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BookWormSat
@bookwormsat.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.3K following 420 posts
Celebrate literature every Saturday with BookWormSat. Hosted by @signemaene.com and @racheldeering.bsky.social
Weekly themes: https://signemaene.com/bookwormsaturday/
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bookwormsat.bsky.social
BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 6d
‘I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.’ ~ Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

This #BookWormSat celebrates the birthday of Charles Dickens with a day of wholly Dickens, more Dickens with a side of Dickens. Join us.
Frontispiece to edition of A Tale of Two Cities. Outdoor scene beneath a tree of group gathered around a table.
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lenaozge.bsky.social
FABULOUS NEWS! My poem "Wing Transplant" is going to be published in Issue 109 of the wonderful MSLEXIA! #poetry #poetrysky

www.mslexia.co.uk
February 9, 2026 at 5:26 PM
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theghostmonk.bsky.social
In a #Norwegian folk tale, a troll-hag, with disconnected head, made repeated attempts to entice chubby little Butterball into her sack with various gifts. But he always got the better of her and escaped with the gift. The illustration is by Theodor Kittelsen.
#WyrdWednesday #folklore #folktale
February 11, 2026 at 3:09 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"He led him over roads and paths, over mountains and hills. And all the while he slept"

(Anna Wahlenberg “Tomtarna” from “Bland tomtar och troll”)

🎨 John Bauer (1909)

#wyrdwednesday #goldenageofillustration #johnbauer
John Bauer’s Tomtarna: A man, eyes closed, stumbles forward as a troll guides him through a spectral, moon-washed landscape—‘over roads and paths, over mountains and hills.
February 11, 2026 at 11:00 AM
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ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'There, where the eagle dares not soar,
Soon shall the raven find a safe retreat.'

A little riddle from Robert Southey's 1794 poem 'The Death of Odin'. (See alt for more.)

#wyrdwednesday

#art Marc Chagall: The Raven Who Wished to Imitate the Eagle
Eagle is Rome, (Odin's) raven is the North. There was an idea (from Jordanes, in the 6th C.) that Goths were descended from Scandinavians. In Southey's poem, the perceived Northern liberty is contrasted with the imperial power of the Romans. The poem centers around Odin knowing he has to die, as it is his wyrd. Image: The Raven Who Wished to Imitate the Eagle by Marc Chagall, 1927/1930. A black-and-white etching depicting Aesop's fable. The eagle is flying in the night sky carrying a sheep in its claws. The raven is riding on the back of a sheep on the ground.
February 11, 2026 at 7:49 AM
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theghostmonk.bsky.social
Another of Kittelsen's engaging trolls from 'Norwegian Folk Tales' by Peter Christien Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe (1960).
#WyrdWednesday #folklore #folktale #trolls #faerie #Norway
A boy is startled by the sudden appearance of an enormously tall old man in a mountain landscape.
February 11, 2026 at 11:16 AM
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ninaantonia13.bsky.social
#WyrdWednesday Cautionary Scandinavian Ballad 'Knight Oluf & The Elves' tells how brave Oluf on the eve of his wedding refuses to dance with elves & fairies. He is cursed & shortly after dies, along with his bride & her mother. (art Gerda Wegener 1886-1940)
February 11, 2026 at 12:24 PM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“Owls are howling, loons are crying.
Ghosts haunt the land. Ghosts haunt the sea,
moaning and sighing,
weeping and keening.”

(From “Svartedauden”, Black Death - 🎨&✍🏻 Theodor Kittelsen, 1900)

#wyrdwednesday #goldenageofillustration #bookillustration #booksky
Theodor Kittelsen’s Svartedauden (1900): The personified plague - A skeleta, crone-like figure passes through a desolate village, mountains looming like tombstones
February 11, 2026 at 2:35 PM
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theasraidance.bsky.social
'In the middle of the tree there sat a sweet-looking old woman in a very strange dress. It was green, as green as the leaves of the elder tree, and it was trimmed with big white elder blossoms.'
~The Elder-Tree Mother

🖋️Hans Christian Andersen
🎨Arthur Rackham
#WyrdWednesday
Illustration of a woman in a tree, emerging from a small teapot. She is wearing a gown decorated with blossoms.
February 11, 2026 at 8:30 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"Then they both laughed heartily, as if they already had the lad on the stake."

