Writer of stories inspired by Flemish folklore. Loves spooky woods, fairies, selkies, poetry and pretty shoes :-) signe.substack.com
Belgium. Often in The Shire.
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🧹🧙♀️SURPRISE 🧙♀️🧹
It’s no secret that witches and their darkly enchanting ways often occupy my thoughts, so it’s probably no surprise that I felt compelled to write a tiny non-fiction book about the figures who so often haunt my mind!
Out on Amazon now: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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According to a Flemish folktale cats lived in rabbit holes in the woods. They were shapeshifting witches. At night, they left the rabbit holes and danced around the trees. Other stories mention processions of cats going into the woods to dance.
🎨Kelsey Short
#FolkloreThursday
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'Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,
and fire made solid in the flinty stone,
thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills
the breathless hour that lives in fire alone.'
-Christopher Brennan
🎨Joseph Tomanek
#BookologyThursday
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A Flemish folktale says you can sometimes hear the Helse Jacht or Hellish Hunt riding through the sky. One of these beings sings, another plays a mysterious instrument, and the third one whines. It's thought they were ghosts who did evil deeds during life.
#WyrdWednesday
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Seeing Flemish Folktales Retold displayed in a shop window is quite emotional for me. ☺️
Als je in Brugge bent het boek is in de Brugse Boekhandel verkrijgbaar voor €14,99 samen met veel andere fantastische titels!
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According to a Flemish folktale a woman who was thought to be a witch only left her house during the winter months. It's said she scared her neighbours by giving them enchanted apples that would dance during the night.
🎨Alla Tsank
#FairyTaleTuesday
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Earlier this week, Flemish Folktales Retold received its first review! 🎉
If you've read the book, we would be thrilled if you could leave a review. This helps the creatures within our pages and our skeleton has promised to be eternally grateful!💀
goodreads.com/book/show/2146…
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'Calm, forever sleeping, forever motionless;
Cold and lifeless; - but yet so soft!'
-Jan Van Beers (translated)
🎨Constantin Meunier
#BookWormSat
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'The living are just the dead on holiday.'
-Maurice Maeterlinck
🎨Franz von Stuck
#BookWormSat
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Enter the long forgotten world of Flemish folktales with a signed copy of Flemish Folktales Retold!
Now available on Ko-fi! Our shapeshifter, Kludde, may or may not jump out of the pages, but when confronted with salt, he's generally very nice. 😊
ko-fi.com/s/fad8bc3ce0
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The adorable hobgoblin who scratched my ear this morning for no reason with a tetanus shot and antibiotics as a consequence, and I'm still singing him love songs! 🐈⬛️🖤
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'I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.'
-Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca.
🎨Geneviève Daël
#BookologyThursday
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I'm enthralled by these beautiful, little zines by midnightzines (Insta). I love them all, but I am particularly fond of Moon Garden in which there is an insightful piece about witches and how they are portrayed. 🧙♀️🖤
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I won't be online for a week or so, except to co-host #BookWormSat, so I'm just dropping a link to Flemish Folktales Retold here.🐦⬛🖤
signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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According to a Flemish folktale travellers were very wary of a road where a black cat always sat on a fence. It was said that if someone wanted to walk past the cat, the feline would say that their house would burn to the ground. People preferred a detour.
#FairyTaleTuesday
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Copies of Flemish Folktales Retold are now for sale in the Brugse Boekhandel, a lovely bookshop in the centre of Bruges. 💙
If you're nowhere near Belgium's city of canals, there's more info with places where our book can be bought here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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'As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die.'
-William Wordsworth
🎨Carl Spitzweg
#BookWormSat
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'The night had a haggard look like a sick thing, and there came finally an utter expiration of air from the whole heaven in the form of a slow breeze, which might have been likened to death.'
-Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
🎨Léon Bonvin
#BookWormSat
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Flemish Folktales Retold visits the witches who shapeshifted into cats, the ghosts who were banished to trees, the lost souls who dwelt in the wind, and the many other beings who hid in the darkness.
All info with places where the book is available here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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'How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade'
-Oliver Goldsmith
🎨Ernest Walbourn
#BookWormSat
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In Flanders, it was believed that sprinkling water from a holy spring on the windows of a house would prevent any damage occurring during a terrifying storm.
🎨Georges Michel
#FolkyFriday
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'Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.'
