Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social

Historian of religion and belief | folklorist | Balticist | indexer | lay canon @stedscath.bsky.social | series editor for @universitypress.cambridge.org

Today is publication day for ‘Fairies: A History’ - so I’ve written a special free post over on ‘All Old Strange Things’ to celebrate 📚🧚 open.substack.com/pub/drfrancisyoung/p/seven-hundred-elves?r=1f2ejo&utm_medium=ios
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UCL Special Collections Open Morning: Magic and Western Esotericism: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-special-collections-open-morning-magic-and-western-esotericism-tickets-1986427018686
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At St Non's Well
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Reposted by Dr Francis Young
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Paula Clarke Bain @baindex.org
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Enjoying my first day of @indexerscanada.bsky.social online conference. I loved the brilliant keynote by @dannybate.bsky.social on ‘Who Ordered the Alphabet’. Surely several more copies of his ‘Why Q Needs U’ book now sold, including to the UK @indexers.bsky.social and me. #IndexSky
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If there were enough murders in a cathedral, then surely a cathedral constabulary might establish a CID anyway? Or a detective from elsewhere might be seconded to the cathedral constabulary
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Why has no-one written a series of police procedural novels featuring cathedral constables? It could be called ‘Only Murders in the Cathedral’. Or are there issues of plausibility because no cathedral constabulary has a CID, and thus would hand over any murders to local detectives?
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I have a big weakness for Japanese gardens
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Japanese garden (National Botanic Gardens of Wales)
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Found in the library! @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
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Pentre Ifan today; winner of the ‘British megalith that looks most like a UFO’ competition
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Late Roman Iron Age pre-Claudian elite culture in Britain be like:
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A visit yesterday to St Rhian’s church in Llanrhian (with a c13th tower), where an almost worn-away Celtic cross at the base of a wall may be all that remains of the original c7th/c8th church here
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I dreamt that not only unsuccessful books were consigned to bargain book basements, but their authors were made to live in bookshop basements as well as a punishment from society for writing books that failed to sell
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More dolmen-bagging today: Carreg Samson
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Reposted by Dr Francis Young
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org
3d
New article in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'.

'Louis XIV’s Attitude to the Chinese Rites Controversy': bit.ly/47NYgmk

Dr Sean Heath offers an exploration of ecclesiastical policy in the making under the Sun King. Sean's article is now freely available Open Access #Skystorians 1/2
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And, of course, the tomb (allegedly) of my boy Gerald of Wales - to whom I am eternally grateful for recording the story of Elidyr
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Some highlights from today: St Davids and Coetan Arthur, a dolmen on St Davids Head
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These bollards in St Davids look like little Dalek priests wearing galeros
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I’m just a guy, trying to navigate my way around west Pembrokeshire by a bad scan of a map of post-Roman inscribed stones from Thomas Charles-Edwards’ ‘Wales and the Britons’
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After many years, I made it to the temple of Nodens at Lydney! It’s rather astonishing that a site that is perhaps the most important temple in Roman Britain after Bath and Colchester is not a major tourist attraction in the care of the nation
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I wrote about Hocktide for @thespectator1828.bsky.social spectator.com/article/the-easter-tradition-of-women-taking-men-hostage/
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Reposted by Dr Francis Young
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St Edmundsbury Cathedral @stedscath.bsky.social
5d
We hope you enjoyed journeying with us through Holy Week to Easter, whether in person or online. Thank you to Bishop Joanne for being with us & preaching, & to everyone who contributed to & participated in our worship. We have 50 days of Easter so let's keep proclaiming: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
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Reposted by Dr Francis Young
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Wyrd Science Magazine @wyrdscience.bsky.social
5d
If you can’t conjure up a Call of Cthulhu scenario out of this post by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social then can you really call yourself a Keeper?

I mention this in a feature in our new issue on the British library’s Tales of the Weird series but I love how it seems almost impossible to do any research
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My latest free-to-read post over on ‘All Old Strange Things’ is a bit of a detective story - where I track down (with invaluable assistance from @glosbio.bsky.social) the story behind a rather strange bookplate… open.substack.com/pub/drfrancisyoung/p/a-bookplate-speaks?r=1f2ejo&utm_medium=ios
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Today - all being well - I’ll be visiting the temple complex at Lydney. A place I’ve written a lot about, but never actually visited. I feel the same level of excitement as a normal person might feel at the prospect of seeing the Parthenon or the Great Pyramid.
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We're staring down the prospect of a cold, dead world of 'curated' and AI-generated social media where people posting ill-advised selfies in the early hours of the morning is just a distant memory
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"People haven't fallen out of love with social media, I think they've just become a lot more intentional about how they show up on it." This is appalling. We need a Campaign for Real Shitposting to preserve traditional online ways of life before they vanish completely www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgqk718l4neo
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Reposted by Dr Francis Young
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St Edmundsbury Cathedral @stedscath.bsky.social
6d
Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Celebrate with us today:
6.00 am Easter Vigil and Dawn Eucharist
8.00 am Holy Communion (BCP)
9.00 am All ages Eucharist
10.30 am Festal Eucharist
3.30 pm Festal Evensong
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Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno is my favourite Easter poem (because I choose to consider it an Easter poem). You can read the whole thing here: www.pseudopodium.org/repress/jubilate/
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"For I rejoice like a worm in the rain in him that cherishes and from him that tramples. / For I am ready for the trumpet and alarm to fight, to die and to rise again. / For the banish'd of the Lord shall come about again, for so he hath prepared for them." #JubilateAgno #Easter
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