The Three Ravens Podcast

It's time to uncork the bottle of mythology and folklore to talk about a true English original - Imps! Beginning their lives as horticultural metaphors, the Anglo Saxon 'ympe' appears in all sorts of moralizing, overtly Christian texts, including those written by Alfred the Great - only by the 17th century if you had an imp of your own you could be hanged for the crime. How did this all come about...

For today's episode we have something very special for you - a collaboration between Three Ravens and The History of England Podcast about 15 English Objects. Since St George's Day 2026 A Very English Chat has been encouraging respectful conversations to overcome growing hatred and division around our national identity. The brief is simple: what five objects - anecdotes, artefacts, emotional conne...

Two more tales from the Langs' Red Fairy Book in this episode: The Little Good Mouse and The Three Princesses of Whiteland. The Little Good Mouse is a Madame d'Aulnoy literary fairy tale with questionable morals, dreadful kings and...turkeys? The Three Princesses of Whiteland, on the other hand, is a Norwegian story collected by Asbjornsen and Moe. Its themes are quite familiar from previous tales...

This new episode of Magic and Medicines has perhaps been a long time coming - we're finally talking all about Wicca! We trace earlier ideas which informed the path scholars call a 'magico-religion' back to the early 19th century, when historians first hypothesised about the existing of an ancient, secret witch cult. Through texts like Charles Leland's Aradia , via Frazer's The Golden Bough , to th...

This week on Local Legends Martin is chatting with author, historian and globally-renowned fairy expert Dr Simon Young. After training as a Medieval Historian, Simon gradually became a 'Supernaturalist' - someone who spends a lot of time collecting and comparing data, often from historical sources, detailing interactions between human beings and the supernatural. From boggarts to fairies, Simon's...

Today's Lang Fairy Tale episode features another pair from the Red Fairy Book: The Wonderful Birch and Jack and the Beanstalk. The Wonderful Birch is a lesser known Cinderella story with some truly bizarre details, a messy timeline, and some fairly eyebrow-raising logic. It's a Russian tale which may not score very highly in our brand new fairy tale ratings... Still, if The Wonderful Birch left us...

For this month's episode of Magus we're raising up the Divine Feminine and discussing the life and works of Dion Fortune! Both Violet Mary Firth in Llandudno in Welsh Caernarfonshire, she claimed always to be from Yorkshire - just like the claimed she could astral project, psychically communicate with the living and the dead, and seek advice within the Otherworld from the Illuminati of 'Hidden Mas...

The Maytide mischief continues with today's release - a live conversation with Dr Christina Oakley-Harrington, founder of Treadwell's Books. Treadwell's is an esoteric bookshop in London specializing in occult and spiritual topics like magic, witchcraft, and world religions. We were thrilled to return to one of our favourite places in London for a light-hearted discussion about May Day folklore, s...

In this month's update episode we're chatting all about Beltane - which is happening right now - as well as "Need Fires" and why they're so special. After recapping the key traditions associated with Beltane, and discussing the wider traditions of using 'Virgin Flames' to purify livestock and people, we share a bunch of our news, two awesome pieces of music sent in by listeners, and we have also i...

Our Lang Fairy Tale episode for today is a double bill, The Enchanted Pig and The Norka. The Enchanted Pig is a very well known Romanian folk tale, which appears in many different forms, and it's a whole lot of fun! The story compares to East of the Sun and West of the Moon - and possibly wins out against it? Collected by the father of Romanian folklore Petre Ispirescu, we think it's one of the go...

Rise up comrade, and rage against the machine, as on this month's episode of Forgotten Melodies we're talking about Protest Songs! With Eleanor still recovering from her operation, we brought back-up this time, in the shape of Katie Sommers, Eleanor's long-time partner in puppet theatre company Rust & Stardust. If you're a regular listener than you will hear Katie's singing voice regularly, bu...

For this week's very special, seasonally appropriate Local Legends episode we have something really special for you - a good long chat with Philip Carr-Gomm! Philip lives locally to us here in Sussex in Southern England, and is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and author who served as the Chosen Chief of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) for 32 years. He is widely recognized for his wor...

