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theghostmonk.bsky.social
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. Runs #PhantomsFriday
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Near Llangollen is Dinas Bran, the conical hill to the right of my photo with its ruined #castle. It features in an old French poem, Fouke Fitz Warin. This tells of Goemagog, a tyrannous giant who lived in the castle. The noble knight Payn Peverel fought and slew the monster. #LegendaryWednesday

submitted 2 hours ago • 0 comments

As well as its medieval stained glass, Llanasa Church also possesses some really lovely modern panels, designed by Recclesia, based in Chester. They commemorate local conservationist Edward Howaston and were installed in 2010. #WindowsOnWednesday #windowwednesday

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

One of the stained glass windows in the 15thC parish church of Llanasa in Flintshire. It is thought to have been brought from the nearby Basingwerk Abbey at the Dissolution. An earlier church on the site was at the centre of the worship of St Asaph before the cathedral was built. #WindowsOnWednesday

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One of the first mistress-criminals in literature was Madame Sara, created by L T Meade & Robert Eustace in a series which ran in The Strand in 1902/3. With a penchant for stealing jewels and sellable documents, she ran rings round the two men who tried to bring her to justice. #WyrdWednesday

submitted 4 hours ago • 0 comments

My two favourite villains of the screen: The Master as played by Roger Delgado and Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein. #WyrdWednesday #Hammer #HammerHorror #DoctorWho #DrWho

submitted 5 hours ago • 1 comment

Hans Flato, 1923. “US Souvenir Program “The Grand Guignol,” Frolic Theatre. #illustration #ephemera #1920s #HansFlato #TheGrandGuignol

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Wow! And one I've never seen. Now which of my followers is it who likes #lighthouses?

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Probably the most horrific story ever printed in The Strand was 'The Head' (1907) about the insane owner of a waxworks. Credited to Mrs Hubert Bland, the married name of Edith Nesbit, whose children's serial 'The Enchanted Castle' was in the same issue under her usual byline. #BookChatWeekly #horror

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Happy Pride to all my fellow anxious gays out there! 🏳️‍🌈 #mothman #LGBTQ #PrideMonth #cryptid #digitalart #cryptidcore #anxious #gay #spooky

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In 1903 Pearson's Magazine published 'The Invisible Force', a brilliant sci-fi / disaster story by Fred M White. Electricity is becoming the norm for lighting but the cables are placed too close to the network of gas pipes. A spark - and all that gas explodes under London. #BookChatWeekly #scifi

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The pair of #Neolithic chambered tombs at Presaddfed, Bodedern, #Anglesey / #YnysMon. This is the only photo I managed to take without the bullocks grazing in the field nosing round me. #TombTuesday #archaeology #prehistory #standingstones

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More giant #spiders, this time from 'The Pioneers Of Pikes Peak' by Basil Tozer (The Strand, Sept 1897). The 14,000+ft high Pikes Peak, Colorado, was climbed as early as 1820 so I'm not sure how believable readers found this #cryptozoology adventure yarn. #monsters #spider #BookChatWeekly

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'The Spider of Guyana' by the French duo Erckmann-Chatrian. From The Strand, January 1899, illustrated by Paul Hardy. (The story appears elsewhere under the title 'The Crab Spider' but whether this is a different translation I'm not sure). #MonsterMonday #monster #spider #spiders #BookChatWeekly

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Starting the week with something cheerful: here is 'Playing Faun' by Louis Moe. #MythologyMonday #fairy #faerie #legend #artsky

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Kneale's 1952 radio play You Must Listen also feels like a prototype for The Stone Tape, with telephone engineers tackling the issue of a solicitor's faulty phone line. (SPOILER: the fault is that it's haunted.) #stonetapelive

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

'Followed', published in The Strand Magazine in 1900, is an absurd but typically imaginative story by the prolific L T Meade. The climax takes place in #Stonehenge when the heroine realises she's being pursued by a huge venomous snake - sent by the villain to kill her. #StandingStoneSunday #horror

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

#StandingStoneSunday Laughtor Man #Dartmoor

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Morbid Monday: my Weird Tales collection.

submitted 9 days ago • 6 comments

I shall just leave this here for #BookWormSat. (Scanned VERY gingerly from my 1928 first edition of The House At Pooh Corner. Oh and BTW, I don't get any fatter, either - I don't care what people say!)

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

‘Suppose you do open the beaches for the Fourth, Larry,’ said Brody. ‘And suppose someone gets killed.’ ‘It’s a calculated risk, but I think – we think – it’s worth taking.’ ‘Why?’ ~ Jaws (1974), Peter Benchley. #BookWormSat #Jaws50

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

"It is after eleven now. I shall be gone in less than an hour. But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad." August Heat William Fryer Harvey #BookWormSat (summer)

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A comically romantic story by P G Wodehouse with a black cat central to the drama was published in the June 1915 edition of The Strand Magazine. #Caturday

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"What am I going to do? If I killed myself - I have thought of that - but the idea that I should be with him is an illusion... He was in here with me?" "Yes." She was crying again. Out in the garden he could see the boy, swinging agile on the apple branch. A S Byatt - 'The July Ghost' #BookWormSat

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Well, I was afraid I'd be standing like a lost soul in a lonely graveyard but I'm thrilled with the number of people who joined me for #PhantomFriday. Thanks all! But it turns out that tag has been taken (by aviation fans) so it'll be the less catchy #PhantomsFriday - with an 's' - going forward...

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments