The Ghost Monk
Enthusiast of British (mainly) ghostlore, folklore and vintage ghost and weird fiction. Collector of Victorian/Edwardian popular magazines. Also keen on prehistoric monuments, old churches and medieval bits and pieces. Decidedly Q. All photos/scans mine.
- For @flackjd.bsky.social a couple of renditions of Hercule Poirot as he appeared in The Strand Magazine prior to book publication. The usually excellent Jack Faulks made him too glamorous in 1936 and 1938 but Ernest Ratcliff gave a truer likeness in 1939. #Poirot #AgathaChristie #crime #detection
- Another scan of a 1990s photo. The Nine Ladies (and another lady) in the #PeakDistrict in #Derbyshire. This circle is so cute it doesn't seem quite real: it could almost be an 18th Century folly set up near a grotto. #StandingStoneSunday #stonecircle #megalithic #Neolithic #prehistory #archaeology
- "O Great Ruler of the sky! Each of us makes prayer to Thee That thou will grant him the boon to be taken up this day." Georges Montard #illustration for Cutcliffe Hyne's story 'The Oldest Worship In The World' (Windsor Magazine, Nov 1897). Yes, I know it's horrid! @memizon.bsky.social #BookWormSat
- "And now as the sun boiled up at them they remembered a score of verses and quotations: 'The golden apples of the sun?' 'Yeats.' 'Fear no more the heat of the sun?' 'Shakespeare, of course!' 'Cup of Gold?' Steinbeck. 'Temperature?' 'One thousand degrees Fahrenheit!'" #BookWormSat #scifi #RayBradbury
- Quick yarn for #WyrdWednesday. Some time ago a 'spiritualist' plied his trade in one of my locals. He claimed to have 'detected' the spirit of a #Roman soldier. I pointed out the Romans never settled in our town. 'Oh,' he said. 'No, now I'm being told it's a roaming soldier.' Had to admire him.
- Just in case anyone took me too seriously with my last post - here are two more photos from Pompeii (which of course I visited and found fascinating, although Herculaneum is the real gem). There were prominent phalluses all over the place, which I was strangely drawn to... #WyrdWednesday #Romans
- What have the #Romans..? ask #WyrdWednesday. Answer: boring archaeology, that's what! Boringly straight roads to towns with the same grid plan, 1000s of forts that are all EXACTLY the same shape and all those villas with the same boring hypocausts and tesserae. No wonder Vesuvius blew its head off.
