Sad to announce that I have had to cancel this talk due to staff consultations on the future of Humanities at the University taking place on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in my research.

This is happening on Wednesday. Tickets are free but you need to book! Looking forward to it! www.opengravesopenminds.com/events/folkl...

KING VIKRAM & THE VAMPIRE Fascinating Hindu folktales about the adventures of a great Raja & a BAITAL or #Vampire. The BAITAL or VETALA is a vampiric human/bat hybrid who inhabits & reanimates corpses. Originally in Sanskrit, it was translated in 1870 by Burton #MythologyMonday

FAIRY KING A crowned fairy king is seated on a hedgehog carriage drawn by a young girl holding a giant daisy, accompanied by dancing fairies. This remarkable painting is by Charles Altamont Doyle 1832-1893, father of Cottingley Fairy enthusiast Sir Arthur Conan Doyle #MythologyMonday

RABBIT UNDERTAKERS The Adventures of Pinocchio is darker than you might think. When Pinocchio refuses to take his medicine the Blue Fairy summons a group of black rabbits as undertakers to carry him off! 🎨Charles Copeland illustrations to the 1904 edition #FolkloreSunday

'This forest looks the way Nightingales sound.' ~Grace Hazard Conkling 🎨The Nightingale by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite #BookWormSat

"She is called ‘the Green Glaistig’ from her wan looks and dress of green, the characteristic Fairy colour. She is said to have been at first a woman of honourable position, a former mistress of the house, who had been put under enchantments and now had a Fairy nature given her." (J.G. Campbell)

booking and further details www.opengravesopenminds.com/events/folkl...

DANCE OF THE FAIRIES Fairies dance at moonlight in the shadowy setting of a gothic ruin. The Dance Of The Fairies is engraved by F. C. Lewis from a C19th Print by E. T. Parris. I'm posting this for anyone who has ever doubted the fairy's gothic credentials! #GothicFairies

LITERATURE SEMINAR SERIES #FairytaleTuesday Join me for a FREE online talk on 20 May at 1.30 ‘The Luck of the Ningyo: Japanese human-fish Yokai and the rise of the fake museum #mermaid’ All welcome - booking via Ticket Press below

WAKE NOT THE DEAD (1823) Brunhilde is restored from beyond the grave at the instruction of her grieving husband; turning #vampire, she preys on her own children in imitation of female demon Lilith. Early German vampire tale by Ernst Raupach.

OLD FAIRY BOOKS I love browsing for unusual old #fairy books. Here are 2 of my recent finds. Old Hungarian Fairy Tales 1895; Old Favourite Fairy Tales, England, 1909 #GothicFairies #GothicSpring

LITERATURE SEMINAR SERIES #FairytaleTuesday Join me for a FREE online talk on 20 May at 1.30 ‘The Luck of the Ningyo: Japanese human-fish Yokai and the rise of the fake museum #mermaid’ All welcome - booking via Ticket Press below

Sign please folks c.org/pcXwsDxRM4

UNDINE An enchanting fairy-tale novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Undine, a water spirit, couples with a knight, Huldebrand, in order to gain a soul. The first adaptation of was E. T. A. Hoffmann's opera in 1816. Undine was illustrated by Arthur Rackham in 1909 #FairyTaleTuesday

FOLKLORE & THE GOTHIC Join me for a FREE online talk on 20 May at 1.30 ‘The Luck of the Ningyō: Japanese human-fish Yokai and the rise of the fake museum #mermaid’ All welcome. Booking via Ticket Press from #FairytaleTuesday www.opengravesopenminds.com/events/folkl...

THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER In 1816 the first #vampire story in English emerged out of perpetual rain & darkness. The story writing contest in the gloom at the Villa Diodati also gave birth to that other archetype of Gothic heritage, Frankenstein’s monster #MythologyMonday

THE FAIRY HAUNT In the spirit of #GothicFairyland I'm posting this lively Victorian scene of the fairy haunt by little-known female artist Florence Vernon (active 1881-1904) for #FolkloreSunday. Fairies, birds and bats compete for territory in an enchanted twilight forest.

DRACULA'S GUEST Nine supernatural stories by Bram Stoker, published at the request of his widow Florence after his death. The title story, set in a graveyard, is said to be the deleted opening chapter of #Dracula, 1897. First edition. London: Routledge & Sons, 1914

Just a note to say that I am making a video of this talk on Gothic Fairyland to upload and share. It should be available shortly.

FAERYLAND is often depicted as a shadowy spirit world, one which is said to be in perpetual twilight. Victorian painters understood the appeal of dark fairy enchantment well, as shown in the work of Francis Danby & Gustave Doré #GothicFairies

GWAENARDEL vampiric #fairy from the Isle of Man who is specifically attracted to poets, feeding off their blood; in exchange she gives them inspiration & a magnificent but short life #gothicspring #vampire 🎨Michael Thomas

LYCANTHIA Lycanthia is the orphan child of a Polish nobleman and an English mother, brought up in an atmosphere of secret satanic rites. She brings a reign of terror to the English countryside accompanied by a huge wolf. First edition: Herbert Jenkins, London 1935.

THE FLOWER MOON will bring increased activity from #werewolves. Compelled to leave their hunting grounds in the woods, they will make their way to open fields at this time to prowl & howl at the moon. They may be found crossing roads & gardens! #FolkloreSunday

The sublime and gothic sensibility to this painting and sentiment is very beguiling!

