The Local Mythstorian Podcast

Although the previous episode - The History of Witchcraft In Cheshire - was the official end of the podcast, the recent discovery of a recording from back in 2023, long since assumed deleted, means there is one more 'lost' episode to release: Village Horror Story - The Brutal Folklore of Civil War Bagnall . In a peaceful, rural corner of North Staffordshire, famed for its well-dressings...

The final episode of The Local Mythstorian Podcast is a live recording from Eli's talk at The Grange Theatre on Thursday May 22nd 2025, tracing the story of European witchcraft from its Roman origins through to the English witch-craze and into the county of Cheshire itself! Eli's new podcast series Tales From Antiquaria is out now on all major platforms Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback...

There are numerous legends regarding the subject of Robin Hood and his band of outlaws located throughout the UK. In the Derbyshire village of Hathersage however, there is a story concerning Robin’s chief lieutenant Little John that intrigues more than most, centred on a grave that during an excavation 250 years ago, revealed the bones of a man who was over eight feet tall. Could it really be our...

Known as the father of science fiction, H.G. Wells is as famous today as he was in his heyday of the 1890s. What isn’t so well known however, is the time he spent as a younger man amidst the burgeoning industrial landscape of the Potteries; and how that experience helped inform the imagery of his best-known work, The War of the Worlds , and also change his own worldview forever. Mythstoric Journey...

Bringing together a selection of unique curios and local tales concerning folklore and haunting from across the ancient county of Cheshire, join Eli by the fireside in this Christmas special from The Local Mythstorian Podcast. Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com Find Eli Lewis-Lycett Folklore and History on Facebook and...

In this historically themed Halloween special, it's a personal tale from Eli regarding a very uncanny experience that he and his father shared when he was just 10 years old way back in 1993! Not quite a ghost story, but something wonderfully odd and beguiling, it was an experience that, thanks to the wonders of Google Earth,  has since kicked up the strangest of possibilities thirty years on...

Originally released as a mini series of episodes regarding snippets of Cheshire lore and history. Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com Find Eli Lewis-Lycett Folklore and History on Facebook and Bluesky

Recorded live at The Grange Theatre, Hartford on May 16th 2024, the last regular episode in Season 2 of the podcast presents Eli's talk on the extraordinary local histories of Vale Royal. Topics covered include the Vale Royal Rebellion, the prophet Robert Nixon and the Devil in Cheshire folklore. Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here! Visit theloc...

The story of Thomas Meakin's eighteenth century murder is a well-known legend of the Staffordshire Moorlands, yet there has never before been a full consideration of the circumstances surrounding his death, nor an inquiry into who may have killed him. Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com Find Eli Lewis-Lycett Folklo...

A spring bonus episode of sorts, recorded for season one but never released, its seasonal theme sees it make it into Season 2... Well-dressing is much loved local custom which enjoys an almost exclusive patronage in the county of Derbyshire. It’s origins are much debated and appear to be forever shrouded in the deep history of the region’s ancient past, yet when stripping away the layers of the tr...

The village of Great Budworth possesses one of the most remarkable churches in all of Cheshire, not just loved by locals but genuinely appreciated by history fans and enthusiasts of late medieval architecture right across the UK. Something visitors may not be aware of however is the visit paid to the village by Parliamentarian forces on the last day of August in 1644, and its place at the centre o...

The story of Robert Nixon, the 'Cheshire Prophet’ starved to death by the king, was once the best known legend of the county, retold and republished dozens of times across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Precisely who the man was however, has always been something of a mystery, with many assuming he was little more than a fairy tale. Yet research suggests that not only was Robert a r...

There are few more curious associations in local legend than that of Saracen prisoners being settled on the land that is now known as the Staffordshire Moorlands village of Biddulph Moor. Travelling back to the thirteenth century to discover the untold story behind the legend, we reach a place where the adventures of the crusades meet with the dark realities of the medieval slave trade under the p...

The castle at Shipbrook near Davenham is long lost to us today, its last traces being cleared from the land in the 1790s. However, in balancing the brutal events of early Norman England together with the history of a key local family, not only can we better appreciate this often overlooked corner of medieval Cheshire, but perhaps for the first time, look to understand the story of Shipbrook Castle...

A mid-season bonus episode - a recording of The Local Mythstorian website Zoom live stream event from December 7th; The Friar's Fool - A Brief History of English Devil Lore and Its Place In Cheshire Legend.  Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The haunting of Marbury Park is one of Cheshire’s most enduring legends of the supernatural. Most retellings however, if not all, have simply sought to repeat the basics of the tale without looking deeper into the history of the protagonists within. When we do, and look to consider the legend within the context of its earliest form, we find a very different tale to tell, and one that is all the mo...

The Cheshire monk Ranulf Higden is remembered to historians today as the author of a distant world history from the fourteenth century. However, beyond his daily religious work in the abbey at Chester, he was an inquisitive and curious man of his age; traits that can help us understand better why such a figure of Christian piety would come to be buried with a notorious totem of the magical arts. M...

Welcome to Season 2! The Vale Royal Rebellion is a medieval tale of murder, manipulation and struggle set amidst one of the most turbulent periods in all of English history. Yet it is only when we bring the contributing political factors, key players and major events of the story together as one, that we can really appreciate just what a remarkable piece of Cheshire history the story truly is. Myt...

Originally a series of bite-sized episodes to bring season 1 of the podcast to an end, Five Minute Mythstoria looks to share snap-shot tales of curious history from across Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.  Includes; The Great Age of Mary Brookes The Ghost of Molly Leigh The Eagle Centre Poltergeist The Bridestones Hidden Ritual Landscape The Slaughtered Lambs of Tideswell Booth's Chesh...

In the last regular episode of the season, we look at how throughout the three-shires border region, where East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands intertwine, tales of yore are peppered with dark legends of cannibalism and murder, and ask if there could there be more to the historical rumours than mere fear mongering and folk warnings of the wild? Mythstoric Journey...

A live recording from Eli's talk with Butterton History Group in September 2022, and touches on three topics from the Moorlands that haven't been covered in the regular podcast episodes; the Saracens of Biddulph Moor, the murder of Thomas Meakin and the brutal Civil War folklore of the village of Bagnall.  Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available her...

The manner of John Turner's death and the creation of Jenkin Chapel are two of the most curious bookmarks in the history of Cheshire's peak border region. But by considering both events together with the darker history of the area, we may discover that old country superstitions still had remarkably strong ties to local belief structure during the early part of the eighteenth century. Myt...

Arbor Low is regarded as one of the most important prehistoric sites in England and a bastion of our ancient cultural identity. It is most definitely a place of wonder, but its vision comes complete with the seemingly unanswerable conundrum as to how its once magnificent stone circle came to be pulled down and laid flat. Could the mystery become a little clearer when placed against the location’s...

The story that originally inspired The Local Mythstorian project and a tale quite unlike anything else in the British Isles! The Headless Horseman of the Staffordshire Moorlands is one of the best known pieces of folklore in the region, but where did it come from? Tracing the story of the horseman back through 650 years of local history, via Victorian ghost sightings and Arthurian literature, we u...

The image of the wizard has become synonymous with the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge largely thanks to a nineteenth century legend. Yet the deeper history of the area suggests that this connection to such magical figures is far from fantasy, and in fact may be the result of a very real, if extraordinary, historical legacy. Mythstoric Journeys , the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is av...