iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 23h

Witchcraft is not consolatory hokum. It doesn't offer tepid answers to hard questions and even harsher circumstances. It offers us relationships with the land, its spirits and ourselves. Relationships may be rough and require work, but they get us through. – #EmilyCBanting #WitchSky

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 21h

Dropped in a Hookland vinegar cake to all at @treadwells-books.bsky.social as a small thank for hosting such a magical evening last week. They still have plenty of signed copies ‘Hookland Fragments’ with a special insert if you want to order from them.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 15h

Re-introducing a Hookland childhood nightmare/beloved icon. Mr. Lookout – the ghost bear mascot of the Hookland Tourist Board's 'I-See! series of books'. The scarrer of many a child's imaginations as depicted by @tomsbrown.bsky.social. #MrLookout #Hookland

A ghost bear. A big, fat ghost bear. Wearing spectacles, holding what appears to be a bone wand. Trust me, it is one scary bear. The text says: Mr. Lookout

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Still a bit blown away to see copies of ‘Hookland Fragments’ in the wild. Here is a signed copy available from @treadwells-books.bsky.social

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Treadwell's Books @treadwells-books.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Last night were honoured to celebrate the creator and community of @hookland.bsky.social . Christina and David in the subterranean Hades before the main event.

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London Fortean Society @forteanlondon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It's a whole day of ghosts, magic and old gods @conwayhall.bsky.social and online on 21 November. forteanlondon.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-... @strangeattractor.bsky.social

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Phil Hine @philh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A most inspiring talk by @cultauthor.bsky.social at Treadwells last night. Plus free fascist numpty-bothering stickers!

Hookland "Folklore Against Fascism" Stickers:

Re-Enchantment is Resistance
Herne the Hunter Hates Your Racist Bollocks
The Norse Gods Are Queer as Fuck

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Witch box! Witch box! Bad dreams locked Witch box! Witch box! Dead hands knocks Witch box! Witch box! Mother Kemp walks – Trad. Hookland rhyme as recorded by Dario & Janet Tóth in 'Playing The Witch-Child', Hookland University Press, 1976

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Phil Hine @philh.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Lovely piece - "Finding My Kula Devata in Kerala - My Ancestors' Forgotten Goddess". www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPa6...

youtube.com

Finding My Kula Devata in Kerala - My Ancestors' Forgotten Goddess

YouTube video by Vidya Warrier

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Always nice to be interviewed.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Next week's Hookland talk is written and I just need to lose 20 minutes of material from it. Hopefully, this paragraph on the importance of folklore and re-enchantment will be retained. #Folklore #Reenchantment

Folklore is often the wild frontier of belief, the place where wonder may still live. Here be Woodwoses, here be Harrowhounds, the ghosts which whisper wisdom. We need this space. We ache for the sublime. For re-enchantment is an assertion of wonder and the numinosity of our relationships with landscape. Re-enchantment is an assertion of our collective ability to both imagine and experience better worlds. As a refusal of despair, as a lensing of hope. In re-enchantment we stop dreaming of inevitable apocalypse and find the permissive space to tell stories of hope.

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I will be away for a little while, travelling back home for a few weeks. In the meantime, have a comet fox (the brown of the fox is rosehip ink) See you in a few weeks 🦊🌿🌠

a standing fox facing the viewer surrounded b blossoms and stars, a planet wih a ring around it, a crescent moon. On her chest a heart with a planetary ring around it. Linedrawing etching, handcoloured in watercolour and rosehip ink, shades of light pink, white, brown, blue and yellow. Maria Strutz

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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Well, to begin with today, it’s the 56th anniversary of the publication of the book which contains the only advice a chap really needs

Extract from Kathryn Paulsen’s 1970 work, The Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft. The first line at the top of p.90 is: “You may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese”

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Today the last Plague Plays are carried out in the county. I wish I could get to performance at Long Croxley where it's the Faery King and not The Devil who is making the 'plague pact'.

Several villages enact plague plays on Sundays throughout the summer. It is well known that the ‘Great Mortality’ of the plague was brutal in Hookland. Many local ‘plague pacts’ were made in villages where their priests had fled to escape the disease in which promises were made to God, saints, the Devil or even older things in the hopes of being spared the pestilence. Many of these pacts are still commemorated to this day by the putting on of plague plays – quirky folk plays populated with a cast of odd characters. Most of the ones involving a pact between a village and God or a saint are frankly quite dull, while the those involving the Devil, the bone angel or echoes of truly ancient gods glimpsed in faeryland are much more
flamboyant and fun.

