@hookland.bsky.social
Phoenix Guide to Strange England: #Hookland. Run by David Southwell
#Hauntology Re-wilding #Folklore #FolkHorror #Psychogeography #LandscapePunk Re-enchantment Is Resistance
#Hauntology Re-wilding #Folklore #FolkHorror #Psychogeography #LandscapePunk Re-enchantment Is Resistance
Hookland closed to technology problems and health issuses. Not sure when it will be back.
February 6, 2026 at 9:50 AM
Hookland closed to technology problems and health issuses. Not sure when it will be back.
Our language becomes fluid, blurred. Gateway. Threshold. Portal. All these things imprecise and yet signalling what we feel as a truth: beyond this opening is the strange. Whether we go through becomes a litmus test. Do we want that possibility of encountering the uncanny? – Dr. M. Benn
February 5, 2026 at 2:32 PM
Our language becomes fluid, blurred. Gateway. Threshold. Portal. All these things imprecise and yet signalling what we feel as a truth: beyond this opening is the strange. Whether we go through becomes a litmus test. Do we want that possibility of encountering the uncanny? – Dr. M. Benn
The horse is placed so centrally in folklore because our relationship to it has always been a defining cultural feature. Its ghosts are many. They pull spectral corpse carts, are steeds in phantom battles. A network of invisible clip-clopping down a thousand lanes. – Dr. M. Benn #FolkloreThursday
February 5, 2026 at 11:51 AM
The horse is placed so centrally in folklore because our relationship to it has always been a defining cultural feature. Its ghosts are many. They pull spectral corpse carts, are steeds in phantom battles. A network of invisible clip-clopping down a thousand lanes. – Dr. M. Benn #FolkloreThursday
Streets remember their humble origins even if their newer residents don't. They remember in the ghosts of knocker-uppers rapping windows with their poles. They remember the slow clop of night-soil carts taking away the stink. Shades recollect how a place lived. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts
February 4, 2026 at 4:17 PM
The river is the witch's friend. It is her gossip-gatherer, her curse-cleanser. It sings the seasons to her. Its banks and bridges are an engine of fluid threshold magics. She is on first name terms with its tutelary spirit. One could call it her accomplice. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
February 4, 2026 at 1:24 PM
The river is the witch's friend. It is her gossip-gatherer, her curse-cleanser. It sings the seasons to her. Its banks and bridges are an engine of fluid threshold magics. She is on first name terms with its tutelary spirit. One could call it her accomplice. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
Whatever the weather, you can always find some adherents to the Black Fathom Faith in wordless wave communion. They storm-stare, listen to long sunken voices rasp against the stones of the shore. We who are outside this salt sect can only imagine their ecstasies. – #CLNolan
February 3, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Whatever the weather, you can always find some adherents to the Black Fathom Faith in wordless wave communion. They storm-stare, listen to long sunken voices rasp against the stones of the shore. We who are outside this salt sect can only imagine their ecstasies. – #CLNolan
There is a malignant tree in the graveyard of St. Mary of the Three Crowns at Danebury that always wakes when storm darkens the day to the point lanterns are needed. Bone-fed and cursed, its hiss can be heard above the wind. Its scraping words wish only doom to men. – #CLNolan
February 3, 2026 at 2:03 PM
There is a malignant tree in the graveyard of St. Mary of the Three Crowns at Danebury that always wakes when storm darkens the day to the point lanterns are needed. Bone-fed and cursed, its hiss can be heard above the wind. Its scraping words wish only doom to men. – #CLNolan
There was a rumour that the Government used to monitor all those stone and wooden sleepers for signs of omenic twitching. If the Department Recording And Measuring Anomalous Statues (DRAMAS), existed once, there’s no official record of it now. – #MattAdams
February 3, 2026 at 10:28 AM
There was a rumour that the Government used to monitor all those stone and wooden sleepers for signs of omenic twitching. If the Department Recording And Measuring Anomalous Statues (DRAMAS), existed once, there’s no official record of it now. – #MattAdams
There are places that whisper to us: "Hurry home!" Places that whisper: "You are not alone here." The idea that consecrated ground is silent on such matters is risible. The average English boneyard is crowded with shades. It enfolds with spectral mumbles. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts
February 2, 2026 at 5:42 PM
No amount of modern refurbishment has dispelled the reputation of Weychester Theatre Royal as one of England's most haunted entertainment venues. Of course, being built atop the grounds of mediaeval hospital is asking for ghost consequence.
February 2, 2026 at 2:39 PM
No amount of modern refurbishment has dispelled the reputation of Weychester Theatre Royal as one of England's most haunted entertainment venues. Of course, being built atop the grounds of mediaeval hospital is asking for ghost consequence.
A pre-enchanted English landscape that everyone who needs or wants it owns already.
February 1, 2026 at 10:50 PM
A pre-enchanted English landscape that everyone who needs or wants it owns already.
