Coffin Boffin

Absolutely thrilled that our @ogomproject.bsky.social book won the Justin D. Edwards award @igagoths.bsky.social conference. Big thankyou to the IGA and all those on the awarding panel. This really does mean a lot!!!

VINTAGE HALLOWEEN cards, marking #FairytaleTuesday and #31DaysofHalloween with style! Black Cats, Witches & Bugaboo Bats!

NOSFERATU is close to the Greek word 'nosforos', meaning ‘plague bearer’. In the film the #vampire has his teeth set at the front of his mouth like the plague rats he brings in his wake. Vampirism & plague are symbolically combined in the metaphor of vermin characterised by RATS #31DaysofHalloween

VAMPIRES: TWO CENTURIES OF GREAT VAMPIRE STORIES Doubleday 1987 ed. Alan Ryan. Edward Gorey cover. In the pages of this treasured book in all their glory, are some of the great #vampires in literature, male & female, invisible & metaphoric, doomed & daring! #31DaysOfHalloween

VINTAGE HALLOWEEN FAIRIES Fairies and goblins were once as likely to be found on #Halloween cards as vampires and witches!! At a time when the veil between our world & the shadow world is extremely thin there are likely to be encounters between humans & #fairies #31daysofhalloween

SAMHAIN At Samhain, the dead & the #fairies are one, indulging in their furious revelry #31DaysofHalloween #SpookySunday. Image: Alan Lee

YEATS & VAMPIRES The poet W. B. Yeats read about #vampires in Ennemoser's History of Magic 1852. Vampires feature in his poem 'Oil and Blood' 'Under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet' #31DaysOfHalloween

BECOMING A VAMPIRE does not always involve being a victim of bloodsucking. The myriad ways one can become a #vampire according to Romanian folklore include: dying unmarried, dying a suicide, dying unforgiven, having the shadow of a person fall on your corpse #31DaysofHalloween

WAKE NOT THE DEAD (1823) Brunhilde is restored from beyond the grave at the instruction of her grieving husband. Turning #vampire, she preys on her own children in imitation of female demon Lilith. German vampire tale by Ernst Raupach #31daysofHalloween

VAMPIRE VOYAGE Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, botanist to King Louis XIV of France, travelled to Levant in 1700 in search of plants for the Royal garden, but found instead a plague of vampires and a Greek vampire epidemic on the island of Myconos #31daysofHalloween #wyrdwednesday

THE VAMPIRE by Rudyard Kipling. A haunting & macabre poem in which a hapless young man is beguiled by a female #vampire who appears in a scarlet shroud. Striking bat motif and limited edition Boston, 1898 #31daysofhalloween

A THIN #GHOST Is one of my favourite book titles. The original decorative cloth cover with spider's web design published by Edward Arnold in 1919 is as ghoulishly good as M. R. James's writing. A #gothic gem of a book #SpookySunday #Booksky #31daysofHalloween

WITCHY CAT NAMES PYEWACKET is the name of a witch's familiar found by witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins, 1644. GRIMALKIN another witchy name derives from 'grim' grey, 'malkin', a hare or spinster; Graymalkin is the witches' familiar in Shakespeare's Macbeth #FolkloreSunday #31daysofHalloween

THE PARASITE An 1894 novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a psychic #VAMPIRE Miss Penelosa, a small pale creature who practices mesmerism & the evil eye & transforms into a monstrous parasite who creeps into her victim’s form #31daysofHalloween #bookwormsaturday #booksky

NOSFERATU 1922 When the #vampire enters the room, the arch of the door fits him exactly like a coffin. Each threshold is a passage towards death. At sunrise an innocent being will hold him in her power until the first crow of the cock #31daysofhalloween

A BEAUTIFUL VAMPIRE Lady Deverish drains the life force of her entire family, including her dog, to remain young and beautiful. Amazingly this little known #Vampire story was published as early as 1896 by Arabella Kenealy, it predates Dracula #31daysofHalloween #Gothtober

BOOK OF SHADOWS A guide for #witches containing beliefs, symbols, rituals, lore, incantations, spells, divination methods, sabbat rites etc. Gerald B. Gardner, father of modern Witchcraft, claimed to have inherited a fragmentary book of shadows in 1939 #WyrdWednesday

VAMPIRE HEARTS In historical accounts of vampirism the heart is often taken out & burned or reduced to ashes. This 1896 newspaper cutting about the hearts of the New England #Vampires was found in Stoker's working papers for #Dracula from the year he visited NY #31daysofHalloween

IGNIS FATUUS or Will o’ the Wisp. A corpse candle that haunts pathways with a flickering light. This phenomenon is used in Bram Stoker's #Dracula; a flickering blue flame is seen by Harker on his carriage journey through the wolf-infested forest to Castle Dracula #31daysofHalloween #Spooktober

LILITH 1895 #Vampire novella by George MacDonald who inspired Tolkien & the Inklings. Mr Vane ventures through a mirror into another world where he encounters the immoral desires of #vampire Lilith and the satanic shadow that manipulates her #Spooktober

IRISH MYTH of FALLEN FAIRIES 'FAIRIES are the FALLEN angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride. Some fell into the sea & some on dry land & the devil gives these knowledge & power ' Lady Wilde, 187I #MythologyMonday #31daysofHalloween

"The Bat-Woman" 🎨 Alfredo Edel (1890) #Spooktober

DRACULA NOTEBOOKS Stoker’s handwritten #Dracula notebooks were sold to Sotheby's in 1913 ( now held in the Rosenbach Museum). The novel is the result of 7 years research. The page where he works out the attributes of his #vampire is endlessly fascinating for writers & scholars #31daysofHalloween

