The Little House Turns "Little house, move On your crooked legs free; Turn your back to the wood, And your front door to me." 📖 Book of Polish #Fairytales, ca 1920 #art #faeries #cottagecore

Dulcibella and the Fairies 🎨 Hilda T. Miller (c. 1922) #Art #FairyTales #Faeries #folklore

There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

A proud heron stands in the water surrounded by a rich choice of fish, but he ignores them. 🐟 In the afternoon he rejects smaller fish as unworthy, preferring to wait for better pickings. But by the evening he is so hungry he settles for a one small, lowly snail. 🐌 #LegendaryWednesday #birds #fable

King Winter travels to Sweden with the North Wind. An ancient covenant decrees that he shall not spread snow prior to the eleventh lunar cycle of the year. But in his impatience to lock the land in ice, he can arrive early - and blames his mistiming on his clock being frozen #LegendaryWednesday

Christmas has become the dominant festival in the Western cultural calendar, but echoes of the pre-Christian past can still be found across the continent. www.bbc.co.uk/travel/artic... #Folklore

"They saw that the cottage was made of bread and cakes." - Hansel and Gretel and other stories, ca 1921 ✍️ Hans Christian Andersen 🎨 Kay Nielsen #art #fairytales #witchcore #food 🪄 🍞 🍰

The Fairy Love Boat 🪄 ⛵ 🎨 by Hilda Hechle (1886-1939) #fairytale #art

Terrific article on the #Venus figurines, and why they are not actually "Venus" figurines, via Max Dashú. www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/not...

“Eventually, Everything Connects.” “Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore. Shot With: iPhone 12 Pro Max. #Trees. #Sunsets. #Photography.

Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things, 1869 by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (French-born English, 1823–1903)

by Edward Gorey

Hello December, The year’s sands nearly run Speeds on the shortest day, Curtails the sun; With its bleak raw wind Lays the last leaves low, Brings back nightly frosts, Brings back the snow. ❄️ ✍️ Christina Rossetti, ca 1893 #December #winter #poetry

Snow cupcakes in my garden. ❄️ 🧁 #HelloDecember #snow #Ontario

Serbia: Possibly Home to Europe’s First Domestic Cats (Interesting read for fellow feline fans.) #cats 🐾 🐱 cogniarchae.com/2025/08/12/s...

Cat with Flower Cactus Dorothea Maetzel-Johansen, 1886-1930 #Caturday

We all have an "antilibrary." You know, the stack of yet-unread books we might never read. Here is Umberto Eco's wonderful and counterintuitive take on why that unread stack might be as essential for our inner lives as the read www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/u...

Had a mooch to the wonderful Christmas tree festival at St Mary’s church, Warwick. Below 👇 are trees in the Beauchamp chapel. & Tree decorated by volunteers at Priory Books, the second-hand book shop at Warwickshire County Record Office. #FolkloreSunday

Holly is a #symbol of death & rebirth in both Pagan & Christian lore. ❄️ In the #Arthurian legend, Gawain (the Oak King of summer) is challenged by & fights the Green Knight, (Holly King), who is armed with a club of holly to represent winter. #FolkloreSunday #Winter #Christmas

I remain convinced that no one has tackled Merlin as well as Mary Stewart did with her Crystal Cave / Hollow Hills / Last Enchanter trilogy, published in the 1970s. It remains a classic, and is beautifully written. #BookSky #Arthurian #Merlin

Founding Myths: Princess Scota, Goídel Glas and their Links to the Gaelic People

The Middle English term elferingewort ("elf-ring"), is said to be "a ring caused by elves' dancing". Similarly, Scandinavian lore states #fairy rings are burned into the ground by the dancing elves, & we humans might want to avoid them! 🪄 #FairyTales #Folklore #art

The legend of the White Hare (Cornish) speaks of the lost spirit of a maiden. With a broken heart & a soul which cannot rest, she appears as a white #hare, invisible to others except her faithless lover, who she follows always, haunting him until he meets his end. 🐇 #FolkloreSunday #folksky

a light Halloween adjacent read www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dan...

