Chris Woodyard

Goodnight from Janet Rathbone, instinctively leaning in from the family car’s passenger window as if the darkness outside might shatter it at any moment. Goodnight from Freda Dix, rearranging knickknacks on her mantlepiece in hope of apotropaic alignment. Goodnight from Hookland.

U is for Undertaker. #CemeterySaturday ▪️ An illustration for @chriswoodyard.bsky.social's book, "A is for Arsenic: an ABC of Victorian Death."

Day 6 of the #HooklandChristmasTree decoration and the Clapperclaw is taken from tin. No-one knows how the crow-headed figure came to be part of the dressing, but everyone is too afraid to suggest throwing it out. We give it a high branch for it talons to grip, let its glass eyes seek out new prey.

There hasn’t been a wild wolf in Hookland since 1483, but the land is long memory told in ghosts. The King’s Chase Forest has phantom pack. Wolves grown in size with each generation’s telling. Red-eyed, shadow-furred. They howl so we don’t forget our extinguishing sin. - #CLNolan

This illustration appears on a leaflet about the history of Lichfield Cathedral Close we’ve just found amidst some papers @lichdiscovered.bsky.social

What in the MR James is going on here?

A wren on a gold triptych

I’m doing a second auction for Patch, a local charity that provides food, cloths and toys for people in poverty. At Christmas time they gift toys to kids who’ve had a referral. What could be more in the spirit of Christmas? This little wren is up for auction to raise money for toys. Please dig deep

Black and white photograph of the half-finished Washington Monument in DC.

Begun in 1848, the Washington Monument was finally completed #onthisday in 1884. Although now iconic, its history was mired in controversy and committees. And it proved a magnet for the eccentric, the deluded, and the proto base-jumper.
hauntedohiobooks.com/news/washing...

The Hydrostone, a close-up image of a circular stone marker embedded in the pavement at the center of an intersection, commemorating the Halifax Explosion. The central circle is inscribed with "DECEMBER 6, 1917" and "THE END HC" (referring to The End of the Hydrostone Commission). Radial stone lines leading away from the center are engraved with the names of streets that meet there: "YOUNG ST." is visible to the upper left, and "HALIFAX EXP" (part of Halifax Explosion) is visible to the right.

Mont Blanc anchor site, Spinnaker. Dr.

Unidentified Dead Memorial, Bayers Road Cemetery

Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower park.

Halifax is a living memorial to what happened that day & in the days that followed the 1917 Halifax Harbour Explosion.

Take time to explore the monuments and memorials throughout the city. Visit Explosion in The Narrows: The 1917 Halifax Harbour Explosion at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Black cat dressed as crowned queen holding a sceptre and holly sprig in a tangle of heraldic leaves. Cover of The Black Cat magazine December 1896

A festive royal Black Cat for a December #Caturday.
The Black Cat, December 1896
www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commo...

A gigantic spooky figure rises up from nowhere, waving its claws at a terrified man in the remnants of a forest where many trees have been cut down, leaving just stumps behind.

Thanks again to all contributors to another phantasmagorical #PhantomsFriday! Particular congratulations to @chriswoodyard.bsky.social who absolutely stormed it with a single post (with a fascinating image I'd never seen before either).
Picture is 'The Incantation' by Anton Machek, 1931.

Goodnight from Daisy Magor, on shotgun patrol with husband and son in case any more spacemen from the Planet Skareg come floating across the fields of Greenhole Farm. Goodnight from David Gore, inking invitations to the spirits of Ashourt’s old Red Rookery. Goodnight from Hookland.

Man looks aghast at a transparent lady ghost standing by a chair that you can see through her.

I look at the figure as a joke by the Dutch medium claiming to have photographed it. Here's a transparent ghost from a 1902 newspaper. The story about the oranges was from 1908. The technology was there.

Day five of the #HooklandChristmasTree decoration and the Star Wraith haunts a branch. The hooded figurine, face and body made from constellations of enamelled stars, seems to float more than dangle. Oddly, the stars seem to have shifted position each time you look closely at it.

#ForteanFriday

No, no, you didn't. I just don't want to repeat it here and bring in more comments.

Bizarre figurine said to be a model of a ghost

#PhantomsFriday In 1908 The Metropolitan Psychical Society offered $5,000 to any medium who could get ghosts to count the oranges spilled behind him. In response, a Dutch author sent this photo, said to be of a ghost, and asked how he (and ghost) could be tested.
hauntedohiobooks.com/news/ghosts-...

I deleted it because commenters were making it political--I allow nothing political on my page.

Yes, I've written about that story in my Haunted Ohio series.

My "favorite" details in the case are that a) it took two (some say three) autopsies to notice the gunshot wounds and b) they put her head in a jar of preservative and sprang it on the jury.

An especially spooky picture: 'The Plague On The Stairs' by Theodore Kittelson, 1896.
#PhantomsFriday #gothic #Victorian #weird #weirdart #artsky

Art by Gustav Klimt. Painting of a swamp.

The sjoufert is a fiery ghost in Flemish folklore who often appears near swamps. In one tale, people who lived near a swamp whistled at him. They fled into their house as the very angry ghost flew behind them. He left four paw prints on their door that never disappeared.

#PhantomsFriday

The witch refuses winter as a sadness. Each season sings it own sorrows. Frost-brittle field still hold their magics. The sky is still a drama of nephomantic omens. There is no lack of thresholds. I shall save my tears for the wounding of the land. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Goodnight from Jonah Lidstone, cutting out monsters and Bone Horses from tin cans to adorn the family Christmas tree. Goodnight from Holly Grace, wondering if a whole bag of sherbet lemons is enough appeasement for the Punkle living in their shed. Goodnight from Hookland.

Red velvet #1930s dress via New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.

Day 4 of the #HooklandChristmasTree. We drape the Bell Hill Worm, remember legends of dragon-carved paths. The stuffed felt snake is an old friend. Its silver stitches glitter, its scales bounce faery light colours. When we turn away, it seems to slither to a different branch.

Cover of a book in the Nordic World series: FOLKLORE IN THE NORDIC WORLD, by Thomas A. DuBois

This has been a long time coming and I’m so glad it’s finally here!

Want an easy, short introduction to Nordic folklore? This is it! $17 from @uwiscpress.bsky.social !

uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/F/Folk...

For more stories of devilish levitation, see "Lord of the Fliers" hauntedohiobooks.com/news/lord-of...

B&w engraving of four bats. One is on a ledge, another is about to land. Two are in flight, under a crescent moon, stars and clouds. Trees frame the picture which is signed by the artist who gave it the title 'Bats'

"In the evening the bats weave soft black circles and their wings splash delicate ink upon the pale blue air..."
Joseph Auslander (1897-1965)
🎨 Eric Fitch Daglish (1894–1966)
#BookologyThursday

A photograph of a woman dressed in black mourning with a bonnet and veil and shawl, standing on a patterned pavement.

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Written on the reverse of this photograph, c. 1865, is the inscription: "MaryAnn Nelson in mourning which she wore for many years after the death of her daughter Marianna."
digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/coll...

A painting showing four small children, two with brown hair, and two with reddish hair, enveloped in brown and grey clouds. The oval painting is framed in a reddish wood frame.

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Heavenly Children, William Matthew Prior, c. 1850. Prior was a Spiritualist who "promised a true likeness of loved ones painted from the actual spirit of the deceased." The clouds suggested Heaven for the deceased children.
collection.folkartmuseum.org/objects/5419...