For those who love the images of Autumn, the Forest of Dean could well issue a health warning: "Danger of Over-Stimulation" #autumn #nature 🌿

The Table des Marchands, an enclosed tomb with a carved stele in Locmariaquer, Morbihan, Brittany. #TombTuesday #Bretagne 📷 June, 2023

Breton kids pose in front of the Dolmen de Crucano at Plouharnel-Carnac, scanned from an old postcard I picked up with a few others (for 20p a piece) in, of all places, a little shop in North-East Wales. #TombTuesday #dolmen #megalith #Neolithic #Brittany #Breton #Carnac

New article: "The Rapture is happening today, or maybe tomorrow" What *is* the Rapture, and why do people believe in it? I look at the latest prediction of the coming end of the world. robindouglas.org/2025/09/23/t...

Here, for #MosaicMonday and for Rosh Hashanah, is a Byzantine mosaic image of Moses and God speaking from the Burning Bush. That's right. It's a...Mosaic mosaic.

In old English superstition, sweeping after dark was unlucky. It was said to sweep away good fortune or chase out visiting spirits of ancestors who lingered near the hearth. #MythologyMonday

Shana Tovah Umetukah - a happy and sweet New Year to all who celebrate tonight!

Hurrian word of the day: ḫamri, or, with the so-called "article", ḫamarre ("shrine, sanctuary"). Also borrowed into Luwian as ḫamrit-.

Happy Autumn Equinox! 🎨David Teniers (1635-90), ‘Autumn’

In Swedish, a word for what you eat to bridge the gap between meals (or while waiting for the main course to cook) is stödmacka. It means "support sandwich." A similar word in Norwegian is ventepølse, or "waiting sausage."

Happy Autumn Equinox! 🌾 This woodcut from Aesop’s Fables shows a nest in the harvest field as the farmer approaches with his sickle - a glimpse of rural life turned allegory in #RenaissanceArt. Woodcut by Bernard Salomon, Lyon 1571. From our Iconographic Database. #Aesop #Harvest #AutumnEquinox

That magical moment when the pumice is gently cleared away revealing, for the first time in nearly 2000 years, a white mosaic. #MosaicMonday #Pompeii

Reminds me of Lavrentiy Beria tbh.

Reposting for #WorldRhinoDay + #ElephantAppreciationDay 🦏🐘

Over on 'All Old Strange Things' I've written a new free-to-read post reflecting on @peteralanross.bsky.social's thought-provoking book 'Upon A White Horse': substack.com/home/post/p-...

Historically, the word 'nest' consists of two parts. The part 'ne-' is related to 'nether', while '-st' is related to 'sit'. The distant ancestor of 'nest' meant "place to sit down". 'Nest' is also related to Spanish 'nido' and its Romance relatives. Click my new graphic to learn more:

Baltic Unity Day celebrates the joint victory of Balts from both Lithuania and Latvia at the Battle of Saule in 1236, when Baltic warriors annihilated the Livonian Swordbrethren (the few survivors of that crusading order had to merge with the Teutonic Knights afterwards) 🇱🇹🇱🇻

Sainsbury's corn flakes, 1973. From the Sainsbury Archive. Its a little too 'Wicker Man-ish' for me... www.sainsburyarchive.org.uk/catalogue/se...

Prompted by this, I'm fascinated that the wren was part—along with the ship on the ha'penny, perhaps the most lasting part—of Edward VIII's legacy. He was keen to move away from heraldic motifs. The coin still awaited royal approval at the time of the Abdication and was introduced under George VI.

"You're irrelevant on Bluesky!" m8 I was irrelevant on Twitter where I had 110k followers and frequently got over a million views on my videos. It was still just shitposting on a social media site. Deciding that posting is activism has rotted a lot of brains on all sides.

Please don’t be weird wherever in the political spectrum you may be.

Wait, I’m a fascist because I’m not wearing a mask?

Offering a Medieval emotional support dragon for everyone who needs one✨

Happy birthday to J.R.R. #Tolkien’s The Hobbit, published #OTD in 1937, with a gorgeous dust jacket and illustrations by Tolkien himself! @tolkiensociety.org @tolkienwonder.bsky.social @uofgfantasy.bsky.social #Hobbit 🐉

An Ethiopian priest's crown made from plates of incised tin riveted together & hung with silver ornaments. These rattle and chime as the priest moves, announcing his arrival during solemn processions on feast days such as Timkat (Epiphany), Easter & Christmas. Donated by Wilfred Thesiger in 1995.

I saw it a while back in Lincoln. It's so tiny and the work is so fine and precise that it has the feel of a scientific instrument, almost

Someone was trying to take a portrait of their two fave Chickens, and this happened.

This colour knocks me out. It’s black, but it shimmers in blues somehow... Alice Larrot, early 1880s, Galleria del Costume Palazzo Pitti, Eurpeana.

Irelands largest stone circle is the Grange Lios embanked stone circle in Lough Gur, County Limerick. It was occupied in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Early Christian, Medieval, Early Modern and Modern periods. It consists of 113 stone with a diameter of 46 m. #StandingStoneSunday

Julia Lucey, Squirrel on the red day, 2020, US artist & #printmaker who combines aquatint, etching collage and acrylic #WomensArt #Autumn

”In Falcon's feathers soaring overhead Choosing warriors among the dead Twilight written in the runes of crones Freya weeps upon her golden throne” www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-us/produc...

The menhir of Kerloas in Plouarzel (Finistère) stands 9.5m above ground with an estimated 2m below. It was quarried from a rock bed 2km away and has been smoothed all over. A raised boss was left on each of the narrow faces. Negative by Hamonic pre-1904. #StandingStoneSunday.

Norwegian folklore includes the belief that if you see a face in the mountains, it's a troll. I am concerned that the troll in question is the well known Count Olaf, from A Series Of Unfortunate Events. 🎶Look away, look away...🎶

Happy #InternationalRedPandaDay! 🐾 These adorable creatures are about the size of a house cat — but with their fluffy tails adding up to 18 extra inches, they're anything but small! ❤️🐼

How the email found me:

'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder 😧 Henry IV, Part I[V, 4] #ShakespeareSunday #DogsOfBluesky

Closeup of a beautifully detailed silver head of a satyr on the crest of a 5th c. BCE Greek Attic-type helmet. I wonder if it was produced as a funerary item, or if the young man who owned it really did go into battle with this little companion. 🏺 #ancientbluesky #BritishMuseum 📸 me

Hookland is an infection. Even on the Victoria line it comes unbidden. Carbon monoxide phantoms. Souls trapped in cathode ray tubes. A thousand ghosts wanting to be heard.

I don't think this is tenable. The article seeks to talk up a threat which - unlike other aspects of far right ideology - doesn't have any real traction in the UK. The examples given are unimpressive. Christian nationalism is like baseball: one of those American things that doesn't really travel.

An esoteric Seventeenth-Century masterpiece arrives at the Uffizi: the Witch by the ‘cursed’ painter Salvator Rosa www.uffizi.it/en/news/witc...

NEW: Oxford will be the first UK university to give all staff and students free ChatGPT Edu access, from this academic year. ChatGPT Edu is built for education, with enhanced privacy and security.

Professor Freya Johnston, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, added: “Generative AI is also helping us to explore new ways of engaging with students, alongside our renowned face-to-face teaching and tutorial model.” www.cherwell.org/2025/09/19/o...

Today in Scottish politics

GHOST APPLES The uncanny name for when freezing rain settles on the fruit & ices over creating a frozen coating. The apple defrosts before the ice does & the rotting apple falls out of the bottom leaving its gothic icy 'ghost' behind! #FolkyFriday

Which fish fits your Friday mood? 🐟

Literature is littered with ghost pets. From Kipling’s spectral dogs to folk tales of cats who return to hearths long after death, these companions refuse to leave their beloved masters behind. #bookologythursday Art: Briton Riviere

Today’s Metal & Premodernity class examined the widespread reception of ancient Mesopotamian mythology by way of 20th-century occultism, the demonology of LaVeyan Satanism, & the supernatural horror of H.P. Lovecraft, especially as it was all synthesized in the Necronomicon.

From ancient mystery rituals to Renaissance magic and folk practices, seekers have long regarded mirrors as a portal to communicate with spirits or to catch a glimpse of the future. 🪞✨Pre-orders for The Mirror Issue are now open worldwide on helleborezine.com

handwriting puzzlers assemble! My eyes just aren't up to this faded copy ... 'I have in the Shipp Tenn Elephants Teeth [contayning?] Eighteen ? ? ?'

An Art Conservator Restores a Painting of the Doomed Party Girl Isabella de’ Medici: See the Before and After