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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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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5h

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 · 10h

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 · 10h

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 · 10h

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 · 1d

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 · 1d

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

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 2d

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 · 4d

“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 · 4d

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 · 4d

I love this one so much, too.

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 4d

'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 · 4d

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 · 4d

'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 · 5d

‘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 · 5d

He was an amazing photographer! :-)

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

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

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

Glad you like them! They continue to amaze me every day. :-)

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

'Fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones
And grinning skulls, and corruptible death
Wrapp'd in his shroud; and now fancies she hears
Deep sighs, and sees pale sickly ghosts gliding.'
-William Blake

🎨Stephen Mackey
#PhantomsFriday

Artwork of a woman covering her face with both of her hands (peekaboo). Nails painted red. Butterflies with skull faces surround her.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

According to a Flemish folktale, a farm was haunted by a man with two dogs who had 'hellish' eyes. One night, he arrived at the farm in a phantom carriage drawn by four horses. Ten people got out and started partying. A priest eventually banished the ghost to a wasteland.

#PhantomsFriday

Photograph by Léonard Misonne. Pictorialist photograph of four horses standing on a muddy road in the woods.

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Reposted by Signe Maene

The Ghost Monk @theghostmonk.bsky.social · 5d

"His programme is always the same. He appears by my bedside, shakes me roughly by the shoulder, passes from my room into the laboratory, walks slowly along the line of my bottles, and then vanishes.
"What does he want?"
"He wants his hand."

- Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Brown Hand'
#PhantomsFriday

A Sidney Paget illustration from an 1899 edition of The Strand Magazine showing a man wearing a gown and with a top-knot on his head, looking up earnestly at a shelf containing specimen bottles.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 5d

Haha! I think sheep very much approve, though! :-)

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 6d

🖤🖤

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 6d

Yay! It's beautiful, and the table of contents has caused overexcitement here. 😊

Reposted by Signe Maene

WillowWinsham @willowwinsham.bsky.social · 6d

Although familiars were most often said to appear in animal or human form, there is also the idea of the "ghost" familiar, appearing in the form of a departed loved one, offering to deliver vengeance upon enemies in exchange for becoming a witch. #FolkloreThursday

Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 6d

I finally have this gorgeous book by @willowwinsham.bsky.social. Can't wait to start reading it this evening. 🧹🖤

Picture of my hand holding a book. Title: The Story of Witches: Folklore, History, and Superstition by Willow Winsham. Purple book cover with golden letters and a witchy illustration.

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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 6d

I'm certain I will! :-)