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Claire Slack

@mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social
2.2K followers 501 following 57 posts

Claire. Feral folklorist, museums worker & DHeritage researcher at the University of Hertfordshire exploring Pagan interactions with historic sacred sites. She/they. All views my own.

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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Today I did a radio interview with BBC Wiltshire about local traditions and finished off with co-leading a guided folklore and archaeology walk around West Kennet. I have no idea how I became this person but it's magnificent
A photo of Silbury Hill, a grass covered chalk mound in Wiltshire, surrounded by an orangey red sunset
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
It was an absolute dream to launch this fantastic exhibition last night at @wiltshiremuseum, having played a very small part in making it happen. Couldnt be prouder of our team and the amazing folk at Wessex Museums and the Museum of British Folklore.
An image of a decorate heart shaped pin cushion with text reading un/Common People
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Now the key people know, I suppose I better fess up why I've been so absent from socials these last few months. Baby mossgoblin coming September 2025.
A picture of a baby scan with a babygrow that reads disturber of the peace next to it. Text overplayed reads "a new adventurer joins the party"
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Deep in 1980s folklore journals today. We've got black dogs, dark sky omens, dubious folk cures (snail broth anyone?) and saint sightings a plenty at @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social
A green booklet called Wiltshire Folklife on a wooden table
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Still my biggest claim to fame
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
The year is on its knees, waiting for the blade of ice. We roast ale. We roast cider. Rough music fills the air. The Bone Horse dances the night #WinterSolstice
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Happy solstice from Oliver's Castle where @martinb-archaeo.bsky.social had to pull me out of the mud when I stacked it but we caught a rather magnificent sunset.
A sun set from the top of an iron age hill fort with green fields for miles aroundA man in front of a single tree taking pictures of the view from the top of an iron age hill fortA twilight image of a tree of top of an iron age hill fort with fields visible below
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Had a nice little adventure out with some of our team today to explore the Un/Common People exhibition at Museum & Art Swindon before it heads on to @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social. A gorgeous exhibition with some great folky objects from across Wessex (and a tiny weeny feature from yours truly)
A vinyl sticker on a museum wall featuring folk images from across Wessex with the name Un/Common People across the top. A pile of crates with folk images on the front sitting in front of a display wall with a giant key and a panel with text about the Un/Common People exhibitionAn image of a museum gallery with images of stonehenge and a Piper cartoon. A case in the foreground is filled with old shoesA person with long red hair and glasses stands in front of a text panel about Stonehenge and Avebury as sacred sites
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Are you even in museum work if you don't casually bake historic recipes like Ancient Roman Libum on your lunch breaks? All tested for Saturnalia
A ceramic bowl filled with small baked breads
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Museums Association @museumsassociation.org · 11/11/2024
Hey! We’ve compiled a starter pack of museums, galleries, archives and libraries in the UK who are right here on Bluesky 🦋 go.bsky.app/9o1sRWp
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
A day drinking hot chocolate with 14th century spices and doing my usual pilgrimage to see the things on King Arthurs grave
A tiny cup of hot chocolate being held in the foreground. An abbey and stalls are out of focus in the backgroundA grave in an abbey with flowers and feathers on it. The sign states it is maybe the grave of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
It really has been an honour to play a small part in making this incredible exhibition happen. Hope the pre-launch went amazingly!
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Take me back to lazing around on long barrows instead of unpacking a thousand boxes into our new house please
A green view from the top of a grass covered barrow. You can see the legs of the photograph in black trousers with sun, moon and stars print
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Take your folks to your nearest stone circle day (featuring things hidden on stones)
A couple stand next to a neolithic stone circleA white rose on a stoneSome pennies tucked in the cracks on a stoneSome bits of plants in a hole in a stone
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
As archaeologists, we are also storytellers. For the stones are lithic libraries, batteries which store tales. Some recite from their volumes of folklore, I find as much enchantment in sharing with others the narratives of the Long Neolithic. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
I'm in the middle of moving to a new house so I feel I don't have much to say to my lovely new followers at the moment but please enjoy this little glimpse into what being an ethnographic researcher into British sacred sites looks like (minus broken boots, sheep poo covered notes and zero sleep)
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
1k followers absolutely deserves a throwback to my adventure to see the Hunting of the Earl of Rone in May where I walked many, many miles with @meikle25.bsky.social and got to hang out with the fool and some other lovely people like @folklorepod.bsky.social
A character in a mask and sack costume is places on a donkey by two men in military style red coats with colourful pointy hats. There is a green hill and a church tower in the background and many people standing around
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
I've got lots of new followers here so a quick intro is due! You'll like it here if you are down for folklore, magic, walking the landscape, terrible attempts at the Welsh language, morris dancing, spoon carving, mushroom hunting, all things #phdlife and weird things in museums.
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Still 90% certain this signpost in Din Lligwy was a fae trap. Dim diolch Tylwyth Teg🧚‍♂️
A signpost in a green field with an exclamation mark on it pointing to nowhere
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will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
as a historian of witchcraft, ‘agatha all along’ is research
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Hellebore @helleborezine.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Hello, new followers. HELLEBORE is a small press devoted to folk horror, folklore and the occult in Britain. To be notified of new releases, events and merch, you can sign up to our free newsletter here: 👉🏼 helleborezine.substack.com
"HELLEBORE is the most erudite journal on the current scene to deal with Paganism, magic and folklore in the realms of modern history, fiction and popular culture. It effortlessly straddles the spheres of academic and independent scholarship to unite the two in an ever exciting and always accessible cocktail of new research.”

