iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

After the closure of The Cultural Futures Hub on Spatial this month, I'll be taking the opportunity for a short break from social media to catch up on my reading, research and creative projects! I'll see you all back here in August!

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Amanda Edmiston, Botanica Fabula @botanicafabula.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Marking the fabulous 11th birthday of #FolkloreThursday is the start of a run of celebrations for me~My book launch for Collected Curiosities begins on Saturday! Huge thanks to @folklorethursday.bsky.social because if they hadn’t asked me to guest host~my writing wouldn’t have been spotted!💚📚🌿💫

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thank you so much, Ben! SO many years! 🤩

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Ben Gazur @bengazur.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Happy 11th Birthday to #FolkloreThursday! I would not have written half the things I have had they not let me guest host! Thanks to Willow and Dee Dee, and everyone else involved. And my book, A Feast of Folklore, is out next Thursday.

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Shanon Sinn @shanonsinn.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

If a young man sees a red envelope on the ground in Taiwan he shouldn't pick it up. It could be dowry to marry someone’s deceased daughter! The subsequent ceremony prevents an unmarried woman from haunting her relatives and gives her status in the afterlife 💀 #FolkloreThursday 1952 Richard Roussos

A priest is marrying a man to a skeletal ghost bride in a graveyard. He is wearing a tuxedo, and she is in a wedding dress. Other skeleton ghosts are standing around watching the wedding take place.

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Stevie Kilner @1steviekilner.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

A little video I took at Cold Christmas today. I never saw anything remotely ghostly on my brief visit. But Cold Christmas certainly warrants its reputation. Just the name and history, coupled with a remote location helps lend a certain atmosphere to it. I enjoyed it though. #FolkloreThursday

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The Irish Dullahan is far more terrifying than many modern Headless Horseman tales. Carrying his severed head beneath one arm, he rides across the countryside at night. When he stops and calls a name, legend says that person's death soon follows. #FolkloreThursday Art: Catherine Herold

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks for being such a big part of it! 💜

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Oh my gosh, that was a highlight! 😂😂😂

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks for being here all these years, Scott!

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks to everyone who joined us at @culturalfutureshub.bsky.social tonight, and over the last two years! It's been amazing, thanks to you all! 🎉 And HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY, #FolkloreThursday! 🥳

Group of avatars standing in front of event posters in the VR Cultural Futures Hub.

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks for being here with us all these years, Stevie! And AMAZING, you're in your t-shirt! 🥳

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Stevie Kilner @1steviekilner.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Wishing a VERY Happy 11th Birthday to everyone in the fabulous @folklorethursday.bsky.social community ❤️ Sorry, the cake's not quite big enough for 11 candles so there's only on thing to do.......get a bigger cake! #FolkloreThursday

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Olivia @oliviaarmstrong.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I was so happy when #FolkloreThursday asked me to write about Midsummer folklore back in 2020! Thank you FT, I felt as though I had stepped through the mirror... folklorethursday.com/folklife/dar...

folklorethursday.com

Dark Side of the Sun: A Brief Guide to Midsummer Lore in Britain & Ireland – #FolkloreThursday

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🎃 Zack o' Lantern 🎃 @zackdavisson.com · 18/06/2026

In Japan, if your cat lives too long it can transform into a kaibyo--a magic cat. This is not a good thing. There are several species of kaibyo. The nekomata is identified by its twin tails, and its proclivity of hunting and eating humans. amzn.to/44jGGnS #folklorethursday #catlore #Mizukishigeru

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Hi to you both, and happy birthday! 💫

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Tiffany Leigh Rose 🖤🥀 @tlrose.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

It is prudent to tickle a newborn's nose with pepper as soon as possible—for babies aren't safe from the fairies until after their first sneeze. #FolkloreThursday Art: Brian Froud

An illustration of a fairy creature where she is a holding her long nailed hand over half her face, surrounding her are other little beasties.

