#FolkloreThursday: weekly tag, monthly hosted day (Bluesky, 2026)

Written 30 Oct 2026 for Cedwyn. Before this, #FolkloreThursday was only a line inside calan-gaeaf-seasonal-hook-welsh-halloween-folklore.md. This file is the standing playbook.

What it is now (measured 30 Oct 2026)

• Founders: Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham, started 2015. Their FAQ (read) gives "a community of over 60,000 members worldwide" (that's the X-era figure). The project left X for Bluesky and "no longer posts or hosts on Twitter". The old website carries a "deprecated, no longer supported" banner, but the FAQ and themes pages still load.
• Bluesky account folklorethursday.bsky.social (public API, read 30 Oct): 3,030 followers, 1,121 posts, created May 2024. Facebook page: 8,772 followers (snippet, not checked).
• The tag is open every Thursday, but hosting is monthly. FAQ (read): "hosts no longer retweet every single week ... the themes are only there for inspiration ... do post each week!" Hosted days in 2026, taken from the account's own posts: 19 Feb, 19 Mar, 16 Apr, 28 May, 18 Jun, 24 Sep, 29 Oct. There was no hosted day in July or August (summer break). Each one was announced 2-7 days ahead (17 Mar, 14 Apr, 22 May, 11 Jun, 18 Sep, 26 Oct). Usually it's the third or last Thursday, and often themed (Sept = autumn/fall, Oct = "Halloween, Samhain, and Ghost lore").
• How a hosted day works: guest hosts take hour-long slots (BST, e.g. 9am-2pm, 3.30-4.30pm, 6.30-7.30pm in March 2025). Each host reposts posts made to the hashtag in their hour. The day closes with a thank-you post tagging the hosts.
• Reach, 29 Oct 2026 (our own read of public data): the account reposted 75 posts that day, with a median of 14 likes each (range 1-132). The unauthenticated search shows only the latest 100 posts. 94 of those were created on 29 Oct, with a median of 11 likes, and the cursor was refused (403), so the day's full volume was not measured. Only 1 of the 94 was Welsh: Gwyn ap Nudd, from bevanthomas, 14 likes and 6 reposts. Welsh folklore is thin on the tag, which leaves room for us.
• What gets reposted: real folklore with a source or a period image. Examples: the National Museum of Ireland's 1930s pigskin mask (27 likes), "The Illustrated London News 4.11.1871", the Chirbury roll-call legend, John Collier's painting. The FAQ states not to worry about full academic references for public-domain images, but name where it's from.
• How to post (FAQ, read): a title or short note, then the link, then #FolkloreThursday at the end. Promote articles only where they carry real folklore.

How to do it (any account)

1. Weekly: one post every Thursday with one sourced folklore item, a public-domain image if there is one, the source line, and at most one link. Check the themes page for the week and ignore it if it doesn't fit.
2. Hosted days: watch the account from the third week of each month. When it announces, prepare 3 items and post them inside 3 different host slots. Hosts repost in their own hour, so posts outside the hour are mostly missed.
3. Format: the hook in the first line ("In 1903 a Canton man ..."), one picture, the source line (book, year, page), and the link last. Keep the text to about 280 characters.
4. Reply to the host's thread when they ask a question. Don't tag hosts to beg for a repost.
5. Measure: tag the link /r/ft-<yyyymm>. Count reposts by @folklorethursday, likes, and clicks.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

• Account: Cedwyn has no Bluesky account yet. See bluesky-custom-feeds-history.md: the account comes from the LEVERAGE RUN, so a Bluesky presence is a proposal until it exists. Meanwhile, use the tag on the existing Facebook page and Instagram every Thursday. It is a live tag there too: the founders' Facebook page and Instagram both use it.
• What we post: real Glamorgan folklore from public-domain sources, not stories invented for the farm. calan-gaeaf's rule stands: if no local story exists, say so. The best local item found so far is the Canton-to-Leckwith boatman's ghost, set at a bend of the River Ely "just above the present Taff Vale Railway bridge". It is in Trevelyan 1909, pp. 336-337, taken from T. H. Thomas, Old Folks' Tales, Trans. Cardiff Naturalists' Society vol. 36 (1903). See trevelyan-1909-glamorgan-folklore-public-domain-local-stories.md.
• Next hosted day: the November date isn't announced yet (expect it in late Nov, announced 2-7 days ahead). Watch from Mon 16 Nov. It might land in the Explore Your Archive focus week (21-29 Nov), so one item can carry both #FolkloreThursday and #ExploreYourArchive.
• Weekly queue, 4 items (Thursdays 5, 12, 19, 26 Nov): Leckwith boatman (p. 336); Penarth Head "black blood" fish (p. 154); St Quintin and the Devil's Kneecap at Llanblethian (p. 154). For the fourth, one Calan Gaeaf/Nadolig item from Museum Wales (St Fagans), already sourced in calan-gaeaf. Bilingual, Welsh first.
• Stop rule: after 4 Thursdays with no repost by a host or a big account and fewer than 3 clicks in total, drop to hosted days only.
• Editorial: neutral, record-based, no case argument. Folklore is not evidence for the farm's title. Banned public words apply ("states" etc.): write "a 1903 collection records ...". The source's own quoted dialogue can stay verbatim, inside quotation marks.

Sources

• folklorethursday.com (read 30 Oct 2026: weekly tag, hosting not weekly, moved to Bluesky, 60,000 members, how to post, image sourcing)
• public.api.bsky.app and app.bsky.feed.getAuthorFeed (read 30 Oct: 3,030 followers; 2026 hosted dates; 29 Oct reposts and like counts)
• api.bsky.app (read 30 Oct: latest 100, 94 from 29 Oct, median 11 likes; cursor 403)
• x.com and instagram.com (snippets: 2025 hosted days, slot times)
• folklorethursday.com (snippet: weekly themes list)

Raw Markdown: folklorethursday-bluesky-monthly-hosted-days.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json