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Signe Maene

@signemaene.com
4.3K followers 1K following 2.7K 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 · 27/09/2026
Luckily, Lohengrin was nowhere to be seen!
picture of a swan
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 22/09/2026
According to magpies, the best place to have an argument is on a sheep's back.
Picture taken on the island of Texel, the Netherlands, some two weeks ago. Two magpies bickering on the back of a sheep. It went on for quite some time. The sheep tried to get rid of them once, but it seemed to be only a minor annoyance, and the magpies quickly returned.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 13/07/2026
Very superstitious by @willowwinsham.bsky.social has been on my reading list for quite some time, so I was very happy to find this beautiful book in the wild! 🐈‍⬛🐾 The lovely illustrations and mini-chapters make it the perfect companion to pick up during breaks!
Picture of books displayed on a white store shelf with Very Superstitious by Willow Winsham. In Stonemanor, Everberg.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 06/07/2026
SHIP!
Model of a historical ship, Dutch flag. Stadhuismuseum Zierikzee.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 13/06/2026
Our garden resident practising high beam walking. 🦔🖤
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Johannes (Hadestown era) @rehborn.de · 17/05/2026
I found the amazing book of @signemaene.com in a bookshop in Brugges Yesterday. So cool!
The book Flemish folktales retold by signe Maene
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 02/05/2026
Hi everyone, except for hosting #BookWormSat, I'm not that much online here because I live in the world of Flanders’ folklore witches atm. ✍️ I'm also still trying to cope with the loss of my beloved cat and spending a lot of time in nature, which helps with grieving and writing. 🌳🌸
Picture of a ruin in the woods.Picture of cowslipPicture of a tree surrounded by little white flowersPicture of a river, forest.
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
‘But he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may, Because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away.’ ~ Yeats, Red Hanrahan’s Curse. #BookWormSat 🖼️ Charles Caryl Coleman, 1889.
Painting of Apple blossom in blue and white vase against background of cream wallpaper and vase placed on a pale pink, blue and cream floral tablecloth.
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Folklore Twitcher @folkloretwitcher.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
“So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Blodeuwedd.” 🌺 The Mabinogion #BookWormSat
FLOWERS - Blooms of Blodeuwedd by Jenny Dolfen, Goldseven de
TEXT - Mabinogion, The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch O Hergest, and Other Ancient Welsh Mss. - image of a woman's face - half human and half owl. Stares directly at the viewer, mouth slightly parted. Human side of face is partly covered with primrose flowers and foliage.
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Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
'Moon Foxes' - in celebration of today's full moon here are three moon foxes basking in the light of a full moon's glow 🦊🌀🌕 #FoxMoon #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay
Three foxes, two of them seated, one raised on something that might be a rock looking down to the right at a fox looking up at the fox on the top left, between and behind them a full moon in a starry night sky, the fully moon reflected in a stretch of water behind them, possibly the sea. A third fox curled up below the fox on the left. Linocut, white, orangered and black, Maria Strutz
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 02/05/2026
"Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will." Poet & polymath Novalis was born #otd 1772. 🎨 Caspar David Friedrich "The Dreamer" (1835)
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Ruins of Despair @ruinsofdespair.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
O! I can feel the cold earth upon me—the daisies growing over me—O for this quiet—it will be my first. – John Keats on his deathbed in 1812, as reported by his friend Joseph Severn. #bookwormsat
Keats's grave in Rome, sans daisies. The photograph is from the 1913 book 'Shrines old and new, and other poems' by one 'obscure and unworthy disciple', as Thomas Devey Jermyn Farmer calls himself in the dedication:

TO THE MEMORY OF Those Illustrious Two WHO "GAZING ON NATURE'S NAKED LOVELINESS" AND FOLLOWING HER IN SINGLENESS OF HEART REVIVED AND RESTORED THE PURITY OF ENGLISH POETRY AND WHOSE DUST FOREVER HALLOWS TESTACCIO'S HILL AT ROME, AN OBSCURE AND UNWORTHY DISCIPLE DEDICATES THESE HUMBLE EFFORTS

