#FairyTaleTuesday The Autumn Equinox when the time of daylight and darkness is of almost equal length ... 🎨Unknown Artist of this beautiful artwork #Mabon #AlbanElfed #AutumnEquinox

#MythologyMonday #BookSky ".. The witch had a cat and a very tall hat, And long ginger hair which she wore in a plait. How the cat purred and how the witch grinned, As they sat on their broomstick and flew through the wind ..." Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler's modern folktale - Room on the Broom

#MythologyMonday Now best known as Shakespeare's "Merry Wanderer of the Night" Puck, Robin Goodfellow originated as a mischievous spirit similar to a Hobgoblin [Hob was an old nickname for Robin or Robert] - often depicted holding a broom as he was believed to help with chores during the night ...

#MythologyMonday In the 19th & 20th century Norwich was the 5th most important centre of brush making with several factories including Cooks & Page's. Using wild & domestic pig bristles, horse hair & tree fibres from Russia, India, China, S America & Africa to produce quality brushes ... 📷Archant

I love this bird & spider in the Zouche Chapel York Minster ... #StainedGlassSunday

#FolkloreSunday While Dragons go into hibernation around Mabon [Alban Elfed] the autumn hours of darkness are marked by the prowling Cŵn Mamau - hunting for the souls of the recently deceased ...

#ShakespeareSunday "Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the screech-owl screeching loud ..." Now the wasted brands do glow, A Midsummer Night's Dream 🎨Keli Clark

#ShakespeareSunday "Speak low if you speak love ...." Much Ado About Nothing 🎨Frederic William Burton - Hellelil & Hildebrand or The Meeting on the Turret Stair

#BookWormSat 🎨& ✍️Paul Taverner

#BookWormSat "Mine be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill, With many a fall shall linger near ... ... Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ..." S Rogers - A Wish [my Granny's favourite] 🎨V G Gilbert

#BookWormSat "The eternal silence of the great white desert. Cloudy columns of snow drift advancing from the south, pale yellow wraiths, heralding the coming storm, blotting out one by one the sharp-cut lines of the land." Robert Falcon Scott - [Last Expedition] Journals 📷Herbert G Ponting

In Cumbrian dialects, 'merl' is blackbird In Basque lore, 'white merle' is a faerie-bird whose singing can restore sight to the blind

... and they have the gall to criticise the UK's record on freedom of speech!! Especially as no members of the public were allowed within earshot of Trump on his recent visit to Windsor in case he heard any "unfavourable" views of him!😂

#BookWormSat "It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the gardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his expectations." Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Urbervilles 🎨Hardy childhood painting

#FolkyFriday Hazel nuts were believed to be a source of wisdom and poetic inspiration. Nuts fell into a sacred pool from nine surrounding hazel trees and were eaten by a Salmon - both Welsh & Irish folklore have references to the ancient Salmon of Knowledge. 🎨Anon & Judith Shaw

#LegendaryWednesday Hellelil fell in love with one of her guards, Hildebrand, triggering a tragic series of events which resulted in the death of her father, six of her brothers and Hildebrand. Hellelil subsequently died of a broken heart ... 🎨Frederic William Burton [Meeting on the Turret Stairs]

#WyrdWednesday #BookChatWeekly "[Arachne's] hair fell out, her nose, ears & head became tiny, her slender, jointed fingers hanging as legs ... the rest is belly, from which she still spins a thread, and - as a Spider - weaves her ancient web ..." Ovid - Metamorphoses 🎨Iridogorgia & M K Čiurlionis

#LegendaryWednesday Accompanying Iseult [Isolde] on her journey to marry his uncle King Mark, Tristan falls in love with her himself. Despite her marriage the pair's love endures, ending tragically with their deaths, each believing the other has forsaken them ... 🎨J W Waterhouse & Marc Fishman

#WyrdWednesday "Bishy Bishy Barnabee, Tell me when your wedding be: If it be tomorrow day Take your wings and fly away. Fly to the east, fly to the west, Fly to the one I love the best." In Norfolk, it is bad luck to kill a Bishy Barnabee [Ladybird] - instead make a wish & let it go ... 🐞

#FairyTaleTuesday "It is the jewel of dead men to see the sun before they are buried." [Stella Riley] In some cultures the sun's rays were so important that the body of a person who had died during the night was not moved until the sun was fully risen. 🎨Arthur Hughes

Sad to hear of the death of Robert Redford - as well as making some wonderful films, he was a talented director and champion of independent film making. A great loss to the film industry. RIP #RobertRedford

#FairyTaleTuesday Creator Hare Michabo - a shapeshifting deity - was the grandson of the Moon. He rebuilt the earth after a great flood, creating humans by mating with a muskrat, according to Algonquin folklore. On clear nights, gazing up at the sky you may see the Moon Hare gazing back ...

