Fabulous Folklore with Icy

In this month's episode of Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm talking to Russ Williams, the author of Where the Folk: A Welsh Folklore Road Trip . Russ grew up in Caernarfon in North Wales, where he was raised on Welsh stories, like the one about a mountain that would send you mad or turn you into a gifted poet if you camped out on it, or the one about the lost civilization drowned by the sea, and th...

When we look at types of folkloric creature, we often encounter the same types in different places, such as mermaids or fairies. But occasionally, you encounter a creature so localised that it only appears in a single place. The Blue Men of the Minch are one such example. Feared by sailors, the Blue Men of the Minch lived in the straight between the Shiant Islands and Long Island. This stretch of...

If we think of submerged cities, lost beneath the waves, we're probably most likely to think of Atlantis, that thought-experiment that took on a life of its own. Closer to home, there's the lost Welsh kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod, believed to lie between Bae Ceredigion and Ynys Enlli.  Yet there are countless tales of submerged villages along both the west and east coast of England too, not to ment...

The humble mouse appears in a surprising amount of folklore. Both a harbinger of death if spotted in the house, and a medical remedy for a range of ailments, it seems the mouse both harms and heals. This reputation even stretches back to ancient Egypt, demonstrating just how ambivalent humans have felt about the tiny rodent for centuries. With strange origin stories, links to a Belgian saint, a us...

Welcome back to Fabulous Folklore Presents. This time, I'm delighted to be talking to Darragh Mason, a multi-award-winning photographer, author, and researcher. He studied photography at Dublin City University and has traveled extensively across Asia, Europe, and America, where he has written articles and published his photography. His work has taken him to post-war countries such as Bosnia &...

Humans first domesticated horses in around 3500 BC. Since then, they’ve pulled our chariots and carts, carried royalty and soldiers, worked on farms, and been steadfast companions. Horses are actually a prey animal, which perhaps explains their vulnerability to supernatural attack by witches and fairies.  Yet as the stories in this episode will show, they’re also famous for their speed, ability to...

Britain is supposed to be a nation of animal lovers, especially when it comes to pet dogs. According to the PDSA, 29% of UK adults own a dog, which gives an estimated population of 10.6 million pet dogs. While 29% isn't a majority, the number of pet dogs in the country has increased over the last few years. So it seems only fair to see how this popular animal appears in folklore. After all, I've a...

Human relationships with deer stretch back thousands of years. Archaeologists uncovered red deer skulls at Star Carr in Yorkshire which are 11,000 years old. No one knows what they were used for, if they had practical applications or were used in shamanic rituals. But it suggests some kind of relationship between humans and deer, even if we're not sure what that involved. Deer appear in mythology...

I’ve been sharing real-life supernatural experiences from Fabulous Folklore listeners for the past couple of weeks. It’s been brilliant to see how vulnerable people have been in sharing these, since talking about such things can often earn you a strong amount of scorn.  But I really think it’s important to preserve these stories, a) to honour the experience itself, and b) to create a space where p...

In this episode of Fabulous Folklore Presents, I chat to Scott Richardson-Read of Cailleach's Herbarium about Scottish cosmology, discuss the differences between Scottish folk magic and folk magic practices elsewhere in the British Isles, and talk about the value of ancestor work in Scottish folk magic. Scott is an independent researcher, published author, and activist with several master’s degree...

If you listened the real-life supernatural experiences I shared last week, you would have noticed two things. First, not all experiences are terrifying. Some can be affirming, or so regular as to have become commonplace. Second, they don’t need to be full-on light and sound shows to deeply affect someone. We’re likely to pay attention to a poltergeist dismantling a room or notice a crisis appariti...

If you believe the movies, supernatural experiences are big, brash and bold - or they’re just so bone-chillingly terrifying that you’re completely unable to do anything. I’m looking at you, 1963 version of The Haunting .  But in reality? They can be far more subtle - but no less bizarre, scary, or unsettling, getting under your skin and taking root as a peek into another world that overlaps with o...