A typical plague play will start with a priest deserting his flock out of fear of the coming pestilence, only for him to meet it head on as he runs away. The village will then send a knight out to fight death who is quickly dispatched as is the quack doctor next sent to battle it. Eventually the crow doctor or mayor will try to mediate with
death. Unfortunately, the reaper will accept no sacrifice except the death of everyone. At this point, the villagers summon the Devil or something equally as dubious, make a bargain with it and watch as the Devil and death battle each other until Old Clip wins the day, forcing death to retreat. All that is left is for the Devil or Faery King is to
collect their payment – usually a child or a much-loved maiden – before reminding the audience that he is still keeping his end of the pact and they should be mindful to keep their end of it. I am probably underplaying the bawdy humour, physical comedy, scary costumes and underlying sense of perpetual horror from making such a pact that
the these plays provide, so I suggest go and watch one yourself.

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A Magnolia Wheel constructed of magnolia seedpods with a white anemone at the centre 🤍🌀🌿 #MondayMandala

a mandala laid out in three concentric circles with magnolia seedpods facing outwards. A white Japanese anemone flower at the centre of the mandala.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

In the tolling bell I hear a thousand dooms. Not just a new death, but all those parish deaths it has marked before. When we talk of living traditions, we do not think enough of the mortality implied in the phrase. We build and live atop ghost soil. - #DAKilroy, 1982

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

'Fox Moon' In celebration of today's lunar eclipse #FoxMoon #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay 🦊🌿🌔

fox running from right to left. a full moon with two crescent moons on either side. The fox has several tails streaming behind them, some take on the shape of the crescent waxing moon on the right, some of the tails could also be ears of corn. Linocut, feathery orange red, white and black, Maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Hookland album covers, an occasional series. Number 12: Dave Padbury's 1983 'A Twist In The Wyrd'.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The Hum summoned us to walk below it. Across fields, through woods. Under roads where traffic's static growl never ceased. Every transmission tower a temple. Every pylon tattooing its place on the electric ley of the land onto our very being. – Trippy Pete, ex-Pylon Person

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

V2 a ghost print is the second print pulled from a block without re-inking. OR if the image you have printed is over-saturated with ink you can take a print from this paper and will end up with a mirror image of the initial print. These are composite prints of two blocks ghost- printed separately

a faint hovering tawny owl with outstretched wings facing towards the right, in the background a big oaktree. Shades of bluegreen and dark brownblack. Woodcut ghost print, version 2 Maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

There are places even locals rarely frequent such as the salt cured marsh with its mud and tide peril. Here my garnering bag becomes fat, my boots dirty. Here my heart is charged, my magics grow tidal teeth. Here I am a brackish witch. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The avatars of the Queen of Owls are many. They wink from tapestries as they look upon woven lovers; stare the saints from corners of stained glass. The observe us at the vulnerability of prayer, look down from pubs. Her watch upon the world is constant. She knows us. – #CLNolan

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M. Belanger @sethanikeem.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This October is my fifth anniversary on @itch.io & I’ve been noodling over how to commemorate the event A game jam makes the most sense, but what theme? Vampires seemed a no-brainer but then … then!!! I knew! It will be Hookland Let’s all play in @hookland.bsky.social & make games #TTRPGSky

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

In the stones' presence we often feel as if we're interrupting a conversation. While we know the stones are the exposed bones of a once elongated mound, their current positioning seems dynamic. A profound sense of exchange in a lithic language. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

A many-tailed fox and their reflection, accompanied by a crescent moon, with a heart-shaped sea urchin fossil (Micraster) between their paws 🦊🐾🤍 #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay #FossilFriday

a many-tailed fox, seated and facing forward, lookng slightly down to the left. A crescent moon above her, a fossilized heart shaped sea urchin at her feet. and a many tailed fox reflected below with crescent moon on the other side. Linocut, gold, white and black, maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Today’s writing of the next Hookland talk has featured Steve Austin, David Attenborough and Bourbon biscuits. It has also featured American cryptid imperialism.

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Phil Hine @philh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

An alarming sign encountered on a stroll.

Plastic fence with hand-lettered sign reading "Killer Bees Risk of Being Abducted!"

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

For I am witch. I will dance the storm. I will dance the coming of blessed rain. I will sing as the land sighs and the sky shouts. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

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Folk Horror Revival 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Spent the day visiting the freshly refurbished and repaired @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social with their new paint jobs to reflect how they would have originally looked when they were first installed, and they look amazing.

