“Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.”

(Shakespeare “Macbeth” 4.1)

🎨 Mary Hoare (1781)

#bookologythursday

See you next week on #BookologyThursday

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘The Dagda came with his club of anger, and sang the following words at Teme Mara [the Plain of Murthemne, Co. Louth, between Dundalk and the Boyne]., i.e., the shelter, or covering of the sea:
Silent thy hollow head […]

[Original post on hear-me.social]

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday

"I eat my peas with honey;
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife."

Anonymous
🎨 Pieter Brueghel the Younger

#BookologyThursday 📚
Elflock — A tangled lock of hair (or horse’s mane) blamed on fairies who knot it overnight 🧚‍♀️🐎 In folklore, combing it out risks bad luck 🍀
#BookChatWeekly 📖🐈
#ElfLock 🧝‍♀️ #ShakespeareSunday 🎭

🎨 "High Diddle Diddle" illustrated by Frederick Richardson for the Holland edition of Mother Goose (1915)

#BookologyThursday 📚
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle, 🐈🎻
The cow jumped over the moon; 🐄🌛
The little dog laughed 🐶
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon. 🍽️

A classic piece of English nonsense verse, printed c.1765 in Mother Goose’s Melody, with roots possibly older.

The illustration depicts Bogrod, a goblin bank teller from Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter series.

#Bookologythursday 📚
Gobbledygook — language so bloated with jargon it forgets to mean anything 🌀📜

✨ Coined in 1944 by Maury Maverick, who compared it to a turkey’s pompous gobble 🦃
He even banned it in a memo!

In Harry Potter, Gobbledegook is the goblins’ tongue or language.

Done and done! And also: a book review (chase it down on Goodreads if you want). www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#bookologythursday
#bookchatweekly

🤗

I remember this as a child 😁

#BookologyThursday
#WyrdWednesday
#BookChatWeekly

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday

"The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella!"

Charles Bowen
🎨George Cruikshank

"I saw the Multikertwigo
Standing on his head,
He was looking at me sideways
And this is what he said:
'Sniddle Iddle Ickle Thwack
Nicki-Nacki-Noo
Biddle-diddle Dicky-Dack Tickle-tockle-too!'
None of this made sense to me, Maybe it does to you"
✍🏻🎨Spike Milligan
#BookologyThursday

"I wished I was a flower underneath a great big tree,
But then a dog would come along & shower me with wee.
I wished I was a chestnut tree with lots of lovely conkers,
But kids would come & nick my nuts & that would..."

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Poetry

www.storiesspace.com/stories/poet...

Roughly the area of the Great Secret of the men of Dea, Co Louth, map data © Google 2026

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘Which way didst thou take after that?’ said Emer.
‘Not hard to tell,’ said #Cuchulaind. ‘… over the Great Secret of the Men of Dea. …`
What did the Hound of Ulster mean by that?
Source: celt.ucc.ie/publishe...
Find the answer in the comments!

War chariot, MAMUZ; photo credit 1. Neu-Kelte

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘What was your food there?’ Emer asked.
‘The ruin of a chariot was cooked for us there,’ #Cuchulaind replied.
What is the ruin of a chariot?
Find the answer in the comments!
Source: celt.ucc.ie/publishe...
Here`s the backstory: hear-me.social/@NeuK...

Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens*
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

Ogden Nash

*Bitten is an invented rhyme. A baby bat is a ‘pup’

Avril Haynes #BookologyThursday

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday

"We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features;
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you'll find in jet.
T'other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within.
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you."

Jonathan Swift

The Plain of Murthemne, Co Louth, map data © Google 2026.png

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘Which way didst thou take after that?’ said Emer.
‘Not hard to tell,’ said #Cuchulaind. ‘From the Cover of the Sea, …`
Source: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301021.html
What did the Hound of Ulster mean by that?
Find the answer in the comments!

Today on #BookologyThursday 🪿

War chariot, MAMUZ; photo credit 1. Neu-Kelte

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘What was your food there?’ Emer asked.
‘The ruin of a chariot was cooked for us there,’ #Cuchulaind replied.
What is the ruin of a chariot?
Find the answer in the comments!
Source […]

[Original post on hear-me.social]

An original artwork of a hare and wildflowers beneath a starlit sky, created using watercolour paints on A4 watercolour paper.

