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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 19h

Although often shown very realistically, the medieval hedgehog was also shown in a more imaginative light as this image of what looks like spiky piglets from the Aberdeen Bestiary (c1200). #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #hedgehog #hedgehogs #aberdeenbestiary

On a gilt background in a red frame, beneath an incredibly stylised blue true with red fruit, a line of tiny brown piglet-like hedgehogs is gathering red round fruit on their spines. The hedgehogs are unusually long-legged and their spikes are rather thin and sparse. Image from Aberdeen University Library, Univ. Lib. MS 24 (Aberdeen Bestiary), folio 24r.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 20h

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Mama’s War by Lebogang Mashile

Mama’s gone viral Mama’s screen shuffles faster Than hashtags invented by Black women Who turn tech into culture daily Boardrooms and bedrooms are battlefields What’s today’s share price for Mama M…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 1d

Medieval hedgehogs were said to harvest fruit (specifically grapes) by spearing fruit shaken off the tree/vine on their spines. This c1300 image shows one hedgehog in a tree doing the shaking and another hedgehog spearing the fruit. #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #hedgehog #hedgehogs

In the foreground, a spiky brown hedgehog in a tight ball is spearing red fruit on its spine tips on the ground. Behind it, another brown hedgehog is stretched at length in a green tree shaking the red fruit down. Its notable that the hedgehog in the tree has a pointed snout while the hedgehog on the ground has a much more pig-like head. Image from Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, MS 404 (Rothschild Canticles), folio 176r.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 1d

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Old Photographs by Gabeba Baderoon

On my desk is a photograph of you taken by the woman who loved you then. In some photos her shadow falls in the foreground. In this one, her body is not that far from yours. Did you hold your head …

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 2d

Our medieval beast this week is the hedgehog which is described as looking like a young pig covered with spines/quills. This lovely realistic image is from a 1425 version of "De rerum naturis" by Rabanus Maurus (c780-856). #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #hedgehog #hedgehogs

Between text on a manuscript page, a little grey/brown spiky hedgehog with a slightly upturned snout is waddling towards the left. It is very round and plump beneath its spikes and it seems to be smiling. Image from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 291 (De rerum naturis), folio 91r.

Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 2d

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The Target by Stanley Cooperman | From Troubles of The World

Poetry collection

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 3d

This week's writing prompt is a painting by Carl Larsson (1853-1919). What is this young woman holding? And where is she sitting? #writingprompts #writinglife #writingtips #carllarsson #artworks

A young woman wearing a white knitted ribbed beanie pulled over her ears, a grey jumper with cream trim and a long blue skirt, is seated on a wooden stool holding a pair of skates in front of a white dresser holding a black kettle and a pottery vase with three daffodils and two pink rosebuds. A white chair with a yellow and white striped seat is to the side of the dresser with either a stick or furled black umbrella leaning against it. There is what looks like a large felt hat on the striped seat. Image by Carl Larsson (1853-1919) from Wikimedia Commons.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 3d

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 4d

"The Naked Light" by Bridget Collins is a gothic historical fiction set during WWI when two women find themselves in the path of an ancient darkness carved in the shape of a Face. #bookrecommendations #tbrlist #thenakedlight #bridgetcollins #gothic #historicalfiction

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 4d

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Perhaps by Shu Ting (Gong Peiyu)

—In response to a writer’s loneliness Perhaps our thoughts Will never have readers Perhaps our road was wrong in the beginning And is still wrong in the end; Perhaps we can light up one lante…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 5d

Avoid the fairytale adventure and let Jumble Publishing and Editing (jumblepublishing.com) help with your editing and self-publishing instead.
Image: John/Jan Bauer (1882-1918) #jumblepublishing #publishing #selfpublishing #editing #johnbauer #janbauer #artworks

Against a muted, beige-coloured, contoured forest, two trolls are escorting a white clad young woman with long curly blonde hair. She has her hands on her chest and looks martyred. The troll in front is stooped with long grey hair and is wearing a trailing fur cloak, boots with upturned toes and a string of bright red and blue beads around their throat as well as a gold bangle on one wrist. The troll in the rear seems to be looking at the viewer and is swaddled in a fur cloak. This troll is wearing a cone-shaped hat adorned with a single feather and has dangling hoop earrings as well as what seems to be a dark plait showing from one side of the hat. Both trolls have big rounded noses and very hairy hands with claws. They are only slightly darker than the forest in the background. Image by John/Jan Baeur (1882-1918) from Wikimedia Commons.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 5d

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Mother by Leopold Henryk Staff

By the window at dusk A mother’s foot rocks a cradle With a sleeping child. But the cradle is no more, But the child is no more. The child is among the shades. The mother sits alone in the du…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 6d

The medieval cerastes hunted by burying itself in sand with only its horns sticking out and lunging out at animals that came near as in this image from an English bestiary dated from c1225-1250. #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #cerastes #medievalart

Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 6d

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A soveraigne Salve, to cure the late Surfeiting Lover by Jane Anger

If once the heat, did fore thee beat, of foolish love so blind: Somtime to sweat, somtime to freat as one bestraught of minde: If wits weare take, in such a brake, that reason was exilde: And woe d…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 7d

This particular beast is thought be a cerastes but is only described as a "serpent with horns". There is no explanation of the wings or the fact that it seems to have a second head at the end of its tail. #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #cerastes #medievalart

In an outlined frame on a manuscript page, a horned greyish-green beast with two sturdy legs and purple wings seems to be hissing towards the left. It has two curling horns and a mostly round ear. Its mouth is widely open and it is poking out its tongue. Its long curving tail seems to have a second snake-like head at the end of its tail. Image from Bibliothèque Universitaire Historique de Médecine (Montpellier), H. 437 (L'Image du Monde / Bestiaire of Pierre de Beauvais), folio 99r.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 7d

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The Parish Register: Baptisms by Richard Hill Sandys

(After Crabbe’s ‘Village’) To name an infant meet our village sires, Assembled all as such event requires. Frequent and full the rural sages sate, And speakers many urged the long debate. Some hard…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 8d

The cerastes was described as a horned serpent which, in spite of modern ideas, doesn't appear to mean legless. Most cerastes drawn in full have legs as like this c1350 Flemish image. #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #cerastes #medievalart

In a square lozenge on a manuscript page, a goat-headed and horned creature is lying on what appears to be a brown rock. The beast's body is a reddish-brown with white decorations and is long and curving with its tail stretching out of view in the frame. It has clawed forelegs. Its head is white and there is a clear line where it joins the body so that the head appears to have been stuck on the body. The background is a dull brown which may once have been gilt. Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16 (Der Naturen Bloeme), folio 123v.

Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 8d

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The Deluge by David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr)

Whether to the east or west You go, wondrous through all Are the myriad clouds; Dense and grim they appear— Black and fierce the firmament, Dark and horrid is all. A ray of light’s not seen, But li…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 9d

This week's medieval beast is the cerastes. This was a horned serpent so flexible it was as if it was boneless. This snake-like version is from a poorly treated English bestiary dated to 1220-1240. #medievalmanuscripts #medievalbeasts #cerastes #medievalart

A green and white striped curving serpent with four curlicued horns on top of its snub-nosed head. There is text below it and the manuscript page appears to have been torn on the top left. Image from Cambridge University Library, Kk.4.25, folio 95r.

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 9d

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Constantinople seen at Sun-rise by William Stewart Rose

A city didst thou seem of fabled lore, Mid cypress-groves of never fading green, With minaret and gilded dome between, While the sea softly kist thy grassy shore: Shooting athwart whose sapphire po…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 10d

A gentle portrait by Richard Linderum (1851-1926) is our writing prompt this week. Who is this elderly gentleman? And what are the tools scattered over his book and desk? #writingprompts #writinglife #writingtips #richardlinderum #artworks

A kind faced, heavily bearded, old man with a shining bald pate fringed with white hair is seated at a table writing with a feathered quill on a small notebook while turning the pages of a very large book. A magnifying glass and compass rest on the book and there is an inkstand on the desk. A tall globe in a wooden stand is to one side of the old man and there are shelves of books behind him. He is wearing a short-sleeved black gown over a long-sleeved and hooded cream-coloured gown. Image by Richard Linderum (1851-1926) from Wikimedia Commons.

Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 10d

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Black Ecstatic Ode by Airea D. Matthews

Praise to the father holding his sleeping daughter on the 52nd Street trolley To the daughter sleeping through the pothole thrum Praise to the diabetic with shorn feet and sugarcane blood To the sh…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 11d

"The Island of Lost Maps" by Miles Harvey is a deep dive into the map thefts of Gilbert Joseph Bland Jr with detours into the world of cartography and those who steal maps. #bookrecommendations #tbrlist #milesharvey #theislandoflostmaps #nonfiction #history

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 11d

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Dedication by Sarah Fletcher

Flamingo, urchin, bestiaric beast: Paroling city matters, you re-form From pigeon’s dirty feather to a quill. A parlour game: we reach the dovetailing Between those singing spasmic pities that We s…

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Flustered Duck @flusteredduck.bsky.social · 12d

Tired of waiting for your fairy godmother? Let Jumble Publishing and Editing (jumblepublishing.com) help with your editing and self-publishing instead.
Image: Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926) #jumblepublishing #selfpublishing #publishing #editing #viktorvasnetsov #artworks

In a clearing surrounded by trees, a barefoot girl sits on a white stone leaning her head against her clasped hands on her knee as she looks into a dark lake or river. She has long messy brown hair and wears a black dress patterned with pink flowers. She seems very forlorn and alone. Image by Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926) from Wikimedia Commons.

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