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

We are now LIVE at #TheCulturalFuturesHub — do join us, #FolkloreThursday -ers! Just click here: www.spatial.io/s/DeeDeeChai... You need to create an account and sign in if you would like to chat using your mic. Watch the YouTube video for instructions if needed: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMqB...

spatial.io

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Natalja Saint-Germain @nataljastgermain.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

According to East Slavic superstitions, when a witch/wizard wants to shape-shift into a wolf or a bear, they do a forward roll over a symbolic border – a knife or a tree stump. If the border gets destroyed, they will stuck in their animal form forever. #foklorethursday #dailyspookloe #folklore

Depiction of a wolf-man dressed in human clothes, his human wife and two daughters in the woods (original artwork by Tin Can Forest)

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Hilary R Sparkes @hilaryrsparkes.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

A piece of favourite folklore is that the Rollin’ Calf, one of the most frightening duppies in Jamaican folklore, can also appear in the form of a brindled cat. Something I remind my cat Millie of when she’s engaging in crimes against soft furnishings. #FolkloreThursday

close up of tabby cat's face staring enigmatically at camera

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 18/06/2026

You’d know her house by the drawn blinds – by the cormorants pitched on the boundary wall, the black crosses of their wings hung out to dry… —Robin Robertson, “At Roane Head” in the @lrb.co.uk, 14 Aug 2008 #poem #poetry #FolkloreThursday www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

At Roane Head
Robin Robertson

for John Burnside

You’d know her house by the drawn blinds –
by the cormorants pitched on the boundary wall,
the black crosses of their wings hung out to dry.
You’d tell it by the quicken and the pine that hid it
from the sea and from the brief light of the sun,
and by Aonghas the collie, lying at the door
where he died: a rack of bones like a sprung trap.

A fork of barnacle geese came over, with that slow
squeak of rusty saws. The bitter sea’s complaining pull
and roll; a whicker of pigeons, lifting in the wood.

She’d had four sons, I knew that well enough,
and each one wrong. All born blind, they say,
slack-jawed and simple, web-footed,
rickety as sticks. Beautiful faces, I’m told,
though blank as air.
Someone saw them once, outside, hirpling
down to the shore, chittering like rats,
and said they were fine swimmers,
but I would have guessed at that.

Her husband left her: said
they couldn’t be his, they were more
fish than human;
he said they were beglamoured,
and searched their skin for the showing marks.

For years she tended each difficult flame:
their tight, flickering bodies.
Each night she closed
the scales of their eyes to smoor the fire.

Until he came again,
that last time,
thick with drink, saying
he’d had enough of this,
all this witchery,
and made them stand
in a row by their beds,
twitching. Their hands
flapped; herring-eyes
rolled in their heads.
He went along the line
relaxing them
one after another
with a small knife.

They say she goes out every night to lay
blankets on the graves to keep them warm.
It would put the heart across you, all that grief.

There was an otter worrying in the leaves, a heron
loping slow over the water when I came
at scraich of day, back to her door.

She’d hung four stones in a necklace, wore
four rings on the hand that led me past the room
with four small candles burning
which she called ‘the room of rain’.
Milky smoke poured up from the grate
like a waterfall in reverse
and she said my name,
and it was the only thing
and the last thing that she said.

She gave me a skylark’s egg in a bed of frost;
gave me twists of my four sons’ hair; gave me
her husband’s head in a wooden box.
Then she gave me the sealskin, and I put it on.

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The Black Dog legends of Britain are wonderfully eerie because they blur the line between spirit and omen. These enormous spectral hounds appear on lonely roads, stormy coastlines, and crossroads, silently watching from the darkness. #FolkloreThursday Art: Sidney Paget

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Jürgen Hubert @juergen-hubert.mementomori.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

_This_ Damsel in Distress did not wait for a Knight in Shining Armor to help her against a group of brother-bandits, but took matters into her own hands. Head after head. #FolkloreThursday wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Mai…

wiki.sunkencastles.com

The Maid of Wildenloh

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Chris Woodyard @chriswoodyard.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

#FolkloreThursday For those with Second Sight, seeing a shroud on a living person was a kind of sliding scale of death: the higher the shroud on the body, the nearer the death. "When it is seen to ascend higher towards the head, death is concluded to be at hand within a few days, if not hours."

