Signe Maene

Sleep softly, dearest Frodo. You were loved and you will be missed so much. 🖤 We hope that you're dancing with mischievous faeries now, as you were an adorable, little hobgoblin yourself. You will forever remain in our broken hearts. 💔 We're devastated.

...telling folktales...

‘About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white.’ ~ Ancient Mariner, Coleridge. Tomorrow’s #BookWormSat visits the crossroads of the uncanny, the liminal and the supernatural thresholds of literature. Join us there.

My little witch. 🖤

'...the wretched Don Juan drew a sigh; a second would have followed, but Heaven no longer could tolerate the agonies of innocence, and stopped his heart for ever.' -Richard Cumberland, The Poisoner of Montremos. 🎨Théodore Géricault #BookWormSat

"The day she was buried..., I said to myself - 'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills ME, and if she be motionless, it is sleep.'" - Emily Brontë, "Wuthering Heights" 🎨Fritz Eichenberg #BookWormSat #BookChatWeekly

“Every step they took was on a dead body; and the bleached bones rattled horribly beneath their feet. In the centre of the vault rose a heap of unburied skeletons whereon was seated a figure too awful for even the darkest imagination to conceive.” - The Spectre Bride, 1822, Anon #BookWormSat #gothic

The handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Bleak House #BookWormSat

"The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvellous physical influences connected with life". 'Carmilla' Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) 🎨'Gothic Ruin by Moonlight' T. L. Rowbotham #BookWormSat

‘Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm.’ ~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. #BookWormSat 🪦⛪️⚰️ 🖼️ Herbert Edward Peart, 1924.

‘The sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the grey air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep; And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream...’ ~ Shelley #BookWormSat

"This voice of heaven thrilled us,–we seemed the pioneers of darkness, on the very frontiers of hell.” (Charles Robert Maturin "Melmoth the Wanderer", 1820) 🎨 Ernst Ferdinand Oehme (1828) #Bookwormsat

A gothic delight, via Cumbria 🦇 "The corpse of Herman they contrive To the same sepulchre to take, And thro' both carcases they drive, Deep in the earth, a sharpen'd stake!" ~ The Vampyre, 1810 by John Stagg #bookwormsat

'...I wished but this — that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. -Charlotte Brontë #BookWormSat

Remember the country into which you are going. There are ruins in England... You will now proceed in exact accordance with every rule of romance. The drawbridge will be let fall, the portcullis be thrown up... Northanger Abbey Jane Austen #BookWormSat 🖼️ Turner

'The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance--all strewn with crumpled playbills.' -Henry James @signemaene.com welcomes you to today's Gothic #BookWormSat.

A fungus (Agaricus cerussatus): three fruiting bodies. Watercolour, 1865.

In Flemish folklore there are a lot of stories about the Hellish Hunt. And when you see the sky turning red like this, you understand why. According to a favourite, the sky became an eerie spectacle when the body of the witch was carried through the sky while phantasmal beings sang church songs.

'Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!' -Emily Brontë Join #BookWormSat this Saturday for a day of Gothic Literature! 🎨Rovina Cai

October is the season of the duck. 🧹

'I know of the leafy paths that the witches take Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake' -W. B. Yeats 🎨Walter Crane #BookWormSat

There came a day that caught the summer Wrung its neck Plucked it And ate it Now what shall I do with the trees? The day said, the day said. Strip them bare, strip them bare. Let’s see what is really there. … There came this day and he was autumn… There came a day Ted Hughes #BookWormSat 🍂 🖼️ Klimt

#BookWormSat "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" ~John Keats

‘The smoke's smell, too, Flowing from where a bonfire burns The dead, the waste, the dangerous, And all to sweetness turns. It is enough To smell, to crumble the dark earth, While the robin sings over again Sad songs of Autumn mirth.’ Digging, Edward Thomas. #BookWormSat 🍂🍁

I have this eerie premonition that my next hobby will be taking pictures of flies.

‘The feather from the ravens breast
 Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crows nest
Fall pattering down the tree’ ~ Autumn, John Clare. 🍂 Tomorrow’s #BookWormSat embraces the season with autumn in literature. Bring all your fallen leaves and join us. 🍁

'...she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red.' -Laurie Lee. 🎨Julien Dupré #BookWormSat

"What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream Shall with its murmur lull me into rest? The earth is all before me." -- From 'The Prelude' by Wordsworth #BookWormSat #poetry

‘Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree.’ ~ Emily Brontë. @racheldeering.bsky.social here for the rest of a rural #BookWormSat

"It was now the full, pale light of morning; the weather was grey, indeterminate, the sea had an oily, sinister look, a gloomy day on which to die." (Angela Carter "The Bloody Chamber") 🎨 Alejandra Acosta

‘We sought the hollow ash that was shelter from the rain With our pockets full of peas we had stolen from the grain How delicious was the dinner time on such a showry day O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away The ancient pulpit trees and the play’ ~ John Clare #BookWormSat

Luckily, Lohengrin was nowhere to be seen!

According to magpies, the best place to have an argument is on a sheep's back.

Very superstitious by @willowwinsham.bsky.social has been on my reading list for quite some time, so I was very happy to find this beautiful book in the wild! 🐈‍⬛🐾 The lovely illustrations and mini-chapters make it the perfect companion to pick up during breaks!

SHIP!

Our garden resident practising high beam walking. 🦔🖤

‘But he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may, Because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away.’ ~ Yeats, Red Hanrahan’s Curse. #BookWormSat 🖼️ Charles Caryl Coleman, 1889.

'Moon Foxes' - in celebration of today's full moon here are three moon foxes basking in the light of a full moon's glow 🦊🌀🌕 #FoxMoon #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay

"Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will." Poet & polymath Novalis was born #otd 1772. 🎨 Caspar David Friedrich "The Dreamer" (1835)

O! I can feel the cold earth upon me—the daisies growing over me—O for this quiet—it will be my first. – John Keats on his deathbed in 1812, as reported by his friend Joseph Severn. #bookwormsat

Third German Art - Trade Exhibition from Dresden May to Oct 1906.

The spring comes... 'O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.' -John Clare @signemaene.com welcomes you to #BookWormSat! 🪻🌼

'Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.' -Robert Frost Tomorrow, #BookWormSat celebrates Beltane with the theme flowers. Join us! 🌸🌼🪻 🎨Anna Billing