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Wax sculpture: a pair of woman's hands in white, ending at the elbows. From wrist to elbow they are sleeved in pink, yellow and cream flowers. Source: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/03/the-delicate-floral-wax-sculptures-and-laser-cut-paintings-of-valerie-hammond/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQVO3RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeodLR1Lpl0ojpRTh_9Q7XFOwakkGax8Ip87y9G2vRQTjU58Z9My48DfY7rG8_aem_4YjCIwFLEXnhGSunFa2v9g

Went dancing on Stranger Hill under the new moon, poor lass. Met a fey man who asked for her hand.

She thought he meant to marry her, so she said yes.

We found them, but let's not try to put them back on. She'll have to get by from the elbow up.

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Brocken spectre photo. On a rocky mountaintop, the shadow of the photographer is caught on the clouds that hang over an opposite peak. As a result we see a giant figure, caught in concentric haloes of rainbow prisms. Taken in the Langdales. Shared on FB page ‘Welcome to Cumbria and the Lake District.’

Old Bob’s saying he saw more angels up the mountain, poor fool.

It’s just the giants again.

Let’s get him into the church if he wants to pray; if he kneels too long up there they might tread on him.

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Photo: Richard Midgley. Actually a Brocken spectre.

Painting. A pale-skinned woman with dark brown hair heaped in a neo-Classical-looking ornate style, decorated with bejewelled butterflies and natural-shaped gold. She sits against a dark background, butterflies fluttering around her; her dress is Virgin-Mary blue but slipping off her shoulders. From behind her peeps a glowing heron. Two fox cups sit on her lap, one dozing and the other putting up a trusting paw to her chest. She also holds a bitten pomegranate in a hand decked with a heavy emerald ring. Watermark: copyright 2022 Chie Yoshii.

Aye, there's a woman sits by the lake on Valentine's Day you can ask about love if you like. She'll mostly tell you how she loves the world rather than who you'll marry, but it's good advice nonetheless.

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Artist: Chie Yoshii

I didn’t watch the war between the People of Thompson’s field and Gillam’s ditch, but looking at how crestfallen the fairy-mounts are looking in Thompson’s field I’d say the ditch has it.

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There’s owls can talk in the woods this season. Look wise as you please, but it turns out all their insights are about mice.

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Watercolour illustration. A cool, misty day, and we're looking closely at some scrub grass and tattery clover. Resting against a stem is a tiny cello played by a grasshopper; a miniscule woman in drifting clothes dances along a single spiderline between grass stems. Below her stretches a spiderweb, like a net to catch her if she falls.

There's music on cold days if you listen for it, sure enough. Just keep your hands in your pockets and your step light; it's a shame to shake such fine work.

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Artist: Arthur Rackham.

Taxidermy Racka sheep: white pelt against a black background, with a gaunt black face and staring, slotted eyes. Its horns jut out either side as long as swords, each twisted in a sharp-edged spiral. Bottom right text: Copyright Philip Leggett, taxidermyuk.net

Never eat mutton if you don't know the shepherd. You don't want the memory of the ram it once was after you in the dark; you'll have to eat a dog to chase it off, and no man likes himself after doing that.

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Sculpture of a Red Shouldered Hawk made of scrap metal.

We’ve got ghost mice in the barn again, eating the souls of the grain. All the bread tastes of meaningless aeons. Better put an iron hawk up to scare em off before we all die of buttered despair.

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Artist: Stu Beavers

Illustration: a pine wood under dusky purple skies, mist swathing the ground. A congregation of animals stares at you, some walking towards you purposefully: rabbit, hare, fox, moose, stag, bears, squirrels, unidentifiable beasts. Their eyes glow yellow.

If you hear a church bell after sunset, mind the direction it comes from. If it's from the village, go there to pray.

If it's from the woods, stay at home, lock your door, and pray there. Pray with all your soul.

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Artist: Mariachiara di Georgio

Stained glass window image of a red squirrel, sitting up and regarding you with bright, unapologetic eyes. Window in St Maurice, Eglingham. Photo possibly taken by Chris Howson, shared in FB group Church Stained Glass Windows.

The window keeps the rain out well enough, but acorns keep falling through.

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Artist: Andrew Taylor

Sculpture. A green leaf laid out like a frog’s back, with perfectly arranged twigs forming its eyes, legs and toes.

Mostly the leaves just fall this season, but there’s the croak-tree over by the Gillam farm where they hop down. Cures warts if you rub em on the bark, but only on wet days.

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Artist: Raku Inoue

Woodcut of a cat seen from the side. Its head and body are normal; so are its far back and fore legs. Each of the legs nearest us, and its tail, are coiling into unnatural spirals. From the look on its face, it is not your friend. From Johann-Georg Schenck, Monstrorum Historia Memorabilis, 1609

I don't believe every spinster or widow with an old Gyb-cat for a pet is trifling with spirits, but in this case I reckon there's something to it.

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Artist: Johann-Georg Schenck

A forest path with birch saplings either side, the ground thick with brown leaf litter. In the middle, its edges buried under the litter, is an outdoor artwork: concentric circles of bright autumn leaves.

I wouldn't step within its bounds if I were you. Turn your pockets inside out and walk round it.

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Artist: James Brunt

Chair with seat and back shaped like ginko leaves and stem-like legs. Made 1999.

It was just a seed last night. Best not sit on it till we’re sure it’s finished growing.

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Chair by Claude Lalanne

Painting from 1610, ‘Memento Mori.’ A heap of bones and animal skulls, amidst which a frog sits and birds peck at the ground. Grass and weeds grow scrubbily around.

