The Three Ravens Podcast

The second of three very special interviews with some of the biggest names in Welsh folklore and ghostlore, in this episode it's author, folklorist and collector of antique Welsh texts, Dr Delyth Badder! As we discuss at the outset, we learned of Delyth's work through her book The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts, which came out the year Three Ravens launched. Her co-author, Mark Norman of The Folklore P...

The first of three very special interviews with some of the biggest names in Welsh folklore and ghostlore, in this episode it's author, journalist, cultural historian and self-proclaimed punk, Mark Rees! We begin with some merry badinage, discussing who Mark is and unpacking some of the important lessons we've learned from him and others across Series 7 - though the main event is a lovely chat tha...

For this week's Local Legends interview, Eleanor is chatting with author Francesca Simon MBE. We were pretty amazed when Francesca agreed to join us - she's very well known, the author of over 60 books, including the award-winning Horrid Henry series. Henry and his horrid exploits are hardly the only string to Francesca's bow, though.  She’s written a lot of other fiction too, often inspired...

On this month's episode of the Three Ravens Bestiary we're talking all about Leprechauns, hot on the heels of St Patrick's Day! We begin by setting some context, particularly around the cultural changes that took place across the 19th century in Ireland, from the sensational success of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies in 1808 via the "Great Hunger" of the mid-century up to the birth of the Gaelic Lea...

For our final County Episode of Series 7 we're chatting about the heritage and folklore of the largest Welsh historic county, Carmarthenshire! A county that still exists, it's home to one of the truly ancient settlements of Britain, Carmarthen, which continues to thrive today having been consistently occupied since the Bronze Age. Elsewhere on this bumper-sized season finale we're talking about th...

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin is chatting with award-winning broadcaster, anthropologist and author Will Millard. Will has presented major BBC Two anthropology series, including Hunters of the South Seas and the BAFTA-Cymru award-winning My Year With The Tribe , where he lived with the Korowai people of West Papua. His work for BBC Wales focuses on British heritage, including seri...

Get ready for some vigorous shaking of bottles, because in today's episode of Magic and Medicine we're talking all about Homeopathy and Herbal Medicine! Although herbal medicine has very deep roots, stretching back to Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, theories about disease and its transmission have been pretty varied over time. From foul, stinking miasmas to the adorably named 'animalc...

On our penultimate County Episode of Three Ravens Series 7 we're off to the heartland of Welsh language-speaking in Merionethshire! Abolished in 1974, its flag, showing three goats rampant above the dawning sun, still flies in the area, which is filled with monuments like Harlech Castle, Tomen y Mur, some of the deepest slate mines in Wales, and a town guarded by demonic flaming cartwheels. Taking...

On this week's episode of Local Legends Eleanor is chatting with anthropologist and author of The Folklore of The Tanat Valley, Dr Jack Hunter, all about Montgomeryshire. In addition to being an academic, teacher and very prolific writer, Jack has a fascinating variety of research interests. He’s explored spirit possession and shamanism, he’s a research fellow for the Parapsychology Foundation, an...

For this month's episode of Magus we're going Medieval and talking about the one and only Sibyl of the Rhine, Hildegard of Bingen! Born at the tail end of the 11th century, during the religious fervor following the First Crusade, Hildegard was given to an order of Benedictine monks through a pretty strange quirk in the Holy Roman Empire's tax code. Even in infancy however she reported visions of t...

On this week's episode we're winning like Gwenwynwyn and exploring the historic Welsh county of Montgomeryshire! We talk medieval drama in the early days of the kingdom of Powys Wenwynwyn, up to the creation of Montgomeryshire and the crowning of Owain Glyndwr as Prince of all Wales. Digging up some shiny trinkets along our way, we gaze at the highest waterfall in the UK, Pistyll Rhaeaedr, and row...

In this month's update episode we're chatting all about St David's Day - which is happening right now! After recapping the key traditions associated with St David's Day, and Ostara, the pagan sabbat which takes place at the Vernal Equinox, and a bunch of our news, we have included the opening chunks of February's Patreon Exclusive episodes. Before which we ended up talking about the new Wuthering...