MAY DAY marks the Celtic festival of Beltane; half way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It is a time when the veil between our world and the shadow world is extremely thin and exactly half way to Halloween🎨Rheam, Fairy woods, 1903 #GothicSpring

Gave a talk on the Open Graves Open Minds Project today at a research and mixer event @herts.ac.uk As Angela Carter said we are most definitely living in gothic times!

BROOMSTICKS AT THE READY It's nearly #WALPURGISNACHT marking the transition from winter to spring on the eve of the 1st of May, the feast day of St Walpurga. Halfway to Halloween. #Witches will gather on the Brocken mountain to perform rituals & indulge in outrageous revelry! #FairyTaleTuesday

GOTHIC REVELRY Bats and fairies indulge in some nocturnal revelry and dancing in these gothic works by lesser-known women artists. Hilda Hechle 1902-1938 'A Moonlight Phantasy' and Florence Vernon 1871-1905 'The Fairy Haunt'. #MythologyMonday

Over on the OGOM blog Alex Hughes reviews @DrFrancisYoung's History of Fairies. A worthy addition to any fairy library and nicely affordable!! www.opengravesopenminds.com/reviews/revi...

THE GREEN CHILDREN appeared in the village of Woolpit in England in the C12th; they spoke an unknown language, would only eat raw beans & had green skin like fae. The boy died after baptism, the girl said they came from a subterranean world, named Saint Martin's Land #FolkloreSunday

GOTHIC NATURE A small Yorkshire grave is fused with the mossy roots of a living tree. Only the letters E.M. remain visible above ground as I pass by; the tenant of the tomb has been sleeping deep in the earth for over one hundred years #GothicSpring

INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON #FAIRIES I'll be speaking on 'Gothic Fairyland' at this event hosted by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 9.30-12.00 UK GMT (10.30-1.00 Madrid Time), online & in-person on 5 May. All welcome for the live stream🖤

THE VAMPIRE OF THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS Alexander Dumas, 1849. This unsettling #vampire story is set in 1829; it's narrated by an aristocratic Polish girl who flees to a monastery in the mountains and finds herself living amidst the disinterred bodies of suspected vampires

This is an extremely erudite and lively publication, beautifully produced. If you haven't seen it its well worth ordering.....

MERMAID BLOG My write up of @ogomproject.bsky.social Sea Changes conference on the fairy tale gothic of mermaids, selkies and enchanted hybrids of ocean and river is now available to read on the BARS research blog bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6411 @bars.bsky.social @herts.ac.uk

LOVE, THE VAMPIRE Set far apart in lands of North and South, Love as a #vampire came With haggard eyes aflame, And touched us with the kisses of his mouth! Thenceforth in dreams must we Each other's shadows see Wandering unsatisfied in empty lands (Andrew Lang, Scottish Folklorist, 1884)

HOUSE of BOOKS & FRIENDS is an ideal place for an @ogomproject.bsky.social meet up in Manchester. Loved the vintage writers vibe with the books & typewriters.

SPOOKY NETSUKE (根付) White #bats resemble ghosts in exquisite miniature sculptures popular during the Edo period in Japan. Reflecting important aspects of Japanese folklore bats are often associated with good fortune #BatAppreciationDay #Baturday

GLORIOUS GRAVEYARD BATS #Bats have long been associated with dusky graveyards inspiring gloriously gothic symbolism in cemeteries such as Père Lachaise in Paris. Photos Allison Meier #BatAppreciationDay

I hope to go along to this!

HISTOIRE DES VAMPIRES rare illustrated French treatise on #vampires and evil spectres from 1820

GUERICKE'S UNICORN Otto von Guericke identified bones of a woolly rhinoceros as those of a #unicorn and presented this imaginatively weird reconstruction in 1672. It can be found at the Natural History Museum in Madgeburg, Germany #FairytaleTuesday

DRAGON-RIDING MAIDENS Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941) excelled at illustrating #dragons for Andrew Lang and others. Developed by hand from wood blocks 🎨Green Fairy Book 1892 #FairytaleTuesday

GOTHIC DREAMS Rackham's re-imagining of the Pandora myth c. 1910 shows the contents on her box to be #bats; a gothicising of the myth of how evil got into the world takes place & a referencing of Goya's sleep of reason producing monsters #mythologymonday

SATYRUS MARINUS The strange body of a satyr-merman was washed ashore on the Danish coast & buried in Nissum churchyard, causing the sand to drift in storms. The storm raged until the merman was reburied where the ocean waves could wash over him 🎨Johann Zahn, 1696 #FolkloreSunday

Ooh I love these...

GRAVEYARD BIRDS Some fine Avian engravings from my graveyard strolls. Birds can symbolise freedom from earthly bonds, the transition to the afterlife or seemingly act as messengers between physical and spiritual planes

UNICORN LORE The curling ribs on a unicorn horn represent passing years, they can be counted like tree rings. The horns twist with every new year; the longer & more twisted the horn the older and wiser the unicorn 🎨ills. tapestries c. 1500 #NationalUnicornDay

WIZARD OF OZ, 1939. Dorothy Gale is named after twin tornadoes that struck Kansas in 1879. The sky is said to turn green before a tornado. For Dorothy it conjures the green Wicked Witch of the West & transfers her to the green Emerald City #FairyTaleTuesday