The folk rituals of today and tomorrow in Hookland. #Imbolc #Candlemas
February 1, 2026 at 11:54 AM
The folk rituals of today and tomorrow in Hookland. #Imbolc #Candlemas
As an author, I tell others my walks among the feral graves of Ashcourt Necropolis are for finding names for my characters. This is a partial truth. I also wander where the names are obscured to collect dead whisperers and growls. To become entangled in the dreams of bones. – #CLNolan
January 31, 2026 at 3:34 PM
As an author, I tell others my walks among the feral graves of Ashcourt Necropolis are for finding names for my characters. This is a partial truth. I also wander where the names are obscured to collect dead whisperers and growls. To become entangled in the dreams of bones. – #CLNolan
On clear winter mornings, the sort where you regret wearing fingerless gloves within two minutes of being outside, I often go to the wood edge. Establish myself as a listening post. For the best conversations in witchcraft may start with a period of being quiet. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
January 31, 2026 at 10:52 AM
On clear winter mornings, the sort where you regret wearing fingerless gloves within two minutes of being outside, I often go to the wood edge. Establish myself as a listening post. For the best conversations in witchcraft may start with a period of being quiet. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
Bear goes into neighbouring flats and steals things. Cigarettes. Batteries. Pens. Whole roles of kitchen towel. Plastic rulers. Door stops. Keys.
January 30, 2026 at 7:10 PM
Bear goes into neighbouring flats and steals things. Cigarettes. Batteries. Pens. Whole roles of kitchen towel. Plastic rulers. Door stops. Keys.
Last year we saw an increase of graffiti depictions the Wicker King. This year colleagues in the Folklore department report an uptick in Wicker King sightings. This matter needs further study. – Sophie Morley of Woden College's Graffiti Research and Formalisation Team (GRAFT), 1983
January 30, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Last year we saw an increase of graffiti depictions the Wicker King. This year colleagues in the Folklore department report an uptick in Wicker King sightings. This matter needs further study. – Sophie Morley of Woden College's Graffiti Research and Formalisation Team (GRAFT), 1983
I've heard people who were never Children of The Hum say pylons were portals to us. That's a bit wrong. Transmission towers were our temporary temples. It was the whole of The Hum that was gateway to the electric ley of the land. – Signal-catcher Rose, ex=Pylon Person #VOH
January 29, 2026 at 11:57 AM
I've heard people who were never Children of The Hum say pylons were portals to us. That's a bit wrong. Transmission towers were our temporary temples. It was the whole of The Hum that was gateway to the electric ley of the land. – Signal-catcher Rose, ex=Pylon Person #VOH
In the shade of the winter wood, the Tree Sprites may be sleeping, but it doesn’t mean that their dreams don’t walk. – Lou Kemp on her 1982 painting 'Wood Sprite Scratch IV'
January 28, 2026 at 6:37 PM
In the shade of the winter wood, the Tree Sprites may be sleeping, but it doesn’t mean that their dreams don’t walk. – Lou Kemp on her 1982 painting 'Wood Sprite Scratch IV'
Hookland is an odd county. Nowhere else in England has a tourist board happy to promote its haunted shoreline, boast of it including a record number of haunted light houses. A civic pride in phantoms is not the standard approach to encouraging day-trippers. – George Kindred
January 28, 2026 at 1:46 PM
Hookland is an odd county. Nowhere else in England has a tourist board happy to promote its haunted shoreline, boast of it including a record number of haunted light houses. A civic pride in phantoms is not the standard approach to encouraging day-trippers. – George Kindred
Some homes hold their ghosts with quiet forbearance. They do not boast of their phantoms nor advertise for psychic researchers to poke and test them. They accommodate both living and dead residents, afford privacy to both sides. Places of gentle spectral tolerance. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts
January 27, 2026 at 6:33 PM
I suspect it isn't just us witches who take inspiration from a wander around the Weychester Physic Garden. Where else can the public so easily learn the lore and interesting uses of aconite? The gardens are such a boon to folklorists and possible poisoners. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982
January 26, 2026 at 4:07 PM
I suspect it isn't just us witches who take inspiration from a wander around the Weychester Physic Garden. Where else can the public so easily learn the lore and interesting uses of aconite? The gardens are such a boon to folklorists and possible poisoners. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982
I'd like to think all of the children in my class are wise enough to not open any bottles washed up by the river. However, there's always one that hasn't paid attention in storytime to the perils of unsealing a witch bottle. That child is so often Kevin Butt. – Joanna Vickers #VOH
January 26, 2026 at 11:21 AM
I'd like to think all of the children in my class are wise enough to not open any bottles washed up by the river. However, there's always one that hasn't paid attention in storytime to the perils of unsealing a witch bottle. That child is so often Kevin Butt. – Joanna Vickers #VOH
It is in a city's nature to spawn secret societies, cults of dubious nature. Havens for collaborative sorcery. You can deny this truth, but I only need walk you along certain streets in Ashcourt or Weychester to prove you wrong and manners make such a prospect uncomfortable to me. – #CLNolan
January 25, 2026 at 5:35 PM
It is in a city's nature to spawn secret societies, cults of dubious nature. Havens for collaborative sorcery. You can deny this truth, but I only need walk you along certain streets in Ashcourt or Weychester to prove you wrong and manners make such a prospect uncomfortable to me. – #CLNolan