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Dr Jennifer Farrell

@medievaljen

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Medieval Historian. Lecturer. Writer. Public Speaker. Prophecy | Legend | Arthuriana | Magic | Gender | Demons | Supernatural. Based @uniofexeter

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Introductions / Reintroductions 🫶 by @medievaljen

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a month ago

✨️ Exciting news!!! ✨️

Let me introduce you to the cover for my very first book, due in shops next April 🎉🎉🎉

And feast your eyes on those beautiful dragons from Lambeth Palace Library MS 6 (15th century) and border art from Getty Ms. Ludwig XV 3 (13th century) 😍 I can't wait to see it in print!

Huge thanks to the wonderful design team @thehistorypressuk 🫶

........
📖 A bit about the book:

Stories about King Arthur, the prophet and magician Merlin, King Lear and his three daughters, Morgen of Avalon, the magician king Bladud, and Brutus of Troy have all become part of the stock and trade of Britain's legendary past. This book explores the life & works of the man behind these legends: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Responsible for either creating or first successfully transmitting these stories while living at Oxford in the middle decades of the twelfth century, Geoffrey produced three works which together presented a sweeping account of Britain's past spanning a period of almost two thousand years, from the Trojan war right the way up to the Saxon settlements of the seventh century.

In writing about the distant and largely mythical past, Geoffrey filled the landscape of ancient Britain with stories of heroic and tyrannical kings, warrior queens, epic battles, conquests, giants, magic, and, you guessed it, dragons... 🐉 by @medievaljen

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a month ago

✨️ Some of you have reached out after my talk on Folklore and Women to request some suggested readings. I've included here the two main medieval texts I was discussing throughout, alongside some really useful works on fairies, mythologies, otherworlds, goddesses, and so on (all very reasonably priced). I've restricted them to a mainly British focus given that that was the subject of last night's talk ✨️

Happy reading! 📚

🧐 I just realised Fantastic Histories is there twice. Its not an intentional double recommend, but Victoria Flood's work is always very good! by @medievaljen

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9 months ago

✨️ It's a Monday, which means having supplies at the ready for our weekly 4hr bumper session on Magic in the Middle Ages - teas, coffee, and a LOT of biscuits housed in a suitably themed Malleus Maleficarum tote (gifted to me a couple of years ago by the wonderful @heronbooksbristol ) 🧙‍♀️✨️ by @medievaljen

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4 days ago

Looking out across the rooftops of St T. Bright autumn mornings are the very best kind of morning 🤩🍂 by @medievaljen

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8 days ago

Autumn has arrived on campus. This particular tree, right outside my office building, is always one of the first to turn red and fill the scene with a burst of colour. Just beautiful 🤩🍂 by @medievaljen

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10 days ago

This week, in our seminars for #MedievalMagic, we are looking at the medieval inheritance of classical ideas about magic by exploring some of the ancient mediterranean's most famous literary "witches", including Erictho, Circe, and Medea, all of whom left an indellible mark on the historical, literary & artistic imagination of succeeding centuries 🪄

As a medievalist with an undergrad background in Greek & Roman Civilisation, I always look forward to any opportunity for some classics talk ✨️ by @medievaljen

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11 days ago

✨️ Rescheduled Event ✨️

Last month, a sudden knee injury meant I had to pull out of an event in Bath on Ghosts, Ghouls & Spirits of Medieval Britain. But we have thankfully managed to reschedule it for the same venue but a different day of the week. I do hope those who had tickets are able to join, and for those who would like tickets the link is now in my bio 😁

Come along for an evening filled with stories of some of the ghostly visititations, wandering corpses, blood-sucking vampires, barking hounds, and wild hunts that roamed the medieval British landscape 👻🧟‍♂️🧛‍♂️📯

Let's uncover how thin the veil was between the living and the dead, between this world and other strange and often dangerous worlds of fear and desire 🧚‍♀️ by @medievaljen

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14 days ago

Morning light creeping over @exetercathedral 🤩 by @medievaljen

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15 days ago

We won't see the full harvest moon until the weekend, but this evening's was a beauty nonetheless 🌕 🍂

#autumnequinox #moonlightmagic by @medievaljen

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15 days ago

I had such a wonderful time yesterday evening interviewing @amyjeffs_author about her latest book, Arthur: a new life, as part of the @appledorebookfestival . I have been a fan of Amy's work since I first encountered her linoprints in 2018 (two of which have hung in my office ever since), so this was a real treat for me 😁

It was my first time formally interviewing an author and I was actually nervous and with shaky hands, when I got on stage, and that doesn't happen very often 😬 But what a thrill.

If you haven't already picked up a copy of Arthur, I highly recommend it. In it, you will find an exciting adventerous, and deeply moving story of this king's life that is firmly rooted in some of the earliest medieval sources for his life and in a medieval historical context that predates the often more familiar version of events set out in Malory's 15th century Morte d'Arthur. 👑

Huge thanks to everyone who came out to hear more about this book, and to Jane and all the festival staff for their superb organising. by @medievaljen

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16 days ago

✨️ A magical end to the week ✨️

It's the last day of Welcome Week (Freshers' Week) and so time for a quick insight into the last of three modules I am convening in term 1. But this module is actually a two-parter special & runs throughout the year... so here is a peek at some of term one's content only 🪄 by @medievaljen

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21 days ago