“I shall go into a hare, / With sorrow and sych and meickle care; / And I shall go in the Devil's name, / Ay while I come home again”.
The above chant from Isobel Gowdie is often used in #Folklore to highlight the ancient belief that women and hares are linked to the supernatural.
#BookologyThursday

2pm to 4pm TODAY on @SkyArts

Both episodes of #Documentary📺 “Dickens in Italy with David Harewood”

The actor & writer follows in the footsteps of Charles Dickens' journey through Italy's beautiful cities, examining the country's influence on the author

#BookchatWeekly #BookologyThursday #BookSky

There was an Owl lived in an oak, Whiskey, Whaskey, Weedle;
And all the words he ever spoke Were Fiddle, Faddle, Feedle.

Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes (1877)
art by Lily Seika Jones
#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday

SOCKDOLAGER (n.):

A knockdown blow or decisive point in an argument; a clincher

#WyrdWednesday #BookologyThursday

I remember this as a child 😁

#BookologyThursday
#WyrdWednesday
#BookChatWeekly

An unknown artist's commissioned picture for the now AI-infused Dragon Distillery showing the Snallygaster as a serpentine creature with talon-like claws, tiny chicken wings, a bird-like head with one eye, and tentacles emerging from an iron beak. It looks happy to see you as it flies off with a barrel of brandy.

The Snallygaster is an American cryptid created by German immigrants in Maryland, a chimera of bird, octopi and reptile that eats chickens and children. It later spawned snollygoster, a 19th century insult for those without principle, often seeking or in power. #BookologyThursday

Sliab Fuait [Slieve Fuad] could be located to the north-west of Forkhill, County Armagh; map data (C) Google 2026

#BookologyThursday #WyrdWednesday #Celtic: ‘Which way didst thou come?’ said Emer.
‘Between the Two Mountains of the Wood,’ said #Cuchulaind.`
Source: https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301021.html
Which road did the Hound of Ulster take?
Find the answer in the comments!

Edwin Morgan CANEDOLIA An Off-Concrete Scotch Fantasia oa! hoy! awe! ba! mey! who saw? rhu saw rum. garve saw smoo. nigg saw tain. lairg saw lagg. rigg saw eigg. largs saw haggs. tongue saw luss. mull saw yell. stoer saw strone. drem saw muck. gask saw noss. unst saw cults. echt saw banff. weem saw wick. trool saw twatt. how far? from largo to lunga from joppa to skibo from ratho to shona from ulva to minto from tinto to tolsta from soutra to marsco from braco to barra from alva to stobo from fogo to fada from gigha to gogo from kelso to stroma from hirta to spango. what is it like there? och, it’s freuchie, it’s faifley, it’s wamphray, it’s frandy, it’s sliddery. what do you do? we foindle and fungle, we bonkle and meigle and maxpoffle. we scotstarvit, armit, wormit, and even whifflet, we play at crossstobs, leuchars, gorbals, and finfan. we scavaig, and there’s aye a bit of tilquhilly. if it’s wet, treshnish and mishnish. what is the best of the country? blinkbonny! airgold! thundergay! and the worst? scrishven, shiskine, scrabster, and snizort. listen! what’s that? catacol and wauchope, never heed them. tell us about last night well, we had a wee ferintosh and we lay on the quiraing. it was pure strontian! but who was there? petermoidart and craigenkenneth and cambusputtock and ecclemuchty and corriehulish and balladolly and altnacanny and clauchanvrechan and stronachlochan and auchenlachar and tighnacrankie and tilliebruaich and killieharra and invervannach and achnatudlem and machrishellach and inchtamurchan and auchterfechan and kinlochculter and ardnawhallie and invershuggle. and what was the toast? schiehallion! schiehallion! schiehallion!

we foindle and fungle, we bonkle and meigle and maxpoffle.
we scotstarvit, armit, wormit, and even whifflet…

—Edwin Morgan, “Canedolia: An Off-Concrete Scotch Fantasia”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020
#BookologyThursday #poem #placenames
www.carcanet.co.uk/978178410996...

Reposting because I forgot to tag #BookologyThursday, like a plum!

Mine says FORBIDDEN. Not kidding.