Fairy Queen of my own secret realm, aka The Pixie of Pocket Nook, here to share love, joy and enchantment by posting all things magical, miraculous and mystical
Enchanted Forest, Pocket Nook
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#MythologyMonday
St Francis de Sales, (1567-1622) Bishop of Geneva, “The Gentleman Saint,” “The Gentle Christ of Geneva” is the patron saint of the deaf.
🖼️ Francisco Bayeu y Subías.
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#WordsOnWednesday
Isabella’s hands obsessively cradle a pot of basil. For the ancient Romans it was a sacred plant symbolising love. For Isabella it was so much more, the pot contained the head of her dead lover Lorenzo.
🎨Arthur Trevethin Nowell, Isabella and The Pot of Basil.
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#MythologyMonday
What a splendid summer hat! Sartorial elegance combined with practicality. The painting is by the English artist Dame Laura Knight called A Girl Reading (c. 1910) and depicts her friend and fellow artist Florence Carter-Wood.
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#MythologyMonday
St Lucy is the patron saint of blindness. Legend says it was she, with a garland of candles on her head to light her way in the darkness, who fed Christians hiding in the dark Roman catacombs. She is often depicted holding eyes on a plate.
🖼️Sulamith Wülfing.
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#FolkloreSunday
“And now all summer she sits and sews.”
~ Walter de la Mare, Peacock Pie.
🖼️ William Kay Blacklock.
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#WordsOnWednesday
“Jane and Peter do not go to school on Saturday, every week on this day they go to the shops in their home town. One of the shops at which they like to call is a large book shop.”
~ Ladybird Books "Peter and Jane" series.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“She made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day.”
~ Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match Girl.
🖼️ Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone.
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#MythologyMonday
I lay in that tub … and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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The Talaria were the winged sandals of the Greek messenger god Hermes. A pair of indestructible shoes made of gold and forged by Hephaestus, blacksmith of the gods. Legend says anyone wearing them had the power to soar the heavens like a bird.
🖼️W. B. Richmond
#WordsOnWednesday
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#FolkoreSunday
Hans Christian Andersen’s Nightingale tells of a Chinese Emperor’s obsession with a nightingale. When he acquires a mechanical nightingale, he ignores the real bird. As the Emperor lies dying, it is the real bird's song that saves his life.
🖼️W.H. Robinson.
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#FolkloreSunday
"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
~ J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan.
🖼️ Arthur Rackham.
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“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.
🖼️ Anselm Feuerbach.
#WordsOnWednesday
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#FolkloreSunday
Hollyhocks, beloved of the cottage gardener. These tall, striking, colourful blooms are symbols of love, fertility, ambition, resilience and growth. Legend says these lovely flowers emerged from the breasts of the Roman goddess Venus after she lost her son Cupid.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran.”
~John Keats, Lamia.
In Greek mythology Lamia, part woman part snake is a child eating monster equated with the empousai who seduce and feed on young men.
🖼️ J. W. Waterhouse.
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#MythologyMonday
The Irish sun goddess Áine personifies the life-giving energy of sunlight, and the warmth and abundance of summertime. She is the daughter of Eogabail, part of the Tuatha Dé Danann, so she is said to be a Fairy Queen.
🖼️Edward R. Hughes.
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#FolkloreSunday
“… and do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at some time or other, been up on a broomstick.”
~ Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales.
🖼️ Albert Joseph Pénot.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“Love was like rain: it turned to ice, or it disappeared.”
~ Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen.
🖼️ Alphonse Mucha.
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#FolkloreSunday
The Manx cat, fondly known as stubbin or rumpy, is famous for not having a tail. Manx lore says it lost its tail running late to Noah’s Ark, when the door to the ark shut on its tail. Other lore says it was the result of a cat breeding with a hare.
🖼️T. F. Lu
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#ShakespeareSunday
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2.
🖼️ Arthur John Elsley.
#FolkloreSunday
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#FairyTaleTuesday
In Scottish lore Selkies or Seal Folk are mythological beings who change from seal to human form by shedding their skin. Folk tales tell of these creatures falling in love and having romantic relationships with humans, resulting in children.
