Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

This month’s theme is mythological creatures, and anyone who’s been following along with my writing prompt posts can probably have a good guess at where my first thoughts went, being Welsh: dragons! What mythological creatures leap to mind for you?

I said dragons were the first creatures to leap to mind (there’s a dragon on the Welsh flag, after all), and they’re deep at the root of some of my favourite myths and legends. (For example, the origin story of Merlin, in Arthurian legends, involves two dragons fighting under the foundations of a castle and causing it to fall down repeatedly.) That said, we’re nearing the Christmas season, and I have another sort of creature in mind: the Mari Lwyd.

Strictly speaking, the Mari Lwyd isn’t really a mythological creature. Traditionally, a Mari Lwyd is a horse’s skull mounted onto a stick and carried round by a person hidden beneath a cloth. It’d be carried around the village or town by a group, who would knock on doors and demand entry, with the Mari causing havoc by snapping its jaws and making a mischief of itself. It was basically an excuse for a party, with lots of food and drink and horsing around. My first meeting with a Mari Lwyd wasn’t like that, though: I read about it in a fantasy novel, Susan Cooper’s Silver on the Tree, where it’s a living creature of sorts, and chases two of the protagonists. It’s a genuinely tense and creepy scene, and part of a book I really love, so perhaps it’s no surprise the Mari Lwyd is deep in my imagination!

Of late, I’ve noticed a lot of people in the wider world talking about Mari Lwyd traditions online, sometimes adding their own flourishes (which is fine, as far as I’m concerned—I’m sure the Mari has caused mischief in many ways over the years). Every year, someone sends me some variant of the image I’ve included with this post: “If you’re cold, they’re cold. Let the Mari Lwyd in.” (I’ve received my first one this year, in November! Like mince pies going on sale, the Mari Lwyd seems to begin earlier every year…) The actual history of the tradition is mixed and confusing, but you can read more about it on Wikipedia if you’re interested in the ins and outs.

So this month, let’s hear about your mythological creatures! Are they creepy or friendly? How seriously are they taken? Are there any interesting traditions about them? You can answer in the comments on this post, or write about them in the postcards you send this month. Or both!

It’s that joyous time again — the season when Postcrossing postcards become beacons of hope and support! This year, we’re thrilled to mark the 11th anniversary of our cherished collaboration with Deutsche Post. A whole decade plus one has zipped by, during which many people in Germany have honed their literacy skills with the help of our united efforts. Hurray!

For our seasoned postcrossers, this will be a familiar recap, but let’s bring our new members up to speed:

That’s the essence of it! If you’re in Germany, now is the perfect moment to stack up on postcards and stamps to be ready for the month ahead. Once December arrives, every card you send within the month (and is received by the end of February 2024, which next year has one extra day!) will contribute to this noble cause. But wait, there’s more – your postcards could also be your ticket to winning these nice prizes:

• 1 voucher worth €100, to use in Deutsche Post Online Shop
• 5 vouchers worth €50 each, to use in Deutsche Post Online Shop

The more postcards you send, the more you contribute, boosting your chances to snag a voucher for Deutsche Post’s goodies. In March 2024, Paulo will set his random number generator in motion, and we’ll announce the total number of postcards sent and funds raised for Stiftung Lesen in a blog post. Last year, we raised an astounding €12,359.60!

What if you’re not in Germany? You’re still a vital part of this campaign! Simply register the postcards landing in your mailbox promptly. As waves of postcards from Germany journey across the globe, your quick registration helps the sender mail another card sooner.

Stiftung Lesen, a German non-profit, is dedicated to improving literacy, focusing on children, adolescents, and assisting refugee families in learning German. These fundamental skills are often taken for granted, but they can be transformative for those who struggle with them. We’re proud to support their invaluable work.

We invite you to join the 11th “Cards for Literacy” campaign, sharing our enthusiasm to make a difference with our postcards!

P.S. – Postcrossing respects your personal information and will not share it with any company without your explicit permission. The full details of this campaign can be read here (German only).

I promised I’d review E.C.R. Lorac’s Post After Post-Mortem next, a book by one of my favourite British writers from the “Golden Age” of crime fiction (think Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, etc). This particular book was published in 1936 (and republished recently by the British Library in 2022, so it’s fairly easy to get hold of!), and features Lorac’s series detective, Chief Inspector Macdonald. The title refers to the fact that the whole mystery turns on a letter sent by a woman who rather suddenly died, revealing that her death was highly unlikely to be a suicide (which is what it is originally assumed to be).

