Signe Maene
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signemaene.com
Signe Maene
@signemaene.com
3.9K followers 1K following 2.3K 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 · Oct 15
The witches of Flanders are everywhere. Their tales may be forgotten, their voices unheard, but they are anything but quiet.

Step into the darkness and help us give a voice to Flanders' witches! 🌙 kck.st/492NqKt 🌙 #WyrdWednesday
Image with the title of the book: The Witch's Child and other Dark Tales from Old Flanders. Also the text: Back us on Kickstarter. Image shows the bookcover in both Ebook and paperback form. Book cover is a dark black and white cover with a witch staring at a field. There is a dog, crow, frog, butterfly and other animals around her. Moon and trees.
signemaene.com
Winter Music, Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946).
Painting of a woman playing the violin in a snow-covered forest.
January 12, 2026 at 10:32 AM
signemaene.com
A Milkmaid on Ice Skates by a Sledge, Henri van Seben (1825-1913)
Painting of a milkmaid on ice skates by a sledge. Red headscarf. Brown and green clothing. Other ice skaters in the distance.
January 12, 2026 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
racheldeering.bsky.social
Wall hanging (detail) of Blossoming Tree (or Blütenbaum) created by Hermann Obrist around 1895. The work was executed by Berthe Ruchet.
The artwork is a silk embroidery, utilizing satin stitch and rope stitch techniques. It features highly stylized, sinuous brown branches with thorns set against a very dark background. The branches are adorned with delicate, abstract flowers in white and yellow with gold/brown centres.
January 11, 2026 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“Once in his life may a man send his Soul away, but he who receiveth back his Soul must keep it with him for ever, and this is his punishment and his reward.”

(Oscar Wilde “The Fisherman and his Soul”)

🎨 Jane Kupr

#booksky
High-contrast black-and-white illustration: a weary young man lies collapsed on a tiled floor amid scattered open books and loose pages. Behind him, three tall, solemn female figures stand framed by an arched window, their robes patterned like carved stone. The surrounding darkness swallows the space, turning the scene into a stark vision of knowledge, judgment, and fate closing in.
January 11, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
racheldeering.bsky.social
Garden fresco in the dining room of the villa of Livia at Prima Porta outside Rome.
Fir tree, two birds below feeding on grass, blue background, fresco.
January 12, 2026 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
Today is Plough Monday, the day when work begins anew after Yuletide has ended on Epiphany in the previous week.

But some find, traditions are a bit... too much.

Read our "Plough Monday" #winterfolklore story below

🎨 Clare Leighton
January 12, 2026 at 6:15 AM
signemaene.com
The Saint Martin church in Beauvechain. ❄️🤍❄️
Photograph of a church and graveyard covered in snow.
January 10, 2026 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
racheldeering.bsky.social
‘By the grey woods,—by the swamp   
Where the toad and the newt encamp,—   
By the dismal tarns and pools
   Where dwell the Ghouls’ ~ Poe for #BookWormSat
An illustration for the poem "Dream-Land" by Edgar Allan Poe, by the Edmund Dulac. The artwork first appeared in a 1912 edition of Poe's The Bells and Other Poems, illustrated by Dulac. The illustration depicts a surreal, ethereal landscape with a large, ghostly statue emerging from the clouds.
January 10, 2026 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening.”

(Angela Carter “The Lady of the House of Love”)

🎨 Igor Karash

#bookwormsat
Surreal, muted grey-green illustration of a pale, long-haired woman in a loose white nightdress, eyes downcast as she holds a playing card or letter in slender fingers. Around her, oversized tarot-like cards and sharp, tilted architectural fragments—stairs, towers, and cracked stone planes—crowd in like collapsing scenery, giving the scene a dreamlike, claustrophobic gothic mood.
January 10, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
theasraidance.bsky.social
'I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.'
~Joyce Kilmer

🎨G. M. de L'Aubiniere
#BookWormSat
Where the Forgotten Garden Lies Asleep' by Georgina M. de L'Aubinieres is a painting of an old house that is seemingly being taken over by its garden. Trees, long grasses, shrubs, flowers, and a sundial.
January 10, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
"The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection.”

(Daphne du Maurier)

🎨 Ferdinand Knab

#bookwormsat
Moody, painterly scene of an ornate wrought-iron Gothic gate set between tall stone pillars topped with urns, half-swallowed by a dark, tangled wood. Bare branches and autumnal shrubs frame the entrance, while a strip of orange-red sunset glows beyond the bars. In the foreground, a shallow puddle mirrors the gate’s delicate scrollwork, adding to the quiet, sepulchral atmosphere.
January 10, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social
"They see no light and dwell in darkness,
they are clothed like birds in wings for garments,
and dust has gathered on the door and the bolt."

