Rachel Deering
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racheldeering.bsky.social
Rachel Deering
@racheldeering.bsky.social
22K followers 8.1K following 15K posts
Onemorething on ABCtales, Bath Poet. First collection Crown of Eggshell pub. 2020. @BookWormSat w/ Signe Maene. Literature, art, myth, folklore, the gothic. Left wing. 🇪🇺 She/her 🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Ally https://linktr.ee/rachel_deering
https://ko-fi.com/kofisupporter68929
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racheldeering.bsky.social
Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · Dec 23
Please review my collection on Amazon or Goodreads if you have been lovely enough to buy it. It really helps. www.goodreads.com/book/show/21... In the Shadow of Gods amzn.eu/d/gRaCt0j
Reposted by Rachel Deering
drewgum.bsky.social
And that’s a lovely birthday present, a new review of Saltburn. 😊😍 from @penofryandennis.bsky.social
Reading Saltburn, as with all of Gummerson's books, is like having a best friend with you...one that will say outrageous things, continually surprise you, and never let you get sick of them. I highly recommend it.
January 2, 2026 at 3:13 PM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Goodnight.
A nisse, a hare, snow scene.
Jan Bergerlind. (Swedish,1950)
Painting as described; log cabins in snow, foot prints from cabin to cabin, little nisse making his way across snow, little hare watching, moon, cloudy sky, forest in background.
January 5, 2026 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"Out in the woods she saw others, walking stooped with a lantern held before them, one first, then two, three, on the old path that led through the forest to the old minsters on the great river and further away, to Jacob’s grave in the far West."

www.tumblr.com/whatthecrowt...
Post by @whatthecrowtold · 1 image
💬 0  🔁 0  ❤️ 0 · We tread softly tonight, O my best beloved, on the threshold of Epiphany. Times are still not quite canny and before the merriments of Twelfth Night, spirits may walk in the cold t…
www.tumblr.com
January 5, 2026 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"For beings more extraordinary than owls inhabited the old castle."

(E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen "River Legends". Ill- Gustave Doré, London, 1875)

#OwlishMonday
A dramatic black-and-white engraving in Gustave Doré’s richly detailed style. The scene shows a group of men clambering desperately down the crumbling exterior of an ivy-covered ruin, some dangling from ropes or vines, others scrambling across rocks and ledges. At the top of the composition, framed in a tall arched window, stands a looming, shadowy owl-like figure whose round, bright eyes shine eerily from the darkness within. The contrast between the frantic figures and the still, watchful creature creates a sense of uncanny menace in this overgrown, fairy-tale ruin.
January 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
Silent processions walk tonight on the Eve of Epiphany, so they say, made of the living and the dead.

Join those at your own peril, but we may at least watch them in a forest somewhere in Germany, in our 36th #yulefolklore story below!

🎨 Robert Paterson
January 5, 2026 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
signemaene.com
'Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.'
-Robert Frost

🎨Louis Apol
Painting of a snow-covered forest. Rising or setting sun makes the whole scene rather enchanting.
January 5, 2026 at 12:52 PM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Owl, William Holbrook Beard, 1889. #OwlishMonday
Owl perched on branch of tree, oak foliage, illustration.
January 5, 2026 at 7:38 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Monday plans:
🖼️ Kristina Kemenikova
Mouse in bed with laundry hanging over, wood burner on one side, cupboard with plant on other side. Above ground there is brown grass and white flowers. Illustration.
January 5, 2026 at 7:19 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel.
Frog and toad wrapped up warm in green winter clothes, they are stood with a snowman in the shape of a frog, illustration
January 5, 2026 at 7:12 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
January, Edith Holden.
JANUARY Named from the Roman god Janus, who is represented with two faces looking in opposite directions, - as retrospective to the past, and prospective to the coming year.= Jan. I. New Year's Day Janb. Twelfth Day. Epiphany " Then came old January, wrapped well In many weeds to keep the cold away Tet did he quake and quiver like To quell And blewe his nayles to warm them if he may; For they were numbed with holding all the day, An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray" Faerie Queen, & Spenser. MOTTOES " Janiveer Freeze the pot upon the fire" If the grass do grow in Janiveer it grows the worse for it A wet Sina! all the year.' "The blackest month of all the year Is the month of Janiveer.
January 5, 2026 at 7:08 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Hares, William De Morgan.
Two hares and foliage, tile design.
January 5, 2026 at 7:05 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Sunlight Winter Landscape, Pekka Halonen, 1911.
Snowy landscape with trees in background, painting.
January 5, 2026 at 6:59 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Tit of the Day:
Long-tailed tit.
📷 Peter von Bagh
Photo of this bird perched on a branch
January 5, 2026 at 6:54 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Book Cover of the Day:
LA REINE DES NEIGES & OTHER STORIES Purple cover, gold lettering, image of snow queen on sleigh with falling snow/ stars and crescent moon.
January 5, 2026 at 6:51 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
🖼️ Oksana Maksimova
Long tailed tits on winter branches in snowfall on pale brown background, painting.
January 5, 2026 at 6:44 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Morning.
🖼️ John Leigh Pemberton
Two Serin perched in branches of shrub and edible dormouse perched on lower branch, garden wall in background. Illustration for Midland Bank series.
January 5, 2026 at 6:35 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
Goodnight.
🖼️ Two Fairies Standing on the Back of an Owl Beneath a Moon, Amelia Jane Murray.
Illustration as described. Owl flying above clouds.
January 5, 2026 at 12:23 AM
racheldeering.bsky.social
A poem from my collection, In the Shadow of Gods, Hoar Frost.
🖼️ Hoar-frost And Stars, Gustaf Fjaestad.
Hoar Frost A quiet settles the hoar frost, a deadening as spines form crystalline in starry congregation. Still, the ice speaks, sharp tongued in brittle panicles, the beards of frost giants which continue to grow at less than nothing, and so I endure, even when I have calculated my self worth in the negative. Still, these dove feathers, moon-white, alight and seem to extend their wings to reascend in vapour to the sky Rachel Deering 74 Painting as described, frost in trees with pink dawn or dusk sky.
January 4, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
poetbex.bsky.social
Happy New Year, everyone! 🎉