Photograph of the Crystal Palace Megalosaurus sculpture.

Photograph of the two Crystal Palace Iguanodons.

Photograph of one of the Crystal Palace ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs in the foreground and a couple more ichthyosaurs in the background. The ichthyosaur in the foreground has an Egyptian goose perched on its head.

Photograph of the Megaloceros/ Irish elk sculptures on display at Crystal Palace. In the foreground is the female sitting down and behind her is a male with large antlers.

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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The stuff this Yew tree has seen. Already an elder statestree by the time of the Norman Conquest. Born before King Alfred burned the cakes, before Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History Of The English People. Oh, to listen to its gnarly anecdotes and its withering opinions on today's world

A 1500-year-old (at least) Yew tree on the Dartington Estate in Devon, a few hundred yards from the cottage where I lived from the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2017. Is it just me who sees the hook-nosed hunchback figure climbing its thick trunk? Will she have finally reached the summit by the year 21500?

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I find it hard to imagine anyone who does not like a cheerful corbel, a good foliate head. If I am to be surveilled by lithic lookouts, I'd rather it was done by a leaf-faced spy who seems happy in his position rather than a dour angel with eyes seeing nothing but slow misery. – #CLNolan

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Anna Orridge @anna-orridge.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This is a beautiful and very personal insight into the life experiences and influences that breathed, and continue to breathe, life into @hookland.bsky.social ❤️🖤

Hookland Fragments. Volume One. David Southwell. Illustration of a bear juggling bones under starlight by Maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Most stations can boast a group of trainspotters, all notepads, Thermos flasks and diesel engine numbers. Only Hookland's stations have gangs of ghost gricers, hovering at the end of platforms hoping for glimpse of steam phantoms, locomotives doomed to temporal crash loops.

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Gyrus @gyrus.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This rail station at a small town near where I grew up is VERY cautious.

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I have added a few more sets of the Hookland bookmarks that I originally printed last year to my online shop. Featuring the Bonehorse of Hookland and the Long Fox and the Queen of Owls and Lutra Lutra Hooklandii (the Hookland Otter) 🌿🐾🤍 www.maria-strutz.co.uk/product/book...

A set of 4 black and white bookmarks comprised of The Bonehorse of Hookland, Queen of Owls, the Long Fox of Hookland Hill figure and a Hookland otter swimming amongst white water lillies. Linocut prints, black and white, Maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

There are spots on the Marshbone Road where certain trees appear as sentinels. Watching the horizon for invisible invasion, any leaking from the hollow hills. Places whose beauty cannot overwhelm the sense of sleeping threat getting ever closer to waking. – #MattAdams

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Phil Hine @philh.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Foxes playing in Forest Hill school grounds - spotted on the night of the eclipse.

Three foxes in a Forest Hill School. Photo taken on the night of the eclipse.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

My last speaking engagement this year will be at the wonderful @treadwells-books.bsky.social where I will be talking about re-enchantment as resistance; communities of story and the importance of links between folklore and place. www.tickettailor.com/events/tread.... I hope to see some of you there.

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Buy tickets – Hookland with David Southwell – In-Person Lecture – Treadwells Books

Hookland with David Southwell – In-Person Lecture – Treadwells Books, Thu 24 Sep 2026 - The creator of England's imagined lost county on re-enchantment as resistance. Through near-daily postings in th...

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Phil Hine @philh.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The Ivy Witch of Hookland - encountered during the solar eclipse.

the Ivy Witch of Hookland - photo taken during solar eclipse 12 Aug 26.

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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

'Spirit of the Woods' - composite ghost print #OwlishMonday 🤍

a faint hovering tawny owl with outstretched wings facing towards the right, in the background a big oaktree. Shades of bluegreen and faint brownblack. Woodcut ghost print, Maria Strutz

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

We ride the rural roads of Hookland unable to dismiss them as Zones of Anomalous Possibility (ZAP). They are ghost-patined. Marked not just with white lines to guide our driving, but stories of UFO interruptions, darting Woodwoses. Tarmacked green tunnels into lost hours. – #DAKilroy

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Nothing in Hookand is made up, just remembered differently.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

We've been conditioned to think of ghosts as a matter of menace, hauntings as serious business. Yet what of the spectre who plays knock-down-ginger? The phantom teasing by being seen walking to door, but vanishing before it can be opened? Shade as tricksters, shades with humour. – #CJosiffe

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