—Ronald Hutton
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
One whole year since I moved to this wonderful place called Wiltshire and wandered through the Avebury Manor yew hedges wondering where life would take me 🌲
A stone path cuts through deep green yew tree hedges on an overcast day
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Think I've time slipped into the early 2000s if Etnies stickers are back in the public sphere. If anyone needs me I'll be a grumpy goth teen stomping around in my Etnies and my Cradle of Filth t-shirt writing questionable rock music for the foreseeable.
A stop sign with an Etnies sticker on it in front of a medieval street
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 03/11/2024
Stones hold stories like lithic batteries. They store not only the mythic, but profoundly personal tales. For as much as may be petrified warriors, giants' playing pieces, they're also sites of first kiss, the awe found in time's long shadow. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
Is #StandingStoneSunday a thing here? A little throwback to my spring adventure in the middle of some very famous stones
Stonehenge in the early morning casting shadows on the grassBluebells at the base of StonehengeA great bustard pokes a head out from a Stonehenge trilothon A close up of Stonehenge
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
A cute little witch hanging out on a 1911 chestnut roaster in the Wiltshire Museum collections
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Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Hello, here's a starter pack for folklore research, do let me know if you want in!
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Just some little hagstones hanging from a tree on the edge of a stone circle for your Saturday morning enjoyment
2 small rocks with holes in tied to a tree branch with bright neon string
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Five bands I've seen more than five times: The Levellers Ensiferum The Damned Korpiklaani Reel Big Fish
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
For most of history, the witch has been a creature of the bruised margins – dweller at village edge, the wrong side of the hedge. No true witch lacks empathy for all those others marginalised by society's insane need to other and divide. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Nature magic old-stones (ok I cheated a bit there)
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
I haven't posted on here for a while but as the TwitX exodus is really truly underway I am making my return with some good things found at Bryn Celli Ddu.
A neolithic barrow in a green fieldA corn dolly and various rocks, feathers ans shells on stoneA pile of deposits on stone including burnt sage, shells, stones and an evil eye bracelet2 poppets surrounded by shells and stones
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 16/12/2023
Another day playing out with druids for research purposes next to some exceptional old stones.
A basket of fruit and plants like Holly and mistletoe on the grass floor next to a stone chamber. Druids in cloaks stand around.
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 15/12/2023
As I pack ready to set out on fieldwork once again I ask you, what vital thing have I forgotten? 😅
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 25/11/2023
Good frosty morning to everyone (but especially my new cat friend)
A frosty meadow with bright blue skyA black cat rubbing their face on someone's legs. The person is wearing leggings and green bootsA frosty morning field with the low sun prominent in a bright blue sky
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 15/11/2023
Twilight barrow spotting on the post-work buses might be my favourite thing about my new life in Wiltshire so far
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 12/11/2023
Spent the day wandering through yew pathways in the rain and mists to the sound of church bells. Avebury felt very Milbury today.
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 04/11/2023
We might have got absolutely soaked but Lynford Arboretum provided the mushroomy goods today 🍄
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 03/11/2023
Bit of Black Shuck hunting in the Great Churchyard on a Friday night (spoiler: we found one)
A metal cut out of a black dog in a churchyardA black and white photo of a churchyard
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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
The year is dying. Fields becomes mud, become fissured by frost. They give up their ghosts. Ragged phantoms rise, squeeze themselves through the cracks. They begin their long walks home carrying no gifts except omen. – C.L. Nolan
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Claire Slack @mossgoblingrrl.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
Hello I've no idea what I'm doing on this app but grateful for @hookland.bsky.social having all the best people from that old place on their account for me to follow. I'm here anyway 😅
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