Extract from Ishtar's Descent into the Underworld #BookwormSat

🎨 'Babylon Fallen' by Gustave Doré, 1866
Engraving of a ruined Mesopotamian city at night with the Moon showing through the clouds. There are statues of elephants on plinths, sphinxes, and lamassu (creatures with human heads and winged bull bodies). Living birds fly about and a leopard howls from a ruined block of masonry.
January 10, 2026 at 11:16 AM
signemaene.com
'Flowers may open, buds may blossom,
Bud and flower alike are vain;
Her days shall pass like a mournful story in
care and tears and pain.'
-Emily Brontë

🎨Gabriel Ferrier
#BookWormSat
Painting of a woman in a white dress holding flowers. She looks at the ground. Dark background. Sad vibe.
January 10, 2026 at 10:21 AM
signemaene.com
'...and I fall into melancholies of honey and roses which are none the less melancholy.'
-George Sand

🎨Kenneth Frazier
#BookWormSat
Painting of a woman with a white rose. Snow seems to be falling. House in the background. She's wearing a red dress and I think a dark cloak.
January 10, 2026 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“Between the foot of the bed and the closet door, I saw a person in my room. The person was a woman, standing looking at me, with a knife in her hand. It does no credit to my courage to confess it— but the truth IS the truth."

(Wilkie Collins)
 
🎨 Edward Gorey
 
#phantomsfriday
Black-and-white, crosshatched illustration of a pale, long-haired woman in a simple floor-length white gown, standing rigidly front-facing in a dark field, one hand raised to display a small knife, her wide eyes and blank expression stark against the streaked, stormy background. Edward Gorey’s cover illustration for “The Dream Woman” by Wilkie Collins.
January 9, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Signe Maene
bookwormsat.bsky.social
Blow on, wild wind, thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.'
-Anne Brontë

@signemaene.com welcomes you to a sad and bleak #BookWormSat! And on that note, Happy belated New Year!

🎨J. W. Waterhouse
Painting title: Boreas. Painting of a young girl in purple clothing. Wind. Green landscape background. Trees.
January 10, 2026 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
flackjd.bsky.social
"As all partings foreshadow the great final one, so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be."

-Bleak House
Charles Dickens
#BookWormSat
The frontispiece (art facing the title page) from the first edition of "Bleak House," illustrated by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) and published by Bradbury & Evans in 1853. The illustration features an old country estate with a foreboding appearance. It is a grand but bleak looking building surrounded by barren ground, leafless trees, and grey sky.
January 10, 2026 at 6:04 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light'

Jonathan Harker describes Castle Dracula as he first encounters it in the Carpathian Mountains in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.

#BookWormSat #gothic
The cover of Dracula—A Mystery Story, published by W. R. Caldwell & Co. 1910. Artist unknown. An image in black, grey, and white, with a dark castle rising against the moonlit mountain range.
January 10, 2026 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
“Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
    Purple with cold; whence o’er me comes a shudder,
    And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.”

(Dante, Inferno, Canto XXXII)

🎨 Gustave Doré

#bookwormsat
In a dim, blue-grey wasteland of ice and fog, Dante and Virgil stand close together at centre—Dante draped in deep blue, Virgil in a rust-red hooded cloak—while around them half-frozen, naked bodies sprawl and writhe across the slick surface, some crouching and clutching their heads. Pale blocks of ice glint like cold lanterns in the gloom, and the darkness closes in from all sides.
January 10, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
racheldeering.bsky.social
The Snow Queen, Thomas Bromley Blacklock, 1902.
Painting of snow queen in grey gown in snowy landscape with cane, trees, stream, two rabbits.
January 10, 2026 at 5:38 AM
signemaene.com
'I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter'
-Kahlil Gibran

🎨Anne-Marie Zilberman
#BookWormSat
Artwork of a woman's face. Half is covered by her golden blonde hair. Golden tears rolling down her face. Her eye is closed.
January 10, 2026 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
wunderkammertales.bsky.social
A crane that once was a bride, dancing in the snows of the Hidaka Mountains and luring men to their death.

Our 4th #winterfolklore story brings us to Hokkaido today – read it below.

🎨 Utagawa Hiroshige
January 10, 2026 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
racheldeering.bsky.social
‘(L)ike the blackened shrubs of broom, bent by the force of a wind that never ceased, blow as it would…Their minds would be twisted, too, their thoughts evil, dwelling as they must amidst marshland and granite, harsh heather and crumbling stone.’ ~ Daphne du Maurier
#BookWormSat
Jamaica Inn book cover showing Inn, bent tree, figures on muddy track, wind blowing.
January 10, 2026 at 6:49 AM
Reposted by Signe Maene
theghostmonk.bsky.social
"Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast
I'm sure it's winter fairly."
- Robert Burns

This painting by Joseph Farquharson is called 'Cauld Blaws The Wind From East To West' in reference to the poem
#BookWormSat #ScottishArt #poetry
A woman and two small children in Highland dress struggle up a wet track over a moor, the wind blowing against them. Ahead of them mountains are being obscured by snow-bearing clouds. It's all very bleak and cold!
January 10, 2026 at 9:20 AM
signemaene.com
According to a Flemish folktale, a rich, greedy farmer who stole from his farmhands was condemned to haunt this world in the shape of a duck after his death. Sometimes he appeared as a dog that bullied the non-ghost animals. Eventually, the ghost was banished to a woodshed.

#PhantomsFriday
Painting of a duck sitting in the grass by Bruno Liljefors. I think the duck looks evil, but that's probably my imagination.
January 9, 2026 at 9:50 AM