The text below the image ("For here rests that sweet flower of song, than whom / No sweeter ever faded in its bloom.") is from Farmer's poem 'To a Violet' (Gathered on the grave of Keats at Rome.)
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Third German Art - Trade Exhibition from Dresden May to Oct 1906.
Third German Art - Trade Exhibition from Dresden May to Oct 1906
Green background with art nouveau woman in brown gown decorated with pink flowers, she has very long red, curly hair, she is barefoot, she is holding a gold ornament in the shape of a tree with white blossom.
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BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
The spring comes... 'O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings, And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs. Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.' -John Clare @signemaene.com welcomes you to #BookWormSat! 🪻🌼
Painting by Helen Allingham A young girl in a white dress wearing a black hat gathering flowers. Red, green purple, pink There's a rose bush behind her.
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BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
'Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.' -Robert Frost Tomorrow, #BookWormSat celebrates Beltane with the theme flowers. Join us! 🌸🌼🪻 🎨Anna Billing
Painting of a wildflower meadow. Trees in the far distance
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Beltane blessings. Walter Crane, 1889.
The sullen winter nearly spent,
Wueen
Flora To her garden went,
*o call the flowers from Their long sleep,
The year’s glad
festivals to keep:
Mythology - Flora ~ illustration, basket at her feet
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 30/04/2026
"The wind howls and surges. Hear the voices on the heights? Far away, and then nearby? Yes, a furious magic song Sweeps the mountain, all along!" (Goethe) 🎨 Albert Zimmermann #walpurgisnight
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Rivka @theasraidance.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Beware the Beautiful Witch by Power O'Malley, 1913.
Painting of a witch flying over a town at night. There are bats flying in the sky. A full moon is partially hidden behind dark clouds, its light reflects on a body of water in the background.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 01/05/2026
Say "White Rabbit! White Rabbit! White Rabbit!" on the first of the month for good luck! 🎨 Higuchi Yuko
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
The Worker’s May-Pole, Walter Crane, 1894.
Workers’ Rights May pole
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 11/04/2026
'A darling Mouse it is:— Part hope not likely to take wing, Part memory, part anything You please. Venus-cum-Iris Mouse From shifting tides set safe apart, In no mere bottle, in my heart …' -Christina Rossetti 🎨Dick Twinney #BookWormSat
Artwork of a mouse in nature nibbling on something. Purple flowers and greenery.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 11/04/2026
"Gestumblindi said: "Who are the twain that on ten feet run? three eyes they have, but only one tail. Alright guess now this riddle, Heithrek!" Heithrek said: "Good is thy riddle, Gestumblindi, and guessed it is: that is Odin riding on Sleipnir." (Heiðreks gátur) 🎨 John Bauer #bookwormsat
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
‘We lived beneath the mat, Warm and snug and fat, But one woe, and that Was the cat! To our joys a clog, In our eyes a fog, On our hearts a log Was the dog! When the cat's away, Then the mice will play…’ ~ Lewis Carroll. 1/2 #BookWormSat
From Lewis Carroll’s own illustrated manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.
Written in shape of a mouse’s tail.
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
‘She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person who kept a parrot.’ ~ Mark Twain 🦜 #BookWormSat 🖼️ The Lady of the Tooti-Nameh or The Legend of the Parrot, Valentine Cameron Prinsep, c.1865.
Woman in white and gold, red and black gown with long, curly red hair, little green slippers, lies back on a chair, a parrot perches, wings out on her hand, she is in a Moroccan style room with a small table with tea beside here, tiles, red rug, hookah, painting.
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Ruins of Despair @ruinsofdespair.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
He mounted on a chariot and tamed with the bit the horses of Diomedes, that greedily champed their bloody food at gory mangers with unbridled jaws, devouring with hideous joy the flesh of men. – Euripides, Herakles #bookwormsat #art 'Diomedes Devoured by His Horses' by Gustave Moreau 1866
Note: The translation is by E. P. Coleridge (1891), with the exception that the word 'car' is replaced by 'chariot', as is customary these days.

Image: 'Diomède dévoré par ses chevaux'
An oil painting showing the King of Thrace being attacked by four horses in a classical setting. The palette is muted and pastel, contrasting sharply with the subject of the painting. One of the enraged horses is brown and three are white. Diomedes is depicted as a young man in the state of undress and deep fear and anguish.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 11/04/2026
'You are lord of a place bounded like a dream.' -To a Cat, Jorge Luis Borges. 🎨Bruno Liljefors #BookWormSat
Painting title: Sleeping Jeppe. Artwork of a tabby cat sleeping outside in the spring sun.
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BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
'Jellicle Cats come out tonight, Jellicle Cats come one come all: The Jellicle Moon is shining bright— Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.' -T. S. Eliot @signemaene.com and Jellicle cats everywhere welcome you to #BookWormSat! 🎨Edward Gorey
Black/white illustration of six tuxedo cats dancing. Full moon.
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Joy Parry @joy13.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
#BookWormSat "The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off ..." Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden 🎨Inga Moore
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 11/04/2026
The Reverend Julian Graves (dec.) never learned how to end things. And so he returns to St Bride’s library every April to write poetry. Since more than 300 years. Read his story below in our 42nd #darkspringtide tale. 🎨 Mike Mignola
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 10/04/2026
New friend!
Brimstone butterfly on a dandelion.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 10/04/2026
Kitten in the Sun, Thure Wallner (1888-1965).
Painting of a tabby kitten washing itself amongst blue and white flowers.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 10/04/2026
The bloedkoets (blood carriage) was said to be a ghostly carriage from Flemish folklore that was often seen in the streets of Aalst. According to the tales, masked men walked beside it and abducted children. The blood that the carriage collected was sent to Paris. #PhantomsFriday
Art by Francis Mosley to accompany a tale by M. R. James. Two figures watch a carriage ride by. Leafless trees, dark, and full moon.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 10/04/2026
Just a reminder that this exists. :-)
Book cover depicting folkloric creatures from Flemish folklore. Book title: Flemish Folktales Retold.
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C.W. Reeve @cwreeve.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
It's #PhantomsFriday, so it's time for yet another haunted painting! This is Mi Novia (also known as Portrait of a Lady), by Juan Luna. According to legend, it is of the artist's wife, Paz Pardo de Tavera, who Juan Luna murdered 🫨 1/3
Painting of a woman on a bed clutching a rosary.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 10/04/2026
“For, though they claim to be exempt From pride, they treat a Phantom As something quite beneath contempt— Just as no Turkey ever dreamt Of noticing a Bantam.” (Lewis Carroll “Rhyme? and Reason?”) 🎨  Arthur B. Frost #Phantomsfriday
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Stephen G. Rae @stephengrae.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
A squire's daughter would meet her lover at Furness Abbey. One day he took a journey out to sea and never returned. The girl returned every day until her death and her ghost the White Lady, still walks more: 'Folklore of the Lake District' #phantomsfriday #booksky art : Arthur Rackham
A squire's daughter would meet her lover at Furness Abbey. One day he took a journey out to sea and never returned. The girl returned every day until her death and her ghost the White Lady, still walks 

