Roaming Raven Podcast

The year is 1716. The place is Huntingdon, a small market town in Cambridgeshire, England. The Enlightenment is spreading across Europe. The scientific revolution is gathering pace. The last person condemned for witchcraft in England—Jane Wenham—had been pardoned by Queen Anne just four years earlier. The age of reason, it seemed, had finally arrived. But in Huntingdon, the old beliefs still held....

The year is 1711. The place is Islandmagee, a narrow peninsula on the north-east coast of Ireland, jutting into the Irish Sea. It is a land of windswept fields, rocky shores, and a population largely descended from Scottish Presbyterians who had settled there a generation earlier . In February of that year, a young woman arrived in the village to keep a grieving family company. Her name was Mary D...

The Salem witch trials are nearing their end—but not because fear has faded. As accusations spread to the colony's elite, Governor William Phips steps in, spectral evidence is finally rejected, and the hysteria that claimed innocent lives begins to unravel. Discover how one of history's most infamous witch hunts finally collapsed, and the lasting lessons it left behind. www.roamingraven.co...

The year is 1692. The place is Salem Village, Massachusetts — a small, isolated farming community on the edge of the New England wilderness. The winters are brutal. The threat of Indian attack is constant. And the people are Puritans — devout, God-fearing, and convinced that the Devil walks among them, looking for souls to claim. www.roamingraven.co.uk

The year is 1675, and deep in the frozen forests of northern Sweden, fear has taken hold of an entire community. In the remote parish of Torsåker, rumours of witchcraft spread through snow-covered villages and isolated farms. Children begin to tell terrifying stories of being taken through the night to Blåkulla — a mythical gathering place where witches feast with the Devil, renounce God, and plot...

The year is 1660, and Ireland is a land scarred by war. Communities have been torn apart. Families have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their sense of security. In a world shaped by fear, grief, and uncertainty, people search desperately for someone to blame. Into this troubled landscape steps Florence Newton — an elderly beggar, herbal healer, and outsider living in the town of Youghal....

In the coastal town of Lowestoft, fear spread quietly at first — through rumours, strange illnesses, failed fortunes, and whispered suspicions exchanged between neighbours. But as tensions grew, those whispers turned into accusations. In this episode, we explore the story of the Lowestoft witch trial — a chilling case born from the uncertainty and paranoia that gripped seventeenth-century England....

In seventeenth-century Scotland, reputation could be as dangerous as any weapon — and a single accusation could destroy a life. In this episode, we uncover the story of Margaret Burges, later known as “Lady Dalyell,” a woman whose name became entangled in fear, superstition, and revenge. Born around 1579 and twice married, Margaret lived through a time when social tensions, personal grudges, and w...

The year is 1590, and Scotland’s king has returned home from Denmark with his new bride — but the sea itself seems determined to stop him. Violent storms tear across the North Sea. Ships are battered. One vessel disappears beneath the waves. And as King James VI reaches Scotland shaken and fearful, whispers begin to spread through the royal court. These were not natural storms. Someone had called...

In one of the darkest chapters of European history, the witch trials of Trier swept through Germany with terrifying force — consuming not only the vulnerable and the accused, but eventually those who helped drive the trials themselves. In this episode, we explore the haunting story of the Trier Witch Trials and the shocking fate of a judge who became trapped within the very machinery of fear and a...

Before there were labels… before there was fear… there was the Wise Woman. In this episode of Roaming Raven Podcast , we explore the quiet, enduring presence of the Wise Woman in folklore — a figure rooted in healing, intuition, and deep connection to the natural world. She was called upon in times of illness, birth, and uncertainty. A keeper of herbs, stories, and old knowledge passed hand to han...

Long before time was measured in hours and minutes… it was written in light. In this episode, we step into the quiet, cyclical world of the Moon Witch — the woman who looked not to clocks or calendars, but to the sky. Guided by the shifting phases of the moon, she understood that life does not move in straight lines, but in patterns of growth, fullness, release, and return. Through story, folklore...

In this episode, we step into the quiet, liminal world of the Hedge Walker — the travelling witch who moved between villages, landscapes, and unseen boundaries. Neither fully rooted nor entirely wandering, she lived at the edge of things: where fields meet forest, where the known meets the unknown, and where transformation quietly begins. Through story, folklore, and history, we explore the role o...

In this episode of Roaming Raven Podcast , we unravel the quiet power of the Knot Witch — a practitioner of ancient folk magic who wove intention into cord, thread, and binding. From protective charms to darker workings, knot magic has long been used to hold, release, and control unseen forces. But not every knot was meant to be undone… Step into a world where something as simple as a piece of str...

Before magic was written in books… it lived in the home. In this episode, we step into the world of the Kitchen Witch — the woman whose craft was woven into the quiet, steady rhythms of daily life. Not in grand gestures or elaborate rituals, but in the simple, repeated acts of cooking, preparing, preserving, and caring. The kitchen, often overlooked, was once the heart of the home — a place of war...

Before medicine was written in books… before healing had names and systems… there were words. In this episode, we step into the quiet, powerful world of the Charm Weaver — the folk practitioners who believed that spoken words could heal, protect, and transform. Through whispered prayers, rhythmic rhymes, and carefully repeated verses, they worked a kind of magic that sat delicately between religio...

There are some figures in folklore who do not belong to the living… yet are not part of the dead either. In this episode, we step into the shadowed world of the Grave Witch — the woman who walked the boundaries of death, tending graves, guiding spirits, and holding space for those in their final transition. Feared by some and quietly respected by others, she existed where most dared not linger: in...

In this episode of Roaming Raven , we step into one of the most haunting and mysterious corners of European folklore — the story of the fairy midwife . Across Britain and Ireland, tales were told of women called from their beds in the night to attend births in strange, hidden places, only to discover they were assisting not human mothers, but the Fair Folk . These stories sit at the crossroads of...

In this episode of Roaming Raven , we step beyond the village boundary and into the wild edges of folklore to explore the mysterious world of the hedge witch . Long before witchcraft was feared or persecuted, some women lived quietly on the margins of their communities — in cottages near forests, fields, and crossroads. These women were herbalists, healers, and keepers of old knowledge. They under...

Episode 1: The Cunning Folk Before witches were feared, there were the cunning folk — village healers, blessers, and protectors who worked with herbs, prayers, and quiet magic. In this episode, we explore who they were, how they served their communities, and how trusted wisdom slowly became dangerous knowledge. This is the story of the women who kept villages alive… until fear turned them into wit...