering local people in the bush, learnt their language and customs, living among them for 31 years before giving himself up. #BookWormSat 🎨 Howard Taylor

He does not think that I haunt here nightly :   How shall I let him know That whither his fancy sets him wandering   I, too, alertly go?– Hover and hover a few feet from him   Just as I used to do, But cannot answer the words he lifts me–   Only listen thereto! Thomas Hardy #PhantomsFriday

'Wasteland and boundaries : places that are neither one thing nor the other, neither here nor there – these are the gates of Elidor.' #BookChatWeekly 📖 Alan Garner, Elidor 🎨 Nils Kreuger

"We celebrated my birthday yesterday: [Ted] gave me a lovely Tarot pack of cards and a dear rhyme with it, so after the obligations of this term are over your daughter shall start her way on the road to becoming a seeress" ~ Sylvia Plath #BookologyThursday Plath's Tarot de Marseille deck

Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and friends began experimenting with an ouija board in 1956—a letter sent at the time records poetry spelt out by 'Pan' "Nameless he shall be The myriad of daughters Tending his image Washing the mountain slopes with tears To slake the parched plains." #BookologyThursday

'It is not easy to cross from your world into this,' said Malebron, 'but there are places where they touch. The church, and the castle. They were battered by war, and now all the land around quakes with destruction. They have been shaken loose in their worlds. ~ Alan Garner, Elidor #BookChatWeekly

The silver body grew black against the sky as the unicorn reared and brought his hoofs thrashing down. Roland flung himself sideways, and the hoofs showered him with frozen grit. He scrambled on all fours. 'No, Findhorn!' But the unicorn was on him, cruel and merciless. ~ Alan Garner #BookChatWeekly

The dragon that terrorised Filey was defeated when Billy Biter fed it parkin, a cake with oatmeal & treacle - the parkin stuck the dragon’s jaws together, allowing the townsfolk to kill it. The skeleton became Filey Brigg, a rocky promontory that stretches out to sea. #FolkyFriday 🎨Arthur Rackham 🐉

A 19th century fan advertising the "Spectres vivants et impalpables de Monsieur Robin." #PhantomsFriday

"I am the hidden life that stirs When the candle is out, Upstairs and down, the footsteps barely heard, The unknown gesture, and the soft, persistent word, The long sighing flight of the night-winged bird." Peter Quint. Valet. Deceased. #PhantomsFriday Myfany Piper's libretto for Turn of the Screw

A Fox started out one Moonlight Night, And he prayed of the stars to afford him light, For he had many miles to go that night, Before he reached the Town, O! Traditional song #BookologyThursday 🖼 Thomas Mann Baynes, The Adventures of a Fox by Moonlight

On a summer midnight, you can hear the music Of the weak pipe and the little drum And see them dancing around the bonfire Round and round the fire Leaping through the flames ~T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets #BookologyThursday 🖼 Nikolai Astrup, Bonfire celebrating Midsummer Night

In Thomas Hood's poem 'Mary's Ghost', poor Mary appears to her fiancé with the news that her grave has been robbed and her body scattered among London's medical schools— The arm that used to take your arm Is took to Dr. Vyse; And both my legs are gone to walk The hospital at Guy’s. #PhantomsFriday

For #PhantomsFriday - Tani Ban'ichi Ghost and Oil Lamp

The 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning led to the death of 20 people when humbugs accidentally laced with arsenic were sold from a market stall. Sugar was commonly adulterated with cheaper substances, but on this occasion a mistake meant that arsenic trioxide was used. #BookologyThursday Cartoon, Punch

Clearly there must be a mistake somewhere. Surely having one very small toe extra – well, two very small toes, because I supposed there would be one to match on the other foot – surely that couldn't be enough to make her 'hateful in the sight of God...'? #WyrdWednesday

In "A Child's Voice," TP McKenna plays Mr. Macreadie, a writer & broadcaster whose latest story is about a child who dies assisting a magician. Ignoring calls from a child's voice asking him to stop the story, he becomes the victim of the kind of terror he has reserved for others. #PhantomsFriday

In "Sweet Danger" (1933), seventeen year old Amanda creates an electric car from a secondhand brougham and a wireless battery. It's hand-painted crimson (inexpertly) and has upholstery of faded chintz. Its range is limited, but it's very cheap to run - Amanda has her own dynamo. #BookologyThursday

One of Odilon Redon's series of grotesque yet whimsical smiling spiders. Like the Spiderman in "Lullaby"- Quietly he laughs and shaking his head Creeps closer now Closer to the foot of the bed The Spiderman is having me for dinner tonight #WyrdWednesday The Cure, Lullaby Odilon Redon, The Spider

If my Bark sink 'Tis to another sea — Mortality's Ground Floor Is Immortality — Emily Dickinson #BookWormSat Odilon Redon: Boat in the Moonlight

Whether my bark went down at sea— Whether she met with gales— Whether to isles enchanted She bent her docile sails— By what mystic mooring She is held today— This is the errand of the eye Out upon the Bay. Emily Dickinson #BookWormSat Odilon Redon: The Boat

A book cover for #PhantomsFriday The night side of nature: or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers Catherine Crowe

The only Ghost I ever saw Was dressed in Mechlin – so – He wore no sandal on his foot – And stepped like flakes of snow – Our interview – was transient – Of me, himself was shy – And God forbid I look behind – Since that appalling Day! ✒️ Emily Dickinson 🖼 Robert William Buss #PhantomsFriday