🖼️Arantza Sestayo
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#MythologyMonday
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
~Shakespeare Macbeth A1 S1.
Rain, elemental water, is a powerful force of Nature used in witchcraft. With healing and cleansing properties, connecting sky and earth, human intuition and emotions.
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#ShakespeareSunday
Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
All's Well That Ends Well, A2,S1.
🖼️ Charles James Folkard.
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#FolkloreSunday
Hair is a universal symbol of life linked to the preservation of love after death. In Victorian times loved ones exchanged locks of hair as tokens of affection. The painting is by Victorian painter & member of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood John Everett Millais.
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#FolkloreSunday
In Ireland it was customary for dairy farmers to give away butter and milk to their neighbours on May Day. Failing to do so, meant the herd would fail to produce milk for the rest of year.
🖼Julien Dupré.
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#FolkloreSunday
An old custom on May Day was to give a May basket. Children created the baskets, filling them with flowers they had picked, homemade trinkets and other goodies. On May Day morning they surreptitiously hung the baskets on the front doors of their friends’ homes.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Gretchen, the sweet, simple, innocent young woman seduced by Dr Faust in Goethe’s Faust, envisioned here by Fritz Roeber, Walpurgisnacht (Witches’ Night)
#Walpurgisnacht
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#MythologyMonday
May Day eve and May Day is known as Beltane (Bright Fire) and
marks the return of summer. A Celtic custom to celebrate the occasion was the dancing around and lighting of bonfires.
🖼️Jules Breton.
#MayDay #Beltane
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#FolkloreSunday
In English folklore Mab is the Queen of the Fairies, and for some the fairy midwife. She is a magical, mischievous being, despite this she is kind and benevolent. It is said that she will grant your wishes and all your heart desires.
🖼️Henry Meynell Rheam.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
At the heart of the ancient Greek creation story Gaia is the personification of the Earth and embodies the interconnectedness of all earthly life forms. Emerging from the void that was Chaos, she brought forth all life.
🖼️Josephine Wall.
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#MythologyMonday
Honouring all 7 colours of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo & violet as personified by the Greek goddess and divine messenger, Iris. She guided the souls of dead women to the Elysian Fields, where mourners laid purple irises on their graves.
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#FolkloreSunday
Fairy lore tells of the magical enchantment of woods carpeted in bluebells. Of fairies using them to entice the unwary into their secret realm. A bluebell rings to summon the fairies, but if a human hears it, they will die soon after.
🖼️Florence Harrison.
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#BookologyThursday
“If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there.”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
🖼️Arthur Rackham.
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#MythologyMonday
Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431) heard voices and had visions of angels & saints whom she believed to be Sts Michael, Catherine & Margaret. She said it was God’s divine intervention directing her to lead the French Army to victory over the English.
🖼️Diogène Maillart.
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#FolkloreSunday
Greek mythology tells of Poseidon flooding the Ethiopian coast, sending a sea monster named Cetus to ravage the kingdom's inhabitants. Andromeda, the king’s daughter is sacrificed to assuage the beast, until Perseus arrives to save her.
🖼️Arthur Rackham.
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#BookologyThursday
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
~Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
🖼️Titania at rest, Fredric Howard Michael.
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#BookologyThursday
The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, Queen Victoria’s chaplain, is a classic children’s book and moral fable published in 1863. A response to Darwin’s theory of evolution, it challenged the prevailing Victorian attitudes to child labour and religion.
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“A gush of bird song, a patter of dew
A cloud and a rainbow's warning;
Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue
An April day in the morning!”
~ Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford.
Thank you for your loveliness dear March, welcome sweet April.
🖼️Edith Holden.
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#MythologyMonday
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
~ Shakespeare Macbeth A1 S1.
The number 3 is a universally powerful symbol connecting a host of diverse traditions & cultures by themes of unity, balance & spiritual harmony.
🖼Daniel Gardner.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“She kissed its lovely red and yellow petals, and just as she kissed it the flower gave a loud pop! and flew open. It was a tulip, right enough, but on the green cushion in the middle of it sat a tiny girl.”