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin is chatting with the author of The A-Z of Curious Flintshire , local historian David Rowe. Born and raised in Tyneside, David’s love affair with Flintshire started fairly innocuously at first, as he explains in this conversation, but before long it had become clear he was addicted. While having a wife and family, and working for long periods overseas,...

What's your favourite Love Song? On this month's episode of Forgotten Melodies, to cap off February, we're chatting about our own, and digging into and performing three iconic folk songs about love. These new arrangements are of Cupid the Pretty Plough Boy, Green Bushes and No John No , including our friend Katie Sommers singing soprano parts, plus Martin, Ben and Eleanor chatting about the histor...

On this week's episode of Three Ravens we're headed to a Welsh county with two separate sections - historic Flintshire! The county where Edward I began his conquest of Wales, the prehistory of Flintshire is just as interesting as what's happened more recently. And more recently the county was the place where the global price of lead was set - it is a major mover and shaker as counties go, with or...

On this week's episode of Local Legends Eleanor is chatting with the brilliant author, storyteller, and champion of Cardiff, Cath Little! Cath is especially interested in re-imagining tales from The Mabinogion . She shares her stories all over the place: in libraries, museums, castles, cafes, fields and schools, not least because schools and education are very important to Cath. She was a secondar...

For our first episode of the Three Ravens Bestiary for 2026, we're talking all about Centaurs and Pegasus! We begin in Dark Age Greece, way back before Homer, when horse-riding cavalry suddenly became a factor in human life. Representations in art leave us in no doubt - the combination of a horse with a man makes for a terrifying foe, though that's only the start of the story. Starting with Homer,...

For today's episode, we're venturing to the south of Wales to historic Glamorganshire. We talk about the county's very ancient life, including the discovery of the oldest bones in Western Europe, and its development into industrial glory, and later, industrial depression. Glamorganshire is a real treasure trove of folklore, from extremely stabby fairies to helpful ghosts and suspiciously nice snak...

It's Valentine's Day, so it's the perfect time to try out a little love magic! That's why we invited Dr Icy Sedgwick, author of Bring Me Love: Finding and Keeping Love Using Divination and Folk Magic, to come and chat to us all about love spells, cunning folk and ways to dream about your destined lover. It's a great chat, involving magical subscription services, cheese-based romantic decision maki...

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin's flagged over Griff, the trusty Ford Fiesta, belonging to travel writer and folklorist Russ Williams. Author of the WTF blog and Where The Folk: A Welsh Folklore Road Trip, Russ trained as a journalist, had a jaunt overseas in Australia, and felt hiraeth calling him. He's now based in Cardiff, but North Wales will forever be home. Which is very handy...

Magic and Medicines is BACK - just like the ooky-spooky ghosts summoned up by believers in this episode's topic - Spiritualism! As we discuss, philosophically speaking 'Spiritualism' is a big old tradition, involving any belief system rooted in concepts of souls, spirits, or supernatural forces. In the 19th century however, during the Second Great Awakening in upstate New York, Spiritualist ideas...

This week we're chatting all about the heritage and folklore of the historic Welsh county of Caernarfonshire, and telling the tale of a very good dog. We begin with two of the county's saints, both connected to a key legend from The Mabinogi, before leaping headlong into the county famous for being the heart of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. We have dramatic coastlines, two of the most stunning castles i...

On this week's episode of Local Legends, Eleanor chats with writer Horatio Clare about land and legend. Although Horatio has had a really versatile career, he’s probably best known for his award winning nature and travel writing, and the beauty of his descriptions of place. Luckily for us, he also grew up on a farm in the Brecon Beacons, so was deeply steeped in the mythology and stories of the na...

For this month's episode of Magus we're finally discussing the life of the first Magus ever, Hermes Trismegistus! An ancient Egyptian sage written about by Cicero and early Christian church fathers, he is the literal reason why the magical practices of Hermeticism and Alchemy came into existence. He was still being referenced by the likes of Isaac Newton during the European Enlightenment, and his...

After a break from releasing regular county episodes, we're back with a bang for the second half of Series 7. The first historic Welsh county on our journey is Brecknockshire, which has now been divided up into lots of other counties, and no longer exists. We start out by talking about Brychan Brycheiniog, the 5th century king who gave his name to the original area, and his many, many saintly chil...