A monumental brass figure showing a woman in a shroud tied on the top of her head, hands folded in prayer, bare-footed. 1518

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WillowWinsham @willowwinsham.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Burning lost teeth was encouraged in England from at least the 17th century. Why? If an animal inadvertently ate it, the new tooth would grow back as an animal one. Another belief across Europe was that witches could use an old tooth to gain power over someone. 🎨Katie Ponder #FolkloreThursday

Image from The Story of Witches by Willow Winsham, illustration by Katie Ponder. A cauldron stands in the centre with a fire burning underneath and three female witch figures around it. They have long black hair and long white robes. A golden crescent moon is sideways in above the cauldron.

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

You can now also watch mythcrafts.bsky.social 's talk about this on YouTube, #FolkloreThursday -ers! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV4m...

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Brilliant! (And I, too, used to be confounded with the difference between wrestlers and animals...😅)

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Kelly Jarvis @kellyjarviswriter.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The Ionian Sea is named after Io, who was transformed into a cow by Zeus to protect her from Hera’s wrath. Io swam across the sea that bears her name to escape Hera’s torment 🌊🐮 #FolkloreThursday #GreekMythology #ioniansea #greece #zeus

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The legend of the Will-o'-the-Wisp fascinates me because it is so universal. Across continents and centuries, people have reported mysterious lights leading travelers away from safety and into marshes, forests, and places they never intended to go. #FolkloreThursday Art: Hermann Hendrich

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Amanda Edmiston, Botanica Fabula @botanicafabula.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Huge Happy Birthday love #FolkloreThursday One of my favourite bits of folklore surrounds St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) or 'Chase the Devil'~wound healing anti depressant~said if found unsought to keep traveller's safe ~oozes purple 'blood of St John' when pressed~said to terrify demons...

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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 18/06/2026

A "Freikugel" is a projectile cast on liminal days like St John's Eve with lead from a cemetery crucifix or a church window frame and blood. If done in a cursed place, often alongside a pact with an unclean spirit, a Freikugel never misses its target. 🎨 C. A. Schwerdgeburth #FolkloreThursday

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thank you for your support across all of these years! 💜

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Terri Windling @terriwindling.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Happy 11th Birthday to @folklorethursday.bsky.social. Thank you for all the stories.

Image: A sketch of mine of two little people with their animal companion and a collection of fairy tale books. Written below are the words: "Tell us a story," they insisted. "A new one. Or an old one."

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Crystal Ponti @crystalponti.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The Scottish Each-Uisge appears at first as a magnificent horse grazing beside a loch. But anyone foolish enough to climb onto its back finds themselves unable to dismount as the creature plunges into deep water to devour its rider. #FolkloreThursday Art: Clay Vermulm

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I still haven't decided which book is my favourite, seas or forests? 🌊🌲🤔💜 #FolkloreThursday

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thanks for being with us all of these years, Steve!

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Steve Toase @stevetoase.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Today we celebrate the 11th birthday of the wonderful @folklorethursday.bsky.social I love seeing folklore in modern contexts. This is the Wilder Mann from the Naila coat of arms here in Franconia, Germany, appearing in two different graffiti settings.

A figure wearing leaves around his waist, carrying a club and stick. He is on a red background and has red eyes. The figure is on a sticker on a shelter for shopping trolleys.

A figure wearing leaves around his waist, carrying a club and holding a tree. There is a red background and another tree. The figure is painted on the end of a freight liner metal container.

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DeeDeeChainey @deedeechainey.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thank you for being such a big part of it! 💜

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