Goodnight from Dom Holden, shuddering from the knowledge of which garage doors on the Bartlett Estate hide carbon monoxide phantoms. Goodnight from Bos Wyke, holding vigil in Scritch Woods against both poachers and Woodwose hungry before its winter sleep. Goodnight from Hookland.

My heart is always happier when my feet – unsteady as they are – take their first few steps into the wood. For the woodland path curves to mystery, curves towards the possibility of feral strangeness. Each visit replenishes my store of wonder, whispers new stories. – #CLNolan,

You can inherit him.

The pews of English churches are wooden bestiary. A carved chronicling of all the country's imagined animals. Here are dragons! Here are antlered dormice, here are winged hares! Prayers distracted by wonderful beasts. – Lucy Hay, architectural historian, 'Wooden Wonders', BBC Two, 1979

Mrs. S. making disapproving sounds about to ight’s Goodnight from Hookland. Usually means it’s sufficiently creepy and unpleasant.

I am not for ruinenlust for its own sake. I am only entranced only by those ruins which even in their obsolescence still hold stories. Stones that in decay still tithe the imagination. A ruin becomes good to me when it has not only ghost, but blood-soaked lore. – #CLNolan

A pussed off ginger fat on a deckchair.

You are going to take my chair away aren’t you? You’re a bastard. I won’t forget this for at least 16 days. #Cats

The crow then followed us for a quarter of a mile, occasionally talking to us.

Thank you. You will love knowing that the crow was warning us about a prowling fox. I believe the crow was shouting: ‘Egg-stealer! Egg-stealer!’

Goodnight from Catewynd Point, where Kip Bartlett is keeping watch in hope of glimpsing the ghost ship SS Erotic Charlotte. Goodnight from Frankie Fairburn, explaining to his nephew that if you pay taxes to Faery you don’t have to involve Her Majesty’s lot. Goodnight from Hookland.

… mind you, we call them Mire Maids.

Funny that you mention bog hags …

Nope. As this is a collaborative light novel, there is no possibility of Solomoning even entirely fictional firstborns.

Shitposting just means your copy is going to cost $20 at least.

Well then Mr. Brown, do you want to tell him or shall I?

Crow on gravestone as seen through a rain bejewelled spiderweb.

I believe this is a winner in the #goth eye spy game - crow on gravestone as seen through a rain bejewelled spiderweb.

DRACULA BUSES When the British Board of Film Censors introduced the H Certificate – the H standing for Horrific – in 1932 in response to Todd Browning’s Dracula and James Whale’s Frankenstein, it had an unintended consequence in Hookland. Forever addicted to petty power, many of its local councils used their devolved competency to ban the showing of any film with an H certificate. Notably both the councils of the county town of Corsham and the cathedral city of Weychester strictly enforced their right to prevent people indulging in some mild cinematic fright. Given Hook landers love for monsters and their well-known disregard for rules, it was perhaps inevitable that the Dracula Buses would come into existence. Organised by Hungarian émigré János Daruvár, every Friday night a chartered bus could be found in both Coreham and Weychester to take their citizens across the council border and into Ashcourt to view H certificate movie – given that Ashcourt Urban District Council took a much more relaxed approach to what its citizens could be exposed to. Known locally as the ʻDracula Buses’, the eccentric Daruvár was happy to thicken his East European accent and wear a cape when driving one of the vehicles which led to him becoming something of a minor celebrity in the county. Local newspaper repors across the decades never fail to mention the party atmosphere on the Dracula Buses and the entertainment ʻCount Daruvár’ would provide to passengers if vehicle broke down on the way to or from a midnight horror showing. The two Tilling ST buses Daruvár bought from London in 1933 remained in service right up until the late 1970s, when the antique red double-decker buses made for a bizarre sight when sporting destinations such as The Exorcist of The Texas Chainshaw Massacre – which were both banned in Weychester and Coreham. One of the buses was even said to be haunted by a passenger who had died from delayed fright after catching the bus to see The Devil Ride’s Out in 1968.

An entry from the #HooklandEncyclopædia, this time on Dracula Buses and the censorship of #horror films. Also, context for later tonight.

The land is long memory. The land is layers of story. Its ghost soil cracks and releases spirits. Our navigations across it will always bring encounters with the strange. – #CLNolan

Goodnight from Jennie Hoar, feeling the swell of nausea every time she contemplates her secret dealings with the Grinning Man being exposed. Goodnight from Georgie Ash, learning the divinatory language of thrown bones instead of doing her French homework. Goodnight from Hookland.

Ashcourt Docks nick is one of the most haunted places I know. It is more than the deaths in custody, the abject despair and grief it's seen. There's something about it that traps pain and anger in its bricks. I feel sorry for every copper and villain crossing its threshold. – #DICallaghan

Close on rusted steel, sea horizon visible through a circular hole cut through it.

@cultauthor.bsky.social
Rust never peeps (sorry)
#photography (phone snap)

Bloody love that one.

The witch walking is a witch having a conversation with the land. A chart of the paths she takes is telling of genii locorum, places where the ghost soil speaks loudest. Her feet scuff up stories, her feet scuff up spirits. Each navigation is sorcery. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Worn not warn, but you knew exactly what I meant and there is no need to be a pisspuffin about it.

It is Hookland. There is no ‘spooky season’. Spooky is the county’s default setting because it is the English gothic, the English strange. The weird is not a costume to be warn only once a year.

@ghostwoods.bsky.social

The longer you spend in the county, the easier it is to recognise a Wood Sprite's home tree. Even without offerings, there's a palpable sense of being watched, an atmosphere of potential ambush. What some Hooklanders call: 'an air of ancient unease'. – #MattAdams

You are of course, right. Thank you. Appreciated.

Thank you mate.