(After Asbjørnsen “Norwegian Folktales”)

🎨 Erik Werenskiold (1887)

#wyrdwednesday #goldenageofillustration #bookillustration
Erik Werenskiold’s 1887 ink drawing: A hunched, gnarled figure and a woman share a conspiratorial laugh in the gloom—‘as if they already had the lad on the stake.’ Dark folklore, darker smiles.
February 11, 2026 at 6:00 PM
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theasraidance.bsky.social
'Sometimes they found forest fairies dancing and singing in the moonlight and joined in their games.'

'Children of the Forest' by Elsa Beskow
#WyrdWednesday
A forest under a full, smiling moon. Two small children play on a seesaw with several fairies, who are light, ethereal beings. They are being watched by two more children, some rabbits and a frog. The children wear red caps with white spots, resembling mushrooms.
February 11, 2026 at 1:15 PM
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21rosa.bsky.social
"Several good deeds, a wolf for a steed and a giant's heart hidden in a duck egg" - from a collection of 15 stories woven from old Nordic lore & published in Norwegian (1844). These ancient, uncanny tales were later accompanied by the spellbinding artwork of Danish artist Kay Nielsen #WyrdWednesday
The collection is, of course, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North" collected by Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretse. Copenhagen artist Nielsen illustrated the enchanting 1914 edition. This image is his & is from 'The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body' ('Jetten uten hjerte')
February 11, 2026 at 6:11 PM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“I do not know why it hurts me so, oh so much pain in my heart when I see the swans flying away.”

(Helena Nyblom “Svanhamnen”)

🎨 John Bauer

#wyrdwednesday #goldenageofillustration #bookillustration
John Bauer’s Ill till en saga: A golden-haired woman in ornate black robes watches swans take flight, their wings cutting through a sky of scattered hearts—‘oh so much pain in my heart when I see the swans flying away.’
February 11, 2026 at 9:00 PM
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folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social
#WyrdWednesday In his 1555 book 'History of the Northern Peoples' Olaus Magnus describes a giant sea serpent 90m long living in caves & seas around Scandinavia that would attack livestock on land & pluck sailors from their boats.

🎨 Sea Serpent (Sjøormen) by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen, 1892.
Drawing of a small boat on the ocean with a sail and four crew members. Three of them are falling about in terror while the fourth raises an oar to try to fend off a gigantic sea serpent rushing through the waves towards them with it's mouth open ready to attack. It has a long tongue, a hairy neck and fins down it's back. Part of it's length is draped over a small rocky island in the middle distance. A flock of seabirds flies above and in the distance are ice cliffs or icebergs.
February 11, 2026 at 7:54 PM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
When their ferry sunk on Lake Vättern in 1918, drowning artist John Bauer and his family, they said the Sea King had come to take his wife Ester Ellqvist-Bauer, She had modelled as “Agneta and the Merman” for John in 1911… a dark Scandinavian tale.

#WyrdWednesday #GoldenAgeofIllustration
Illustration by John Bauer: A regal woman in ornate dress, crowned with flowers, reaches toward a shadowy, elongated figure rising from the sea—a haunting, dreamlike encounter between human and otherworldly.
February 11, 2026 at 6:04 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“The King’s only daughter had been carried off by a Dragon”

(Grimm)

🎨 Arthur Rackham

#goldenageofillustration #booksky #bookillustration
"A dragon, all sinew and scale, clutches the king’s daughter mid-flight, her hair a wild banner against the beast’s monstrous form, while a distant castle stands mute witness to her abduction—Arthur Rackham’s haunting vision of ‘The Four Clever Brothers’."
February 9, 2026 at 6:04 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“A screech-owl with glowing eyes flew three times round her, and cried three times ‘Shu hu-hu.’”

