Today!

The writer John Masefield died #OTD 12 May 1967. Remarkably, he'd been Poet Laureate since 1930. He's also fondly remembered as the author of the classic children's book 'The Box Of Delights'.

Here's Aldeburgh beach, Suffolk, on a frisky day to go with his poem 'Sea Fever':

'I…

Fire-breathing Dove.

Once there was a Tabby Cat who ran a bookshop by the Christchurch gate of Canterbury Cathedral.
It was a marvellous place, with unexpected treasures on every shelf. In summer, it was cool and cavernous, a gentle breeze moving through the upper rooms, tall blue and white vases of…

Ollie Ryan Tucker So good I delayed reading the final chapter because I didn't want it to end. Finally gave in and finished it.

Sublime. Eleanor Parker transports you to another world (which is also eerily our own).

Mid wæs hond Godes,
onfeng freodrihten, and hine forð lædde
to þam halgan ham.

Amid [the heavens] was the hand of God, who received that noble Lord, and led him forth
to the holy home.

Another Anglo-Saxon poetic telling of the Ascension: patreon.com/posts/hand-fro…

As the Little Girl's Aunt settled into the village, she had begun to very much enjoy collecting snippets of local Dorset folklore and old customs which lingered like summer thistledown in the lanes and beamed parlours and school-yards. She was even thinking of writing a book.…

(1/4) In medieval iconography, the eagle is understood as a symbol of Christ ascending into heaven. For this reason, this great image in the Floreffe Bible (c.1160) stands at the beginning of the Gospel according to John, whose attribute is the eagle.
Medieval Manuscripts Add.17738, f.199

Arum aflame🔥
Lords-&-Ladies has more English folk names than any other plant: wake-robin, Aaron, Cuckoo-Pint, Bloody-man's-finger, bulls-and-cows, Adam-and-Eve, Bobbin-and-Joan, Jack-in-the-Pulpit...
I've never seen it looking lovelier💚
#FolkloreThursday

'So the beautiful bird ventured into flight.
Now he sought the home of the angels above,
that glorious country, bold and strong in power.'

An Anglo-Saxon poem on the Ascension: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2014/06/christ…

In ‘The Buzzards’, Martin Armstrong, an English poet and novelist of the early 20th century, admires the majestic flight and timeless presence of these graceful creatures. #England #poetry #MartinArmstrong

A correspondent to a 1930s newspaper remarked on the Kentish use of ANOINTED to mean mischievous.

Today, Dame Julian of Norwich is remembered. She was a 14th Century mystic, who wrote down her Revelations of Divine Love while an anchoress at St Julian's church, Norwich. On a cold and crisp Candlemas last year, Cameron Self made a short film of me talking about her. There's…

On 7 May 1934 (90 years ago today) during a game of ping pong at the Butler-Bowden family home, the only surviving ms of the Book of Margery Kempe was rediscovered. As a spiritual autobiography of a laywoman it is one of the most important documents of of its day. #TeamMargery

I like that English has (at least) four borrowings from the Latin word gentīlis, all pretty different in meaning from each other and their Latin source – there's 'gentle', 'gentile' and 'genteel', and also 'jaunty'.