I’d guess the dragon hasn’t nested here a while. Don’t touch the bones though - they don’t like anyone touching anything that was once theirs. It mighn’t know, but I don’t trust those birds not to carry tales.

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Artist: Roelant Savery

I don’t know what the lad who made that talisman meant to avert, but I reckon it worked. I’m only mortal and it most surely averts me.

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Painting. Flying through a sky of storm-clouds, an old man with wild white hair and bear. He rides a small boat with a Viking-like prow; it is drawn by a team of eight ferocious-looking snowy owls. The painting is called 'Four Seasons: Winter'.

Aye, it's getting on Wild Hunt season. Keep indoors when the wind gets up; I've picked a man's skull out of an owl pellet once in my life and I don't intend to do it again.

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Artist: William Holbrook Beard

Engraving. In a forest clearing, a naked human figure looks up in awe and shock at a creature standing in a clearing: a massive, heavy-muscled stag with the torso of a man and huge spreading antlers.

Close your eyes. Lower your head. Say aloud, 'Good day to all honoured friends, who I do not see.'

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Artist: Evan Cagle

A blue glass eye stares thoughtfully out of a conker-shell. Source: https://mideas.co/hCmQg

Pass me the iron pruning shears, Matthew. The horse chestnut's getting ideas again.

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Source: Ideas magazine

Painting, oil on board, 1856. A magpie stands atop a log, which is reddish-brown and lichened in a slightly stylised pattern so it almost resembles a tapestry. Green leaves bloom atop it; in the background we can just see two medieval-style peasants, a man with his finger raised scolding a weeping woman. Evidently he's blaming her for losing the silver spoon we see the magpie holding in its beak, ready to add it to the hoard of cutlery and ribbons it has hidden in the log.

No, the People won't have stolen it - they don't like silver - but do make sure it wasn't some commoner beast before you shout at your wife, eh?

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Artist: William James Webbe

Photograph of a stone with a tiny spade and rake on it. An autumn leaf stands upright on it like an open umbrella, with single dandelion seeds dangling from its edge. Created by gluing, not Photoshop.

We’ve got fey in the garden again. Let’s dig around them; they won’t respect our planting if we don’t respect theirs.

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Artist: Olga Schmidt

Watercolour in grey and sepia tones. Under a drooping tree stands a deer, or something a little like it: its eyes glow white through the mist, and there's the suggestion of something dragonish about its tail.

We'll have to warn the huntsmen to stay out of White-Tail Meadow. The deergons are back. Folks say they'll lick the hand of any body that never told a lie; not honest enough to test it myself, but I'm sure it's bad luck to harm them.

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Artist: Amelia Royce Leonards.

The base of a tree, overhung with yew and holly. The branches criss-cross over each other in a convoluted weave.

Aye, the tree can whisper secrets, but look how many fingers it crosses while it whispers em. Don’t believe a word it says.

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It’s always a little worrying when a child learns to speak Cat, but as long as she remembers her English too she’ll be fine.

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Close-up of a dragonfly’s wing: many geometric shapes edged with black and filled with subtly varying shades of green, much like a stained glass window.

The People’ll listen to a dragonfly preach, or so I heard. They say it’s a living cathedral, carrying its windows on its back.

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Photo: Elaine Schuch

Screencap from Facebook page Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends, posted 10 August by Steph Wild. Text reads: "For NMS I present to you... The Beenis. Captured a hungry swarm of bees on Friday. Made an accidental phallic sculpture with them. Now I'm wondering if I should start making feeding sculptures full-time. - a crazy beekeeper." The picture does, indeed, show a swarm of bees, thick as fur, gathered around a long, upstanding shape. It has exactly the same proportions as an upright willy, and the heap of them at the bottom of it is really not unlike a set of balls.

Well, never saw one of those before.

What do we do? We give every man under seventy iron nails for his pockets and tell em to live like monks until the season passes, that's what. Talk about a sting in the tail.

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(She definitely should start making sculptures full time.)

Screencap from FB page Weird (And Wonderful) Secondhand Finds That Need To Be Shared, posted by Jesse Elwell 2 photos from different angles. Sculpture of a hand, thin-fingered and knuckly, its skin black as coal. Under the nail of the middle finger snarls a tiny, sharp-toothed mouth. Post comment: I love its little teeth, found this handspider today at American Thrift.

The creature asked for his hand and he thought she meant to marry him, so the poor fool said yes.

We got it back, but I don’t reckon he’ll want it.

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Painting in sepia tones: ‘The owl in the Gothic window.’ A thick stone wall with a narrow, gothic-arched window, in which sits a rather goblin-faced owl. Beyond we can see a moonlit sky.

Well, that explains the goblin-voices preaching in the trees. Listening sermons through the window.

The tree-preacher had some odd doctrine, mind. Thought they’d get the opposite of what they prayed for because their knees bend opposite to ours.

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Artist: Caspar David Friedrich

Watercolour painting: an ancient, craggy beech stands in a forest, its bark flaking, its trunk bulging and coated with moss and lichen. Its original title is 'Deutsch Heilige Buche' - German Sacred Beech.

Aye, they say he protects the forest - mostly on the west side, you can see his face in the bark if you look close.

What if you hurt the forest? Well, he's not violent as such, but he'll be most disappointed in you.

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Artist: Albert Koenig

A short clip on why you mustn’t disturb Them in Ireland: ‘They’d take away your luck.’

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