Before digging in further, I ought to mention first that I found this one a little bit heavy-going due to the subject matter. Because the death is initially thought to be a suicide, the victim’s family suffer quite a bit as a result—and then again when they learn that she was actually murdered, and through being unable to quite trust one another. Unlike some writers of that period, Lorac had quite a gift for writing about places and people that you instinctively care for, so the distress of the characters and the strained feeling in their home all ring quite true for the reader as well. This definitely didn’t feel “cosy” to me in the way that people sometimes call Golden Age crime cosy. It’s not gory or anything, nor gratuitous in any way, but I couldn’t take it lightly.

Anyway, to turn back to the story itself, it fits our theme of books about the mail because the crime is only discovered because the victim happened to send a cheerful letter to her brother right before she supposedly killed herself. I won’t “spoil” the details too much, but it feels like the author thought about the way the postal service works to work out the mystery. In sending a letter or a postcard, you never quite know when it will arrive, and how things will look when it lands on the recipient’s doormat. It’s a little bit creepy to think about receiving a letter from someone after they’ve died, to be honest; it’s a clever story device, but it also provides that human touch for the characters, in showing her brother’s strained reaction.

So I think it’s possible some people might find this one a bit too upsetting, especially as the discovery that it was a murder is at least a third of the way into the book, if not more. I think it was worth it, but in the end, it was a book I appreciated a lot but didn’t love: it is well-written, with characters I cared about and an outcome that mattered to me as the reader, but perhaps less escapist than a lot of the Golden Age crime fiction. If you’d like to give E.C.R. Lorac’s work a try but feel you’d rather skip this one, Death of an Author (also recently reissued by the British Library) had me riveted! The postal service features somewhat less prominently in that book, though. (Boo!)

I’m not sure now what the next book to review should be; if you have any suggestions, then let me know via the forum (you may need to spend some time looking around the forum before that section unlocks). Until next time, happy reading!

To many, the name “Mulready” might not ring a bell… but more avid postcard-connoisseurs will know that these were the grandfathers of postcards! Introduced in May 6, 1840, Mulready stationery were pre-paid postal envelopes designed by artist William Mulready as an alternative to the Penny Black stamp. Despite the intricate design symbolizing the British postal system’s reach, they were mercilessly mocked at the time and overshadowed by the popularity of adhesive postage stamps.

Sometime ago, Graham Beck from popular Youtube channel Exploring Stamps produced this great video about Mulready stationery, in which he interviewed Robin Cassell at Stampex. Robin is an expert and dealer of this type of items, and tells its fascinating and troubled story. If you like philately and postcard history, don’t miss it!

Are there other videos or resources out there about postcards that we should check out? Let us know in the comments — we’re always eager to learn more!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

As I write this ready for the new month, I’m headed down to Wales for a visit to my family. There won’t be much time for sightseeing, as it’s very much a flying visit, but hopefully I can pick up some postcards (and maybe send out one or two) showing my favourite places in Wales. Which brings me to this month’s writing prompt: let’s talk about some beautiful places, and share our love for them.

For me, the answer was immediately obvious: Castell Coch. I’ve talked about it before on the blog, because something about it has always grabbed my imagination, ever since I was little. “Castell Coch” is Welsh for “Red Castle”, after the warm-coloured sandstone that the walls are built from. The current building is from the 19th Century, and is in the Gothic Revival style, but it’s built on the site of earlier fortifications, and it has extremely beautiful interiors designed by an architect called William Burgess.

But my favourite part of Castell Coch isn’t the view up close and personal (though it’s very worth a personal investigation), or the view from the towers. The thing I think is really magical about Castell Coch is the way it looks rising above the trees, from a bit of a distance. Those spires on the towers make it just like a fairytale, maybe even a little Disney-like, and the trees rising all around it make it a little mysterious. You can catch a glimpse of it just driving past on the motorway: as a child on various trips with my grandparents, I always got very excited by the chance to see my favourite castle as we drove by.

If I’m really lucky this weekend, I’ll be able to grab some postcards showing Castell Coch—maybe even an aerial view, or at least a photograph of it nestled among the trees. What are the views and landmarks that you just can’t wait to share? Bonus points if you can send a postcard showing that view, I’d say! But you can also share your thoughts here—we’d all love to hear about the beautiful places you love.