Hans Christian Andersen, Thumbelina.
🖼️N.C. Wyeth.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Easter lilies, “white-robed apostles of hope.” Legend says these flowers grew where drops of Jesus' sweat fell as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion. Or, their seeds were spread by Eve’s tears as she left the garden of Eden.
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#FolkloreSunday
Ēostre is a spring goddess worshipped by pagan Anglo-Saxons according to the 8th century English monk and scholar, Bede. She is the goddess of birth and new beginnings and it’s time to embrace the magic and mystery her arrival heralds.
🖼️ John Byam Liston Shaw.
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#BookologyThursday
It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.
~ Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
🖼️Arthur Rackham.
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#LegendaryWednesday
The two faces of spring by the British artist William Savage Cooper (1861-1943) and each named ‘Spring.’





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#LegendaryWednesday
‘Dancing Maidens of Spring’ by
Charles Waltensperger. Nature was sacred for the ancient Celts, the transition of the seasons was cause for celebration with singing and dancing. The emerging of spring marked the rebirth of the earth and the awakening of life.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
In Irish lore leprechauns are wily makers of both shoes and mischief. They have secret crocks of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow. If you ever catch one, in exchange for his freedom he may grant you three wishes or give you his pot of gold.
🖼️James Browne.
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#MythologyMonday
In Greek myth Cronos discovered his destiny was to be overthrown by his sons, so devoured them at birth. When Rhea, his wife gave birth to Zeus, she handed Cronos a stone wrapped in swaddling cloth which he ate, and hid her baby in a cave.
🎨Giovanni Romanelli
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#FolkloreSunday
The Lady of the Lake known as Nimue or Viviane is a central character in Arthurian legend. She is depicted as an enigmatic, magical fairy-like enchantress. It was she who gave the magical sword Excalibur to King Arthur.
🖼️Walter Crane.
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#FolkloreSunday
Swans are said to be harbingers of spring and considered sacred, legends and folk tales tell of them being gods in disguise. In Celtic mythology they are fairies and are able to flit between the realms of this world and the Otherworld.
🖼️Cicely Mary Barker.
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#BookologyThursday
In Irish myth Airmed is the goddess of herbalism and healing. When her father murdered her brother, she wept on his grave and all the world’s healing herbs appeared. She collected and catalogued them, only for her father to scatter them.
🖼️Marie Ellenrieder
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#LegendaryWednesday
Crocuses make such cheerful heralds of spring with their vibrant splashes of yellow, white & violet. Regarded as magical flowers, one Greek legend connects them to Krókos a mortal youth who was changed by the gods into a saffron flower.
🖼️ Cicely Mary Barker
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#MythologyMonday
“Vesta is the same as the earth; both have the perennial fire: the Earth & the sacred Fire are both symbolic of home.”
~Ovid
Ancient Romans worshipped the goddess Vesta in the form of a flame that burned day and night in the Temple and at home.
🖼️Wenzel Tornøe.
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#FolkloreSunday
“March comes in like a Lion and goes out like a Lamb.”
This is an old proverb and piece of weather folklore wisdom handed down the generations. It is said to refer to the many changes we see in the weather as the month of March transitions from winter to spring.
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#MythologyMonday
In the UK ladybirds symbolise good luck. One landing on your hand means you will be married within the year. Furthermore, to have one land on you, no matter where, meant whatever ailment you had would be cured and fly away with the ladybird.
🖼️Annie Stegg Gerard
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Today is the feast of the Christian martyr, St Lucy, a Catholic saint and patron of the blind. Legend says it was she who fed the Christians hiding in the dark Roman catacombs, wearing a garland of candles on her head to light her way in the darkness.
🖼️Sulamith Wülfing.
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#FolkloreSunday
“Vesta is the same as the earth; both have perennial fire: the Earth and the sacred Fire are both symbolic of home.”
~Ovid
Ancient Romans worshipped the goddess Vesta in the form of a flame that burned day & night in the Temple, and at home.