TREATISE on VAMPIRES & REVENANTS By Calmet, a Benedictine Monk who lived through the European #vampire epidemic in the eighteenth century. It was translated across Europe as The Phantom World in 1850. Image is my 1993 reprint with cover illustration by Frank Papé #SpookySunday #31daysofHalloween

A dramatic scene from the six-volume 'Casquet Of Literature' compiled by James Gibbon and Marie Elizabeth Christie in 1895. Anyone like to guess the story? I suppose some website could find it but I prefer human interaction (as apposed to AI or ghostly!) #SpookySunday #Ghost

"The Evening" 🎨 Charles Dana Gibson (1899) #SpookySunday #Spooktober

A-Yokai-A-Day for October 11 Plenty of scary stories feature premonitions of one's own death. However, not too many of them feature children predicting their own posthumous funerary name. 📜✍️ #ayokaiaday www.patreon.com/theyokaiguy/...

VAMPIRES & SUNLIGHT #31DaysofHalloween There is no precedence in folklore for the idea that #vampires burn up in sunlight. This trait comes to us via film, arriving as an iconic moment in F. W. Murnau's 'Nosferatu' 1922. 🎨 Vampire Burning at Dawn, Hernan Conde de Boeck; Orlok #SpookySunday

BEWARE of FAIRY FOOD on #HALLOWEEN It is transformed by their use of GLAMOUR & is likely made up of weeds or rotten fruit. Fairies themselves prefer stalks of heather & the milk of red deer. 🎨Fairy Banquet: Rackham #FolkloreSunday

HISTORY OF VAMPIRES The Histoire des vampires et des spectres malfaisans (1820) was written by French demonologist Jacques-Albin-Simon Collin de Plancy & based on prior 18th-century treatises, local European folklore, and historical #vampire panics #31daysofHalloween Image: second edition, 1820.

This looks epic. Would love to present something on Polidori for this!

DRACULA NOTEBOOKS Stoker’s handwritten #Dracula notebooks were sold to Sotheby's in 1913 ( now held in the Rosenbach Museum). The novel is the result of 7 years research. The page where he works out the attributes of his #vampire is endlessly fascinating for writers & scholars #31daysofHalloween

IS THIS THE FIRST VAMPIRE FILM The Devil's Manor, or The Haunted Castle, a 3-minute silent film released in 1896 in France (Le Manoir du Diable) by the Lumière brothers, inventors of the motion picture projector & Georges Méliès. It shows the vampire as bat!

1732 THE YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE 12 books and four dissertations were written on the vampire in this year. Flückinger's Visum er Repertum (Seen or Discovered) documented a vampire outbreak in Serbia; a full scale vampire panic erupted & the term 'vampire' entered the English language #WyrdWednesday

“…but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher.” (Edgar Allan Poe “The Fall of the House of Usher”, 1839) 🎨 Harry Clarke #WyrdWednesday

"A Corpse Awakening : Ligeia Risen From Her Bed Of Death." The Illustrated London News 18.12.1909. #WyrdWednesday

'The Boundary Of Life And Death By Edgar Allan Poe' as presented by Alberto Martini. #WyrdWednesday #EdgarAllanPoe #Poe #31DaysOfHalloween

VAMPIRE FAIRY TALE Marusia is courted by a young man who she later sees feeding on a corpse laid out in the church. Falling victim to the #vampire she's buried at a crossroad & blooms again as a flower. Afanasev, Tales 1855-67 #31DaysOfHalloween #FairyTaleTuesday

OLDER THAN DRACULA: in search of the English vampire. An article of mine from the archive!! #31daysofHalloween theconversation.com/older-than-d...

What would you do if you woke up in a hotel and there was a shadowy figure looming over your bed? 🛌🦊 Tonight's story is great nightmare fodder! A-Yokai-A-Day: A Matter in Which It Is Hard to Say There Was No Yōkai #ayokaiaday www.patreon.com/theyokaiguy/...

VAMPIRE FAIRY TALE Marusia is courted by a young man who she later sees feeding on a corpse laid out in the church. Falling victim to the #vampire she's buried at a crossroad & blooms again as a flower. Afanasev, Tales 1855-67 #31DaysOfHalloween #FairyTaleTuesday

JULES VERNE'S TOMB (1907) The monument, created by sculptor Albert Roze, shows the writer as a #revenant or returner from beyond the grave, reaching towards the sky. Its face was modelled on his death mask. Image: Amiens, France. #WyrdWednesday

1732 THE YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE 12 books and four dissertations were written on the vampire in this year. Flückinger's Visum er Repertum (Seen or Discovered) documented a vampire outbreak in Serbia; a full scale vampire panic erupted & the term 'vampire' entered the English language #WyrdWednesday

I love this theme, though strictly speaking vampires are undead; zombies are the living dead!

TREATISE on VAMPIRES & REVENANTS By Calmet, a Benedictine Monk who lived through the European #vampire epidemic in the eighteenth century. It was translated across Europe as The Phantom World in 1850. Image is my 1993 reprint with cover illustration by Frank Papé #SpookySunday #31daysofHalloween

EVERY AGE GETS THE DRACULA IT NEEDS 3 of the best covers #31daysofHalloween Penguin, 1979, shows Dracula the #vampire escaping his coffin; Modern Library edition, 1932, shows the Count as a member of high society; Constable, 1916, #Dracula as a bat-like creature scaling the walls of his castle

WIDDERSHINS means moving counter clockwise; this inversion of the natural order was associated with the devil and witchcraft. In this image #WITCHES delight in flying widdershins around North Berwick church with their broomsticks #FolkloreSunday #31daysofHalloween