Paul Robichaud 🪨🐐

Cover depicting Pan blowing on his pipes.

‘Pan was always friendly to Man. That’s you and me you know. We may have changed a lot these last two thousand years; but that’s you and me still. Why, I’d let him come nosing in.’ — Lord Dunsany, ‘The Blessing of Pan’ (1926)

🎨 S.H. Sime

Painting of a deer in the forest at night.

In a Flemish folktale, a woman who was said to have been a thief during life haunted a town in the shape of a deer. The ghost deer would knock on doors and wait. Between her horns she carried an illegible text. She stopped appearing when someone deciphered the text.

🎨Eugen Krüger
#WyrdWednesday

Photo of Entrance of a rocky cave carved with dozens of circular grooves. Moorland and hills in background

The moors of Northumberland are dotted with hundreds of cup and ring carvings from 3000-5000 years ago. We don’t know what they mean. Maps? Boundary markers? Rituals? Blood sacrifices ?
@wyrdWednesday
#wyrdWednesday

Dr. John Holden faces one of the uprights at Stonehenge, realizing the runes carved there are identical to the ones on the parchment he holds.

‘It has been written, since the beginning of time, even unto these ancient stones, that evil, supernatural beings exist in a world of darkness.’ — 'Night of the Demon' (1957)

In the film, Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews) visits Stonehenge, and realizes that he faces an ancient evil. #WyrdWednesday

It is so cold in my college office today that I am wearing my winter coat and scarf. The heat in our main academic building has either been shut off or isn't working.

I now have what are probably the two most important books about fairies of the 1920s (both bloody hard to get hold of) 📚

A somewhat grizzled me standing in front of a blue plaque on a pink house.

Weird fiction author Arthur Machen was born #OTD in 1863. I stopped by his birthplace in Caerleon during my most recent visit to Wales in 2023.

Happy Birthday to Arthur Machen (3 March, 1863 – 15 December, 1947).

Upright stones against a green hill.

Side view of West Kennett Long Barrow, July 2023. #TombTuesday

Cover showing Cohen’s face above spinning record.

Now listening: Leonard Cohen, ‘Recent Songs’ (1979; 2017 reissue). An underrated Cohen album, in my opinion.

Thanks!

It looks great!

Rough Music, by Liz Williams; Perilous Deep by Karl Bell; Ghosts, Trolls and Hidden People, ed Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir

Arrived today — some recent folklore titles from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social!

Bénédiction des Érables
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté
1914

Figure with the head of a sun wielding a sword atop a white horse.

Leonora Carrington, ‘Solar Megalomania’ (1957). Perhaps a fitting archetypal image for our current moment.

Full moon, winter landscape at dusk, trees, stone circle, man walking by. Painting.

Goodnight.
🖼️ A Walk at Dusk, Caspar David Friedrich.

Album cover showing band above spinning record).

Currently listening: Clannad, ‘Clannad 2’ (1974; 1979 US pressing).

A winter view of a chamber tomb on a rocky headland

It wouldn't be #StandingStoneSunday & Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant without a picture of the incredible chambered tomb of Coetan Arthur on St David's Head 🥰

Browse our splendid #RCAHMW 3D model here: skfb.ly/pEKnE

📷 My own, 2023

Painting depicting women in flowing white gowns dancing hand in hand on lush grass around a tree, which sits in the centre of the scene. Painted in 1913. Thought to be inspired by the dancer Isadora Duncan.

🌿A Song of Spring
by Maximilian Lenz

Grass covered remains of a Roman ampitheatre.

Remains of the Roman amphitheatre in Caerleon, which I visited in 2023. The name Caerleon means ‘Fortress of the Legions.’

A giant serpent coils around a stone circle and worshippers turning to stone; in the centre a beam of light shoots.down from the sky.

🎨 Les Matthews, painting for the series ‘Children of the Stones’ (1977) #StandingStoneSunday

A sketch of Saint David on a hill with a dove descending.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus | Happy St David’s Day! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

🎨David Jones, ‘Dewi Sant,’ sketch (1940-49).

A 5000-year-old doorway!

◇ Seefin Passage Tomb, Wicklow Mountains

#archaeology #history #heritage #culture #Ireland #nature

Cat sleeping on sofa.

Henry enjoying his Saturday night.

The "this is fine" dog meme comic, but he's saying "so I have a book coming out".

*sigh*

I don't comment directly on politics or world events here, but let me for once express my complete and utter horror at more-or-less everything that has been happening since at least 2023.

Pan plays his flute while Chloe is returned to shore by her pirate kidnappers.

The god Pan can be a trickster when provoked. In the tale of ‘Daphnis and Chloe,’ Pan deliberately frightens the pirates who have kidnapped Chloe with terrifying noises. In response, the pirates ‘ran to arms, and called upon their invisible enemies to appear.’ #BookWormSat

🎨Marc Chagall

Told my dean and my department that I was stepping down as chair at the end of this year; I've done it for 16 years (not unusual where I teach) and it's time to hand over the reins. I'd also like a few years as a faculty member without an administrative role, something I've never experienced.

Folklore lenses the land with story. We take old corpse paths and wonder if the boneyard's iron gates will ward those spirits that did not find rest. We see first growth of bear garlic and think of Ghost Bear, hedge-priest medicine. To walk with folklore is to scuff up the strange. – #CLNolan

Twilight of the Twentieth Century - Culture, Living, Opinion, Paganism, Perspectives, Politics, Religion, U.S. Witchcraft & Pagan News - The Norse myths are laced with a melancholic focus on the end of an age. Karl Seigfried notes that today it also feels as though a way of living is passing. But just as Ragna...

The Norse myths are laced with a melancholic focus on the end of an age. Karl Seigfried notes that today it also feels as though a way of living is passing. But just as Ragnarök leads to a rebirth, so too might our own times – if we are willing to work for it.

wildhunt.org/2026/02/twil...

#pagan