more: 'Folklore of the Lake District'

#phantomsfriday #bookchatweekly
art : Arthur Rackham
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
‘When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Tho’ you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. 1/2 I Shall Not Care ~ Sara Teasdale
Painting of graveyard in bright sunshine.
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BookWormSat @bookwormsat.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
‘O wombat, agile, joyful, how have you grown, furry and round! Ah do not flee like a vagabond, do not vanish, burrowing through the world…’ ~ Rossetti For National Pet Day, #BookWormSat will walk the dogs and curl up with the cats of literature. And the horses, mice, rabbits, rats, birds, wombats…
‘O wombat, agile, joyful, how have you grown, furry and round! Ah do not flee like a vagabond, do not vanish, burrowing through the world: it's really the weight of a hemisphere, not a light burden.’ ~ Christina Rossetti Illustration of wombat at top.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 10/04/2026
Everyone, god and his mother might feel slightly hungover after an abundance of festivities and observances and since olden times, there are Silent Days strewn in... like today. Days you might meet a Silent One in the woods... like the one in our 41st #darkspringtide tale below. 🎨  Martin Ball
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 09/04/2026
More flowers to admire.
Photograph of forget-me-nots
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 09/04/2026
Cat in the Summer Meadow, Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939).
Painting of a tabby cat in a summer meadow. Surrounded by dandelions and other flowers.
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Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Still Life of a Bird’s Nest and Primroses, George Clare, C19th.
As described, little green, mossy nest filled with little white eggs, next to primroses. Painting.
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Dirk Puehl @wunderkammertales.eurosky.social · 09/04/2026
Sometimes they come back. Not as draugr, as they are called up North, but as... something else, the unjustly slain. Our 40th #darkspringtide tale tells of boat burials, flowers and payback. Read it below. 🎨 Howard Pyle
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WillowWinsham @willowwinsham.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Curious Cats and Fantastical Felines is finally here! 😻The first seeds for this one were planted way back in lockdown, so it feels extra special being able to finally share it with everyone - huge thanks to @batsfordbooks.bsky.social for making it a reality!
Cover of Curious Cats and Fantastical Felines, an orange cover with the title text and cat figures moving jumping around the words. Text reading A curious collection of cattish folklore, myth and superstitions is beside it, with a cat above and below.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 08/04/2026
Magic!
Close up picture of a bluebell. Hallerbos.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 08/04/2026
More enchantment from Belgium's Blue Forest.
Photograph of bluebells in the forest. Hallerbos, near Brussels.Photograph of bluebells in the forest. Hallerbos, near Brussels.Photograph of bluebells in the forest. Hallerbos, near Brussels.Photograph of bluebells in the forest. Hallerbos, near Brussels.
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 08/04/2026
1/2 Hope and fear sat on the wagon, He saw two legs carrying four legs, The four-legged one was in distress, If you can guess it, I must die. In a Dutch fairytale, a man sentenced to death poses this riddle to the judges. If they cannot guess it, he will be pardoned for his crimes. #WyrdWednesday
A tile design of a frog and stork by William de Morgan dating from about 1872, Victoria & Albert Museum
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The Swamp Wytch @theswampwytch.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
In Foxfire 6, elders share the classic Blackberry Riddle: "As white as snow, and snow it’s not; As green as grass, and grass it’s not; As red as blood, and blood it’s not; As black as ink, and ink it’s not." Such a poetic way to track the life of a berry from blossom to harvest! #WyrdWednesday
Photo of blackberries on a bush, ripe for the pickin'!
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The Ghost Monk @theghostmonk.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
In past times Welsh children who loaned something to a friend would sometimes say: 'Give a thing, Take a thing, Wear the bwgan's ring.' The rhyme seems to be a curse-in-advance: if you don't give it back, a bwgan (ghost/goblin) will get you. #WyrdWednesday #folklore #Wales
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Signe Maene @signemaene.com · 08/04/2026
Fairies live here.
Photograph of a mossy tree and bluebells. Hallerbos near Brussels
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