If you want to start your 2026 off with some poetry, Circulaire is a pamphlet about farewells, new beginnings, and coming full circle 💛

Available from Written Off Publishing here: tinyurl.com/4cw3e27r

Or DM me/comment for a signed copy, £10 via PayPal, I cover p&p ☕️
January 2, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"That year, young Henry Piper claimed to have seen her, the Witch of the Wold, as he staggered home past the dark fields. "She led the horse," he whispered, his voice tight with the memory. "Its bones gleamed like the moon, but its eyes burned red as coals."

www.tumblr.com/whatthecrowt...
Post by @whatthecrowtold · 1 image
💬 0  🔁 0  ❤️ 0 · O my best beloved, in the midwinter glooms of Kent, the hooden horse once roamed, a wooden, sometimes a skeletal effigy clacking its jaws as it swept through village lanes. This a…
www.tumblr.com
January 4, 2026 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'Woods in Winter' 1839

#art by Louis Apol
#poetry #booksky
A January Evening in the Woods of The Hague by Louis Apol 1875. An oil painting in white, grey, and yellowish tones. A brook in a snowy forest, with a footbridge over it.
January 4, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
asummerghost.bsky.social
Winter Owl And Full Moon.

🎨 Melanie McDonald
January 4, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“In the woods where snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.”

(Catherine Mansfield)

🎨 Eyvind Earle

#wintersky
A decorative, graphic winter scene in deep blue and muted gold tones. A huge tree dominates the image, its trunk and sweeping branches rendered in bold black silhouettes that curl and twist like calligraphy. Fine, delicate twigs fill the canopy with dense, lace-like patterns, dotted with tiny golden, star-shaped needles. Beneath the tree, stylised snowbanks rise in flowing curves, casting long blue shadows across a smooth, pale ground. The overall mood is serene and magical, blending nature and ornament in Eyvind Earle’s distinctive mid-century fairy-tale style.
January 4, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
Bone horses still walk the village streets. ‘tis the season!
But they are mummers, right?

Well, let’s go to Kent and find that out, in our 35th #yulefolklore story below.

🎨 Mark C. Greene
A moody monochrome scene rendered in ink-wash silhouettes. On a sloping hillside, a small cloaked figure stands facing a towering folkloric creature they hold by a thin leash. The creature has a long, hunched body, a jagged, toothy snout, and wild hair that looks like tangled branches decorated with beads or ribbons; leaves blow past its head in the wind. At the figure’s feet walks a small black cat with its tail raised. To the left stands a stark, leafless tree, and dark plants fringe the foreground, while a misty grey sky creates an eerie, wintry atmosphere suggestive of old seasonal legends.
January 4, 2026 at 6:41 AM
Reposted by Rachel Deering
abctales.bsky.social
In need of a little distraction from events? Here's another brilliant short from Terrence Oblong:

www.abctales.com/story/terren...
January 4, 2026 at 2:27 PM