🎨Angelo Martinetti.
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#MythologyMonday
In Norse mythology the goddess Frigg is queen of Asgard. She wears a blue cape symbolising the sky and the rainfall is said to be the tears she cries for her sons. She is associated with clouds, mist and fog, which she weaves from her spindle.
🖼Helen Stratton
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#ShakespeareSunday
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Macbeth A1 S1.
🖼Daniel Gardner.
Witches for Halloween!
#FolkloreSunday
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran.”
~John Keats, Lamia.
In Greek mythology Lamia is a child-eating serpent, a beautiful Libyan queen who had an affair with Zeus and is driven mad by Hera who steals her children.
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#FolkloreSunday
Arthurian legends tell of the magician Merlin, – prophet, bard, and warrior. The child of a mortal woman and devil incubus, he was born able to speak like an adult with knowledge beyond his years. His great skill is the power to shape shift at will.
🖼️Alan Lee.
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#WyrdWednesday
Since ancient times there has been the idea of a river symbolising the passage of time, and the concept of life being a journey. It falls on Charon to ferry the souls of the dead across the river Styx, from this world to the underworld.
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#LegendaryWednesday
Instructing Her Dolly in the Art of Going Off Nicely to By-byes and The Lost Doll by Millicent Etheldreda Gray.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
St Paul the Hermit with his raven. Having escaped the persecution of Decius & Valerianus aged 16, he fled to the mountains where he lived in seclusion until his death, aged 113. Legend says his only source of food, half a loaf brought to him daily by the raven.
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#MythologyMonday
Celtic myths tell of the war goddess Andraste, whose name translates as “indestructible" or "unconquerable.” She was invoked by Boudicca the queen and leader of the ancient Iceni tribe in her fight against the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 60.
🖼️Wendy Andrew
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?”
~D G Rossetti.
Autumn the season of sleep, rest & restoration.
🖼️Herbert James Draper
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#MythologyMonday
“… and do not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at some time or other, been up on a broomstick.”
~ Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales.
Brushes & brooms, the tools of female oppression! Or, maybe they are something more magical. You decide!
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#FolkloreSunday
“Every night the owl with his wild monkey face calls.”~Mary Oliver
Tawny owls symbolise sorrow, death & darkness. Folklore considers them a portent of evil. Known for their mating calls of 'twit twoo.’ Listen to them on autumn evenings when pairs begin courting.
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#FolkloreSunday
Folklore warns against eating blackberries after Michaelmas Day (September 29th). Legend says the devil cursed the blackberry bushes. In Celtic myth it is the púca, and the bogle who are responsible for the misfortune connected to this fruit.
🖼️Rene Cloke
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#FairyTaleTuesday
For #NationalTeddyBearDay
Can't You Sleep, Little Bear? By Martin Waddell and illustrated by Barbara Firth.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“The King of the Golden Mountain" is a German folk tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.
🖼️Arthur Rackham.
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#LegendaryWednesday
French philosopher and theologian Abelard, famous for a love affair with his pupil Heloise, was forced to burn his life’s work, Theologia Summi Boni. He was summoned by the Catholic Church to the Council of Soissons in 1121 where it was condemned as heresy.
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#WyrdWednesday
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number
I have sounded all things with my sight
& I struggle & shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
~HP Lovecraft
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
~Robert Browning, The Laboratory.
🖼️John Collier, The Laboratory.
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#MythologyMonday
Chinese mythology tells of a divine matchmaker who appears at night as an old man under the moon, his name is Yue Lao. He is known as Old Man Under the Moon, and he unites with a red silken cord all predestined lovers.
🖼️ Cloud Lee.
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#WyrdWednesday
#BOTD in 1899 Sir Alfred Hitchcock, English film director. Hitch’s film career spanned six decades and he was widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in cinematic history. He specialised in suspense, dark subject matter and plots with twist endings. x.com/FelfaF/status/19555730…
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#LegendaryWednesday
In ancient Ireland wisdom teeth symbolised poetic enlightenment. In a ritual known as “teinm leigda” the bard bit his thumb with his wisdom tooth & offered a sacrifice to the gods before his performance.