#FairyTaleTuesday Caer Arianrhod - resting place of the Souls of the Dead until they are reincarnated ...

Looking forward to finding some old #thefilmcrowd regulars and discovering new ones on here.

#ShakespeareSunday "O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! My tables! - Meet it is I set it down That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." Hamlet

Did you know... there's a tiny Dracula statue hidden in Hungary? 🧛‍♂️ Perched just outside Budapest’s Vajdahunyad Castle - a building inspired by Transylvanian fortresses - this little bronze statue shows Count Dracula reading... Bram Stoker’s Dracula! 🦇

#FolkloreSunday "... walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and tides are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun." William Butler Yeats - Song of Wandering Aengus Apples - symbolic of autumn and sacred in many societies ... 🎨Thomas MacKenzie

#ShakespeareSunday "In time we hate that which we often fear ..." Antony and Cleopatra 🎨Francisco de Goya

Sam Neill is 78. Seen here, summing up how 2025 is making me feel.

"I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder." Harry Patch - The Last Fighting Tommy [died 2009 aged 111] #BookChatWeekly #BookSky

Our dog Milo enjoying himself on a fairly quiet Old Hunstanton beach today ... one fellow dog walker asked if he's a whippet cross - he's actually a jackapoo!! (Not sure we are convinced either!!) 😂

Visiting New York for the first time in 1980, one of my best memories is of going to the top of the World Trade Center. [My hazy photo does not do it justice!] My thoughts are with the those who died, the survivors and their family and friends who live with their trauma every day. #September11 🙏🙏

#WW3 😢

#WyrdWednesday During a 1578 plague outbreak in Norwich, one of the dead victims boarded up in a house was actually still alive. Forced by hunger to eat the flesh of her dead family, the little girl choked to death & was found by shocked neighbours. Her sad, ghostly figure still wanders Tombland ...

#LegendaryWednesday The Oak - "Father of the Woods" - was sacred to the Celts and its fruit, the Acorn, was a symbol of growth, regeneration and good fortune, as well as being a food source for wildlife. 11th century soldiers carried an acorn in their pocket to bring them luck in battle.

#WyrdWednesday It is said that if you circle - three times widdershins - the huge oak tree growing inside the ruined church at East Somerton [Norfolk] the ghost of a witch will appear. The oak is said to have sprouted from the wooden leg of the witch who was buried inside the church ...

#FairyTaleTuesday "I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear. When I brought him here, they asked me what to do with him, and my reply was, 'he should sit for a fellowship.'" Poet George Byron's response to Cambridge's ban on students keeping pet dogs ...

#NationalTeddyBearDay 🧸 The iconic Aloysius ...

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you ..." "'We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet. 'Even longer,' Pooh answered." A A Milne - Winnie the Pooh 🎨E H Shepard #BookChatWeekly #NationalTeddyBearDay #BookSky

#FairyTaleTuesday Bishop Beaver of Babingley ... honoured on the village sign!

"Bears aren't much good at history, They're rather bad at sums. They're even worse at sitting still 'Cos they've got slidey bums. A plushy rear has got no grip Upon a polished seat And that is why they fidget so - [But still, they're rather sweet]" Anon #NationalTeddyBearDay #BookSky

#MythologyMonday Contrary to popular belief, maps showing mythical creatures that the inhabit oceans [or ended up in them according to the Mabinogion] did not have "Here Be Dragons" written on them! 🎨Mabinogion [National Library of Wales] * Sebastian Münster MS * Carta Marina [detail] Olaus Magnus

#ShakespeareSunday "... And waving our red weapons o'er our heads Let's all cry, "Peace, freedom, and liberty!" Julius Caesar 🎨Eugène Delacroix

#ShakespeareSunday "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on ..." Othello

#FolkloreSunday #BookChatWeekly "... My stories are as old as the mountains and rivers That flow through the land they were born in They were told in the homes of peasants in rags And kings with fine clothes adorning ..." Mike Jones - The Storyteller 🎨Lachlan Page

#ShakespeareSunday "The ousel cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill ..." A Midsummer Night's Dream 🎨Margaret Petchell

#FolkloreSunday Anansi of West African folklore, once credited with creating the world, is a master storyteller. The mischievous arachnid enjoys spinning tales rather than webs, meddling in the affairs of both gods and humans and using his tricks to get others to do his work for him!

#BookWormSat "Il avait décidé de saluer d'abord en premier le lieu le plus sacré de la forêt, la fontaine de Barenton ... ... La grande réputation de magic qu'il y a en cette forêt ..." [The Fountain of Barenton, most sacred place in the magical forest] Claudine Glot - La Légende de Merlin