Holly is a #symbol of death & rebirth in both Pagan & Christian lore. ❄️ In the #Arthurian legend, Gawain (the Oak King of summer) is challenged by & fights the Green Knight, (Holly King), who is armed with a club of holly to represent winter. #FolkloreSunday #Winter #Christmas

“Heaven was a word: hell was something he could trust.” 📖 “Brighton Rock” ~ Graham Greene, 1938 #BookchatWeekly #BookwormSat 🎥#BrightonRock, 1948 2:15pm TODAY on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social

Thinking winter has arrived and intends to stay. #woodland #forest #snow #Ontario ❄️ (📷 by me 😊)

"The first Scottish appearance of the term 'fairfolks' occurs in Douglas's translation of the Aenid in 1513. The woods were for long occupied by 'nymphis & fawnys apun euery syde, Quhilk fairfolkis, or than elvys, clepyng we (which we called fair folk & elves)'" - 'Scottish Fairy Belief'

Fairy knots - Legend has it if you find little knots in the mane it's because the Fae are riding your pony at night, braiding little stirrups into their mane and going on celestial adventures. She did seem a little tired this morning... #folklore #folktales

In Warwickshire snails were used in folk remedies for warts. These included rubbing the wart 9 times each way with the creature. A crueller example was where the snail was impaled to the earth with a thorn. As the snail died, so the wart faded. #folkmedicine

"Now I 'm eighteen I prefer stronger novels & books by great men & women, because these are always talked about by cultivated people, & when I go into society next winter I wish to be able to listen intelligently & know what to admire." A Garland For Girls, ✍️ Louisa May Alcott #BookWormSat #books

Protect yourself. Protect others if you're able. Protect all creatures, great and small. Protect crumbling ruins and standing stones for elves and fairies. Protect bogs, marshes, and misty moors for wandering witches, wayward spirits, and all of the horrors shambling in the gloom.

So Rose sat in state enjoying herself very much, for the lads proceeded to dance a Highland Fling with a spirit and skill that made her clap her hands and laugh as she had not done for weeks. - Eight Cousins, Louisa May Alcott #BookWormSat #booksky

In the early twentieth century there were a number of sightings of a ghost on the road from Shipston to Stratford nr the gates of Alscot Park. On one occasion a man saw it walk in front of his car and thru the park wall. #PhantomsFriday

In some variations of the Banshee, she is said to be the #spirit of a murdered woman. 🪦 The Scottish version, aka the Bean Nighe, is more specifically the #ghost of a woman who died during childbirth. #PhantomsFriday 🎨 The Banshee Appears, by R. Prowse (1862)

In the #fairytale 'the Boy Who Knew what the Birds Said', a young lad learns the language of the #birds & his fate. They predict he'll be forced to leave home, win a princess & return as a king. Soon after his family expels him from his home ensuring that predicted fate occurs. 🐦 #LegendaryWednesday

My favourite piece of Warwickshire bird lore as it’s so random: If a peacock flies to your house, a death will follow. #LegendaryWednesday

Save your crumbs for the wee birds... 🐤 #Wildlife #winter #birdsky

Look out Hansel & Gretel... The Witch is watching you eat her candy house. #art #Fairytales 🎨 Herman Vogel, ca 1910

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII #ShakespeareSunday #cold #winter

The legend of the White Hare (Cornish) speaks of the lost spirit of a maiden. With a broken heart & a soul which cannot rest, she appears as a white #hare, invisible to others except her faithless lover, who she follows always, haunting him until he meets his end. 🐇 #FolkloreSunday #folksky

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather! 🪄 The Fairies, William Allingham 🎨 The Fairy Ring, George Cruikshank #FolkloreSunday #Fairytales

And just like that, the frost settled & the #garden is in hibernation mode. Yet there is still beauty to be seen in the early #winter landscape. Some of the delicate, fluffy seed heads are hanging on, at least until the snow starts falling in earnest. ❄️ #November #gardensky

The tale of the boy who went out to learn what fear was is a #fairytale from the Brothers Grimm. On the first night of his adventure, giant #blackcats visit him to play cards, & he keeps them at bay when they attack. 🐾 #Caturday #cats #art

Merlina Joe Coffey 2022

Look out Hansel & Gretel... The Witch is watching you eat her candy house. #art #Fairytales 🎨 Herman Vogel, ca 1910

The Middle English term elferingewort ("elf-ring"), is said to be "a ring caused by elves' dancing". Similarly, Scandinavian lore states #fairy rings are burned into the ground by the dancing elves, & we humans might want to avoid them! 🪄 #FairyTales #Folklore #art

John Dee and Edward Kelley invoking the spirit of a deceased person whilst safe inside their magic circle. 🪄 👻 #Ghost #PhantomsFriday 🎨 Engraving by Ebenezer Sibly, ca 1806

Starting this week's folk remedies with a cure for styes from Stratford-upon-Avon: Rub fur from a cat’s tail 9 times backwards across the affected eye.