In this episode of Fabulous Folklore Presents, I chat to the legend that is Lilith Dorsey! We talk about tarot, some New Orleans lore, and why the city has such an unusual reputation, and why people are so drawn to love magic!  Lilith Dorsey M.A., hails from many magickal traditions, including Afro-Caribbean, Celtic, and Indigenous American spirituality. Their traditional education focused on Plan...

Certain cases loom large in the history of the supernatural, especially in relation to the investigation of the supernatural. The 20th century provided the likes of the Enfield Poltergeist. Even Willington Mill in the 19th century offered an earlier opportunity. Yet the Tedworth Drummer offered an opportunity to explore a haunting in the 17th century. Our investigator was Joseph Glanvill, a Somers...

We might think of ghost hunts or investigations as a predominantly 20th and 21st-century endeavour. Yet the legend of the ghosts at Willington Mill shows that people were trying to unearth the supernatural even in the first half of the 19th century. Spectral figures and unearthly noises plagued those living at the miller's house, with witnesses even seeing the ghosts from the street. Despite the f...

The Aran Islands lie in Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland. They're made up of Inis Mór, Inis Mearn, and Inis Oírr. People have likely lived on the islands since c. 3000 BCE. Late Bronze Age and Iron Age ruins scatter the islands, alongside old churches and holy wells. After the era of saints and pilgrimages, Elizabeth I unlawfully seized ownership of the islands in 1565 and in 1588, she sol...

Hello, friends! Our October theme for the podcast is (unsurprisingly) the supernatural. So I wanted to dedicate at least one episode to people's supernatural encounters, rather than focusing on what's in books or newspapers! You can remain anonymous if you want, but if you choose to submit a story, I will need to know a few things about the encounter, like when and where it happened. It doesn't ha...

Ynys Enlli in north Wales is also known as Bardsey Island, and it's been a pilgrimage destination since the 6th century. The island lies at the north end of Cardigan Bay, just off the tip of the Llŷn peninsula. Archaeological evidence shows human habitation on the island for at least four millennia. But where does it get its mysterious name of the Isle of 20,000 Saints? How is it linked with King...

Kris Spisak earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the College of William and Mary, her master of liberal arts from the University of Richmond, and did further graduate work in fiction through the University of Iowa. She taught college writing courses at schools including Virginia Commonwealth University before stepping away from the classroom to pursue her own writing work. Kris has been sp...

Islay is an island to the west of Scotland, at the entrance to the Firth of Lorn. It's 25 miles north of Northern Ireland. Archaeological evidence shows people lived here from 8000 BCE, with evidence of Neolithic and Bronze Age tombs and burial sites.  Columba and his missionaries brought Christianity to the island, which Norse raiders also adopted once they settled. Islay lay on the route between...

Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, lies some 11.5 miles to the south east of Berwick-upon-Tweed, just off the coast of Northumberland. Only accessible at low tide, the island still possesses a mystical air, no doubt from its time as a Christian pilgrimage site. Probably most famous as the production centre of the Lindisfarne Gospels, or the island that gave the folk-rock band Lindisfarne their name, the...

It's easy for mythical birds to capture the imagination, whether it's the phoenix rising from the ashes, or Aethon eternally pecking Prometheus' liver. And let's not forget Odin with his ravens, Huginn and Muninn, or Memory and Thought. In Norse myth, they travelled out into the world and flew back to Odin to report on what was happening. Not all mythical birds are benevolent, or even particularly...

Humans have found a whole range of uses for birds over the centuries. Hunting with them, keeping them for their song, using them for food or divination - and because some of them are uncommonly pretty. Look at the magnificent peacock with its elaborate tail, or the sweet little goldfinch with its black and red mask. Even the humble dove is both provider of meat and gentle garden presence in its do...

James Wright (Triskele Heritage), is an award winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. James is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting B...

It's often easy to overlook what we see every day, or at least regularly. Perhaps that's why we overlook our humble garden birds in favour of majestic eagles or mischievous ravens as our favourite birds. Yet the commonality of these small, yet often noisy, birds explains why there is a comparative dearth of folklore about them. Compared to other birds, there's a plethora to choose from. Death omen...