-Shakespeare
🎨Henry Fuseli
#FairyPeaseBlossom #BookChatWeekly
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There's an enchanting novel in this world written by the wonderful @LissaSloan. An imaginative and refreshing retelling of Cinderella about which I'll soon post more! In the meantime, you can buy this book where books are sold. :-)
Lissa's website: lissasloan.com
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'The bodies stayed throughout the night on the dining-room floor, twisted, arched and lit by the streaks of yellowish light cast by the shade of the lamp.'
-Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin.
🎨Francesco Cairo
#BookologyThursday
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He's interested in the feathers and not in the book despite the fact that he makes an appearance in one of the tales. 😼
Anyhow, Flemish Folktales Retold is OUT NOW! More info here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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A Flemish folktale tells of a captain who had made a deal with the devil. He was the luckiest and wealthiest man alive, but when his time was up, the devil rode over the waves to his ship in a horse-drawn carriage and murdered him.
🎨Egide Linnig
#WyrdWednesday
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More bad news about my dental woes than I can handle today, but at least I get to open my emergency can of Irn-Bru and cry and crawl into bed.
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Hi #WritingCommunity, I'm Signe, and I'm a Belgian writer of stories inspired by Flemish folklore and folktales. I love dark woods, misty fields, and toads.
And a first collection with illustrated short stories from eerie Flanders just got published! 🐦⬛🎊
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'Ah! woe is me! poor silver-wing!
That I must chant thy lady’s dirge,
And death to this fair haunt of spring,
Of melody, and streams of flowery verge'
-John Keats
🎨Sophie Gengembre Anderson
#BookChatWeekly
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Witches in Flemish folklore are known to shapeshift into cats, hares, magpies amongst other animals. In my humble opinion, they are prettiest when they appear as toads.💚
And one of those stories is reimagined in Flemish Folktales Retold. Book info here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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'Follow, follow, nigher, nigher -
Over bank, and pond, and briar,
Down into the croaking ditches'
-George Meredith
🎨Elizabeth Forbes
#BookChatWeekly
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'Come Little Red Cap. Here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother. She is sick and weak, and they will do her well.
...and do not leave the path...'
-Brothers Grimm
🎨Albert Anker
#BookWormSat
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Flemish Folktales Retold surrounded by the magical owls who are the dear companions of one of the witches in the book. 🦉🖤
Info with places where the book is available here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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In a Flemish folktale a father locked up his daughter in a tower because she wanted to marry someone he disapproved of. He eventually drowned her. The sun set the tower on fire. Since then, the father could only hear his daughter's cries in the river. He went mad.
#FolkyFriday
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Enter the long forgotten world of Flemish folktales and dance on a dark tune with spirits who live in the wind, monsters who lurk in rivers, ghosts, devils, witches, and other unearthly creatures...
Info about the book here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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'You must suffer me to go my own dark way.'
-Robert Louis Stevenson
🎨Ryan Mutter
#BookologyThursday
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To celebrate Flemish Folktales Retold's release, I have recorded a YouTube video with a reading of one of the stories.
Hares are said to be shapeshifting witches and the message is to stay away from them, but sometimes, the hares meet the right person.
youtube.com/watch?v=8SwfjkxZ…
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A Flemish folktale says a will-o'-the-wisp hovered over the place where a treasure was buried. The light was thought to be the soul of the person to whom this treasure belonged. Nobody dared to go there for it was said the will-o'-the-wisp would break your neck.
#WyrdWednesday
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📚🐦⬛Flemish Folktales Retold is OUT NOW!📚🐦⬛
Walk on Flanders's paths to murky castles where will-o'-the-wisp's hover and meet the unearthly creatures who roamed this haunted region.
With @hecazerin and @Kerria. Info about the book here: signemaene.com/flemish-folkt…
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'“Now,” thought the fir, “all my splendor is going to begin again.” But they dragged him out of the room and up stairs to the garret, and threw him on the floor, in a dark corner, where no daylight shone...'
-Andersen
🎨Svend Otto S.
#FairyTaleTuesday #BookChatWeekly
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I just found out that the reason why Frodo's shoebox is torn is because he's EATING IT! 😱
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'There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea'
-Elizabeth Bishop
🎨Amelia Jane Murray
#BookChatWeekly
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'Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?'
-Lord Tennyson
🎨Vojtěch Preissig
#BookChatWeekly
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