(Grimm)

🎨 Arthur Rackham

#goldenageofillustration #booksky #bookillustration #owlishmonday
A screech-owl, its feathers etched like bark and its eyes twin embers, perches amid a tangle of skeletal branched in twilight—Arthur Rackham’s haunting omen from Jorinda and Joringel.
February 9, 2026 at 11:25 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“So then the Cook said: ‘To-morrow morning early, when the Forester goes out hunting, I am going to boil the water, and when it bubbles in the kettle, I am going to throw Fundevogel into it to boil him.’”

(Grimm)

🎨 Arthur Rackham

#goldenageofillustration #booksky #bookillustration
A hunched cook, her shawl draped like a shroud, stirs her pot with ill intent, while the doomed child, Fundevogel, lingers unseen in the creaking stairway’s gloom—Arthur Rackham’s chilling ink whispers the Grimms’ darkest kitchen secrets.
February 9, 2026 at 5:11 PM
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wyrdwednesday.bsky.social
Wyrdlings!

Swedish storyteller Elsa Beskow turns 152 this week, reason enough to give you:

“Sabaton, Snorri, Storsjöodjuret - Strange Scandi Stories!”

as this week’s #WyrdWednesday topic!

Come, tell tales, of elks, sea rovers and Nordic Noire!
February 9, 2026 at 6:28 PM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
Maximilian Liebenwein "The Libyan Princess" (c 1900)

Part of an AustrianArt Nouveau-inspired series of prints illustrating the Legend of St George.

#goldenageofillustration
A princess, crowned and cloaked in ermine, sits in quiet contemplation beside a slumbering chameleon-like dragon, its scales glinting like emerald ice, as winter’s breath and silent owls bear witness to Maximilian Liebenwein’s dream of St. George’s legend.
February 10, 2026 at 6:59 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“Art is not a luxury for the rich, nor a bauble for idle hours; it is the birthright of all, the record of our labour and the joy of our lives, woven into the fabric of our common days”, Walter Crane once wrote - read more about him on my blog blw.

wunderkammertales.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-...
The Velvet-Coated Socialist: of Walter Crane, Fine Lines Drawn for All and Fellowship Being Life
Walter Crane: Pre-Raphaelite spirit, socialist idealist, and master of toybooks who made ‘art for all’ his life’s work.
wunderkammertales.blogspot.com
February 8, 2026 at 6:03 AM
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rgeirsson.bsky.social
Skafloc and Uhtred and Grimnir, oh my!

A shout-out to some truly memorable Norse characters over at @reactorsff.bsky.social:

reactormag.com/five-unforge...
Five Unforgettable Norse Warriors in Historical Fiction and Fantasy - Reactor
Berserkers and shield-maidens, orcs and Vikings, and epic exploits...
reactormag.com
February 8, 2026 at 12:21 AM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“No wonder, sir;
But certainly a maid.”

(“The Tempest” 2.1)

🎨 Walter Crane

#goldenageofillustration #bookillustration #shakespearesunday
Ferdinand, wide-eyed and reverent, bows before Miranda, garbed in flowing gowns like a river of light, as spectral wings and shadowy boughs weave Shakespeare’s Tempest into Walter Crane’s haunting dream - with Prospero plotting in the shadows, of course.
February 8, 2026 at 12:10 PM
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
‘Oh! don’t be angry with me,’ cried the Princess, clasping her hands. ‘I’d rather marry all the dwarfs in the world than die in this horrible way.’

(“The Yellow Dwarf”, after Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy)

🎨 Walter Crane

#goldenageofillustration #booksky #bookillustration
February 8, 2026 at 6:03 AM
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blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
‘The toad winked an eye
into the side of his head,
unrolled his tongue
and snatchgulped slippery
the lozenge of a slug.’ 🐸

@racheldeering.bsky.social from ‘In the Shadow of Gods’.

www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering
February 8, 2026 at 10:05 AM
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racheldeering.bsky.social
A poem of mine, toadish, from In the Shadow of Gods. Have a read of it! 🐸
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social Black Bough Poetry @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social · 4d
‘The toad winked an eye
into the side of his head,
unrolled his tongue
and snatchgulped slippery
the lozenge of a slug.’ 🐸

@racheldeering.bsky.social from ‘In the Shadow of Gods’.

www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering
February 8, 2026 at 10:06 AM