🖼️ James Christopher Timbrell, Carolan, the Irish Bard.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“Every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all.”
~A A Milne, Winnie the Pooh
🖼️ E H Shepard
Pooh sets out to capture a heffalump with honey to lure him, and spends a restless night fretting he will eat it all.
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#MythologyMonday
“Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?”
~D G Rossetti.
Autumn the season of sleep, rest, restoration and hibernation beckons.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Naiads are nymphs, water spirits who dwell by rivers and streams. The water here is said to have healing and magical powers. Alluring and beguiling they are kind, benevolent creatures but do not offend or betray them, as Hylas found to his cost.
🖼️Hans Zatzka.
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#MythologyMonday
The sport of horse racing is steeped in history and legend having been practised in civilisations world wide since ancient times. In Norse myth
Odin wagers his head that his horse, the eight-legged Sleipnir could outrun Hrungnir’s horse.
🖼️Howard David Johnson
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#FolkloreSunday
Ceres is the Roman goddess of the harvest and grain. She taught how to preserve and prepare corn and grain once it was ready for threshing. She is a mother-type goddess who was responsible for agricultural fertility.
🖼️ Howard David Johnson.
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#MythologyMonday
In folklore seashells symbolise good luck & protection. Sailors carried them as talismans, believing they would protect them from drowning. Celtic lore connects seashells to the fairies. There are tales of fairy money turning into seashells.
🖼️Amelia Jane Murray
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Frogs are found in the folklore of many societies and are known for a variety of magical properties including an ability to predict the weather, curing warts, and bringing good luck. They make especially charming companions for fairies.
🖼️Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
#FolkloreSunday
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#FairyTaleTuesday
In Celtic mythology Horses were highly regarded. In The Mabinogion, an anthology of medieval Welsh tales, the princess Rhiannon is associated with horses. This affinity has led scholars to suggest a link to Epona, the Gaulish horse goddess.
🖼️Kinuko Y. Craft.
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#FolkloreSunday
Hollyhocks, beloved of the cottage gardener. These tall, striking, colourful blooms are symbols of love, fertility, ambition, resilience and growth. Legend says these lovely flowers emerged from the breasts of the Roman goddess Venus after she lost her son Cupid.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Christmas in July is a 1940 American comedy film directed by Preston Sturges, starring Dick Powell and Ellen Drew. The story of an earnest clerk tricked by his co-workers into thinking he has won $25,000, who begins to use the money fulfilling his dreams.
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#ShakespeareSunday
“The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees.”
– The Merchant of Venice, A5S1.
🖼️Edmund Dulac. The illustration depicts Caliban’s speech about the island from The Tempest.
#FolkloreSunday
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#FairyTaleTuesday
Fairy Dance by Margaret Tarrant. Fairy frolics in the forest. Have they been celebrating Midsummer, — eating, drinking, telling stories around the campfire, I wonder?
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#FolkloreSunday
The linden tree, lime tree or Basswood symbolises love, friendship, healing and good fortune in many cultures the world over. It is the sacred tree of the goddesses Venus, Freyja and Laima. Some say if you fall asleep under its shade, you will awake in fairyland.
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#FairyTaleTuesday
“I like you better, even with your looks, than men who hide false, corrupt, and ungrateful hearts behind charming manners."
Beauty and the Beast.
🖼️Ruth Sanderson.
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#MythologyMonday
In Manx folklore there is a brave warrior and sea god whose name is Manannán Mac Lir. In possession of the ‘Féth Fíada', his very own cloak of invisibility. He uses it wrap around the Isle of Man to keep the islanders safe from hostile invasion.
🖼️Jane Brideson.
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#FolkloreSunday
In Celtic mythology deer are connected to the fairy realm or Otherworld. They are messengers associated with spirits, or gods who may shape shift into the form of deer. Some tales say they are “fairy cattle" herded and milked by an otherworldly woman.
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#ShakespeareSunday
You go so much backward when you fight.
All's Well That Ends Well Act 1 Scene 1
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