Our Lang Fairy Tale for today is another Madame d'Aulnoy story, Princess Rosette. Also known in some places as The King of the Peacocks or The Black and the White Bride, it's packed full of whimsy, but what is it actually about? We get lists of fun foods and wonderful creatures, sojourn with side characters with nothing to do, and end up with a kind of take on The Goose Girl. Considering d'Aulnoy...

What's that coming over the hill with fists full of sheep and improbably large trousers on? It's a new episode of Three Ravens Bestiary of course, all about the mythology and folklore of Giants! We begin with a brief chat about Gigantism, the rare medical condition which makes people grow larger than normal - and other examples of very large human ancestors, from extremely tall Egyptian pharaohs a...

For our first Three Ravens Live Show release of 2026 we have a recording from Farnham Literary Festival in March, all about the history and folklore of Surrey! Recorded at Farnham Town Hall, a stone's throw from the town's Norman castle, we begin by offering a whistle-stop tour of the ways in which the historic county of Surrey has been shaped by conflicts, including Bronze Age tribal clashes, Vik...

For today's Lang Fairy Tales episode we have a tale with its very own ATU number - The Master Thief! First recorded, to our knowledge, by Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. the story became popular in Europe due to a single writer in the Italian Renaissance who popularised the "Rise Tale" - the story of someone from a more modest background outwitting the rich to become rich themselves. In this cas...

We're back in the saddle after Eleanor's operation and talking all about the history of Exorcism! One of those complex kinds of topic we so enjoy discussing on Magic and Medicines , belief in Exorcism is rather predicated on personal faith, including in Demons or other supernatural entities. It's also a tradition impossible to separate from the seminal movie The Exorcist of 1973 due to that film's...

And we finish our week of releases with another double bill - including one story that's pretty great, and another that loses its way a bit... The more successful of the two is the first Irish legend to feature in the Lang collections, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen, performed by Martin, which is a shaggy dog story featuring thrilling flights of fancy and a surprisingly clever plot. Then c...

On today's episode of the Lang Fairy Tale Project we have a double bill! First comes Soria Moria Castle, performed by Eleanor, which feels like a story built out of parts of other possibly better tales. Does it have original things to offer, besides a witch with a nose so long she can stir soup with it? Then it's time for The Death of Koschei The Deathless, read by Martin, which features many elem...

For our April 2026 episode of Magus we're plunging elbow-deep into the Enlightenment to talk about the magical life of Sir Isaac Newton! Arriving on this planet during the first few months of the English Civil War, Newton was abandoned by his mother, raised by his dead father's parents, and was a vengeful, mischievous child. After a fist-fight in a churchyard during his early teens Newton turned t...

Our Lang Fairy Tale Project continues with a well-known classic, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Should stargazers be allowed to turn invisible and hang out in young ladies' bedrooms? This is a question rather ducked by The Brother's Grimm, and it remains unanswered in Nora and Andrew Lang's "Red Fairy Book." Martin performs the story today, after which we dig into it. For example, should it be des...

The Lang Fairy Tale Project is BACK - although we're mixing things up with a new format for The Red Fairy Book. Rather than just reading the stories then saving our thoughts about them all for a big chat at the end we're now reading the stories to one another and discussing them episode by episode. We begin by setting some context - especially around Andrew Lang only contributing one tale to this...

On this month's update episode we're chatting all about April Fool's Day - which is happening right now! After recapping the key traditions associated with Spring pranking from Scotland to Iran, we share a bunch of our news, including about our new FREE digital magazine, Quarters ! The first edition, The Fool, is 72-pages long and includes interviews with Ben Edge, Rory Waterman, and tonnes of coo...

We may have missed releasing the episode on St Patrick's Day, but it's always happy hour somewhere! On this month's episode of Forgotten Melodies we're priming the pubs and pouring out several rounds of refreshing chat about Drinking Songs - while also discussing the history of alehouses in Britain! The new arrangements of classic Drinking Songs in this episode include Bring Us In Good Ale, All Fo...

The final of the three very special interviews Martin conducted with some of the biggest names in Welsh folklore and ghostlore, in this episode it's this inspirational Peter Stevenson! As we chat about from the outset, Peter is, as far as anyone we know of can tell, the greatest living authority on Welsh folk tales. Author of books including Welsh Folk Tales, Welsh Folk Tales for Young and Old, We...