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Signe Maene

@signemaene.com

3.6K followers 970 following 1.9K posts

Belgian writer of stories inspired by Flemish folklore. Loves spooky woods, fairies, selkies, poetry and pretty shoes :-) BookWormSat with Rachel Deering.🖤 OUT NOW: Flemish Folktales Retold. signemaene.com/links/

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · Nov 10

Hi, new followers! It's lovely to have you here! I'm a Belgian folklorist specialising in Flemish folklore. My proudest moment was the release of Flemish Folktales Retold, an illustrated short story collection, and I'm currently working on something new with many more witches, devils and ghosts!

Picture of me at a talk about my book Flemish Folktales Retold in the Brugse Boekhandel.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 1d

‘Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!’ ~
Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings. #BookWormSat #Gothtober
🖼️ Rackham

An illustration by Arthur Rackham for Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Tell-Tale Heart". It depicts the climax of the story, showing the narrator's confession to the murder of an old man.
A frantic man, the narrator, is seen in the centre, looking terrified and clutching his head. He is standing on a floor with loose planks.
Three police officers are standing around him. One of them holds a piece of a ladder or a chair.
Beneath the floorboards, a dismembered body is visible.
The narrator's expression and posture convey his distress as he believes he can hear the beating heart of the dead man, which ultimately leads him to confess his crime.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 1d

'The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.'
-Charlotte Perkins Gilman

🎨John White Alexander
#BookWormSat

Painting of a woman in a yellow dress standing in small rays of sunshine.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 2d

Hihi. It really does. If a ghost ever decides to haunt me, I do hope it stops with throwing furniture around, though! 👻

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 2d

A Flemish folktale says people never went near the dunes at night because it was haunted. A man decided to risk it anyway and was knocked over by a ghost who appeared as a headless horse. It stomped on him so badly that he was lucky to live to tell the tale.

🎨Jaroslav Panuska
#PhantomsFriday

Artwork of a white headless horse running in the night. Grass, dark cloudy background.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

The Ghost Monk @theghostmonk.bsky.social · 2d

"There is no ghost there at all; but the worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man, and that is, in all its nakedness - FEAR! Fear that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me in the room..."
- H G Wells, 'The Red Room'
#PhantomsFriday

Illustration by Lawrence Scarfe. A man runs across a corridor to a flight of stairs, looking back over his shoulder in terror.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 2d

‘Sometimes I leaned over till my shadow mingled with that of Miss Sophie; then it seemed to me that we two were one.’ ~ Steen Steensen Blicher, The Diary of a Parish Clerk.

This #BookWormSat celebrates the short story for Blicher’s birthday. Do join us.

🖼️ Émile Friant, 1891.

Two lovers; a man and a woman in black, she is standing, he is sitting, she is looking away, he is looking at her, he is holding her hand, they cast shadows onto the wall behind them. Painting.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 2d

Behind the scenes of something new, exciting, and witchy. News soon!

Picture of myself holding my tuxedo cat. Outside. Greenery behind us.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 2d

🖤🧹🖤

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 3d

'Come at my summons --- Come to me!'
Thus said a witch on a windy night,
Then sailed on her broomstick out of sight.'
-The Witches Song, Ruth Bedford.

🎨Adrienne Adams

Illustration of witches all clad in black flying on their brooms through the forest. One of them is holding a cage with birds.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 4d

Haha. Same! The day I can say I have finished all laundry, I'll throw a party in the woods.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 4d

3/3 This is a very sad and tragic folktale when you take into account that people truly believed bokkenrijders who had sworn an oath to the devil flew between the birds. Countless people were convicted of being bokkenrijders in trials that strongly resembled the witchcraft trials, and were executed.

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 4d

2/3 The Queen travelled to all the places where these robbers were said to reside and somehow managed to convince the riders to throw themselves into the flames. Bokkenrijders would no longer steal laundry.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 4d

1/3 According to a Flemish folktale, bokkenrijders or buckriders, who were said to be thieves, ghosts, or sometimes even witches, and rode through the sky on the backs of goats in Flanders and the Netherlands, had stolen the Queen's laundry.

#WyrdWednesday

Art from Affiche: "De Bokkenrijder of het skelet." Opdrachtgever: Het Hollandsch Tooneel. Shows a buckrider riding through the sky. Castle in the far distance. Clouds.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 5d

Goodnight.
🖼️ Maurice Sand, taken from Légendes rusticiques de George Sand, Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, 1858. #31DaysOfHalloween

Werewolves leaning against the wall of a cemetery at night, crescent moon. Lithograph.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

It's absolutely stunning. If you ever find yourself in Charleroi, you know what to do. 😊

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 6d

In the Église Saint-Christophe in Charleroi (Belgium). Detail of the golden mosaic altar depicting the apocalypse of St. John.

Detail of a part of the golden mosaic altar in the basilica of Charleroi. Depicting the apocalypse.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

Johan @israduscias.bsky.social · 8d

“But our own selves are like pearls, created by layer after layer of present laid over past until the original thing is completely hidden.”
― Tad Williams, Tailchaser's Song

#BookWormSat #WorldAnimalDay #Caturday
🎨At the Rootwood by Stephanie Law

A drawin in warm and light tones of The Folk at the Rootwood.
Fritti (an orange tabby with a star shaped spot on his forehead) is lying in the foreground amongst red Flowers. He is bathing in rays of yellow light beaming through the canopy. Light green trees form the backdrop while a scattering of cat silhouettes is sitting amonst them. A purple haze in the upper quadrant adds a mystic tone.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 8d

Resharing an old post for #BookWormSat #WorldAnimalDay #Caturday

‘Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.’ Anon ~ C9th monk trans. Heaney.

🖼️ Sydney Smith

An illustration from the children's book The White Cat and the Monk, a retelling of a 9th-century Irish poem "Pangur Bán". The illustration, created by Sydney Smith, depicts a monk sitting in his simple room, holding his white cat, Pangur, on his lap.
‘With my white cat, Pangur’

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 8d

I love this one so much, too.

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 8d

'In the black furrow of a field
I saw an old witch-hare this night
And she cocked a lissome ear,
And she eyed the moon so bright'
-Walter de la Mare

🎨Lucy Grossmith
#BookWormSat

Artwork of a hare running across a field. Night sky. Stars.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

Mary B @beesincampanula.bsky.social · 8d

For #WorldAnimalDay #BookWormSat 💙📚
Everyone’s favourite stage direction:

‘Exit, pursued by a bear’
Shakespeare
The Winter’s Tale
Act 3 sc3

Engraving from the Longman edition, 1807

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 8d

'as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.'
-Black Cat, Rainer Maria Rilke

🎨Arthur Rackham
#BookWormSat

Illustration of a black cat who doesn't seem to be very amused. The cat is sitting on a tree branch. Black and yellow colours.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 9d

‘I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.’ ~ Lewis Carroll

For World Animal Day tomorrow, #BookWormSat will roar, growl, bark, oink, miaow, neigh and bleat its way through the animals of literature. Do join us.

🖼️ Tenniel
An illustration from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, featuring the Cheshire Cat's disembodied head floating above the King and Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit, and other characters.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 9d

He was an amazing photographer! :-)

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 9d

I'm a huge fan of this quote! :-)