Fabulous Folklore with Icy

In this month's episode of Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm thrilled to bring you a chat with Morgan Daimler! Morgan is an independent folklorist who studies and writes about fairies in historic and modern folk belief. She has written a variety of books on the topic, as well as on Irish mythology, and is an amateur translator of old/middle Irish. Morgan has presented papers on fairies in folklore &...

Culloden Moor is perhaps one of the saddest sites in the British Isles, the battlefield that played host to a massacre. It was also the last battle to take place on mainland Britain. The Battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746. It marked the end of the Jacobite Rebellion. It's also apparently given rise to ghosts of its own, and contributes to local legends inspired by the battle. Let's go...

The Denbigh Moors, or Mynydd Hiraethog, lie in north Wales. At its highest point, it's higher than Exmoor. The moors are a wild, desolate place, home to various types of wildlife. Yet if you believe the tales, they're also a place of ghosts and the Tylwyth Teg. A Roman Centurion apparently stalks the moors, and a ruin slowly disintegrates into the landscape. Let's go and look and some of the legen...

The name 'Exmoor' conjures mental images of ponies, undulating moorland, and Lorna Doone , R D Blackmore's 1869 novel. It crosses the Somerset and Devon border, hugging the north Devon coast, and takes its name from the River Exe. A wild and beautiful place, designated a national park in 1954, Exmoor is home to a whole range of folklore. Witches, ghosts, pixies, superstitions, and the famous Beast...

If you say 'moor' to most people, they might think of Wuthering Heights, Dartmoor, or Bodmin. You probably won't immediately think of the Town Moor that lies immediately north of Newcastle upon Tyne's city centre.  While it's not filled with ghost stories, fairy legends, or tales of the Devil creating local landmarks, the Town Moor does play a role in the folk history of the city. It has hosted re...

If I asked you to name "the most haunted house in London", you probably wouldn't pick Berkeley Square as your location. Yet for almost a century, No. 50. Berkeley Square had quite the supernatural reputation. It's part of the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, built in the mid-18th century by architect William Kent. Famous residents of the square have included Horace Walpole, Winston Churchill, William...

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! In honour of the festive season, it's my absolute pleasure to welcome Owen Staton of the Time Between Times podcast to Fabulous Folklore. He's a master storyteller par excellence, and he's got a Welsh Christmas tale to share. So get comfy, settle in, and enjoy...  Nadolig llawen! Find Owen on X: @Owensgriffiths or find his podcast for more storytelling on YouTube: https://...

I’m thrilled to be speaking to Sarah Corbett from Rowan + Sage is this special extra edition of Fabulous Folklore Presents!  Sarah (she/her) is a Clinical Herbalist, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, and traditional astrologer who is passionate about helping others come into relationship with the natural world. She is the founder of Rowan + Sage, where she sha...

The Tower of London has been many things through its over 900 years of history. Royal palace, fortress, menagerie, armoury, treasury, Royal Mint, public record office, and now, a tourist attraction. Given the sheer amount of death, torture, and violence associated with the building, ghosts are somewhat inevitable. The Lost Princes, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and Sir Walter Raleigh are among the...

This month, I've got the joy of introducing you to Dr Thomas Birkett, a lecturer in Old English and Old Norse at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Reading the Runes and Legends of Norse Mythology . He teaches courses on Norse myth, medieval literature, and Old English language at UCC, and occasionally takes time out to sail with the crew of a reconstructed Viking ship. In this...

There's a particular branch of ghost stories that sees the dead appear to warn the living of their own impending death. They act as a form of death omen.  London has many such tales, but two of them caught my eye for different reasons. In one, a third party in a position to give aid sees the ghost. In the other, the dearly departed appears to their loved one to keep a promise. Let's investigate th...

Given the sheer age of London and the number of people that have passed through its gates over the centuries, it would be difficult to imagine it not being haunted. Though, as the tale of the Hammersmith Ghost will show, ghosts aren't always what they appear to be. This tale takes us to Hammersmith, a rural area to the west of London on the River Thames. It marks the point where London meets the c...

When it comes to hills and mountains in the British Isles, perhaps one hill feels more mystical than many others...and that's Glastonbury Tor. Standing some 158 m high, it's said to be a fairy hill, one of those curiously hollow hills in which fairies made them home. Not just any fairies lived inside Glastonbury Tor - Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of the Otherworld, was believed to live inside it. But what o...

This month, I've got the joy of introducing you to Dr Angela Puca, who holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in philosophy. In 2021, The University of Leeds awarded her a PhD in Religious Studies, which will soon be published with Brill. Her research focuses on magic, witchcraft, Paganism, esotericism, shamanism, and related currents.  Author of several peer-reviewed publications and co-editor...

If we head to the Siebengeberge uplands in Germany, we'll find a hill named the Drachenfels near Königswinter. It stands at 321 m and the name translates as Dragon's Rock, named after a dragon that allegedly lived on its slopes. Given we're in the Folklore of Mountains and Hills Month, let's investigate two legends associated with the dragon of the Drachenfels in this week's episode of Fabulous Fo...

We're off to the gorgeous surroundings of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) this week for the Folklore of Mountains and Hills.  According to Marie Trevelyan, so it's unclear how common this belief was, dragons and flying serpents could be found among the Bannau Brycheiniog. But legends of fairies are more common in these parts, so let's dig into them in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklo...

There's something both primal and ancient about mountains. Beautiful and remote, they can provide a harsh and unforgiving environment for those who venture into their territory. Sometimes linked with sleeping giants, mountains are also a reminder of the Earth's formation, with rock contorted into fantastic shapes by immense geological pressures. The Cheviot Hills run from Northumberland and across...

Happy Hallowe'en! For a special 'festive' bonus, I recorded this episode at Newcastle Castle. I'm chatting with my fellow Geordie ghosthunter, Rob Kirkup, the mastermind behind the How Haunted podcast. We chat about how we got into ghost hunting, the weirdest things that have ever happened on an investigation, and our love for Newcastle's 12th-century Keep... Find How Haunted on your podcast playe...

To close this month-long series on Fabulous Folklore about magical practice and witchcraft in the 21st century, I'm chatting to Mhara Starling, a Welsh witch. We discuss the difference between the Welsh and English witch trials, the magic present in the Welsh culture, the difficulty encountered by trying to create a "Celtic pantheon" of deities, and the beauty of Nos Calan Gaeaf! Find Mhara on Ins...

This month, I've got the joy of introducing you to Amy Jeffs, the Somerset-based art historian and printmaker beyond the books Storyland and Wild. She's got expertise in medieval art and literature, and we chat about some of the myths in Britain's ancient past, whether such myths were seen as fact or fiction in earlier centuries, and the value of art to storytelling! We did have a couple of issues...

As part of a month-long series on Fabulous Folklore about magical practice and witchcraft in the 21st century, I'm chatting to Amaya Rourke, an Ireland-based animist folk witch, diviner, and spirit worker. We discuss folkloric witchcraft and how it relates to historical practices, the knowledge encoded in folklore and legends, the difference between witches and magicians, and the beauty of the nat...

As part of a month-long series on Fabulous Folklore about magical practice and witchcraft in the 21st century, I'm chatting to Emma Kathryn, a Nottinghamshire-based practitioner of non-Wiccan Traditional British Witchcraft, Obeah and Vodou. We discuss the importance of the land to witchcraft and magical practices, why magical practices don't need to cost a lot of money, how witchcraft can be used...

I'm kicking off a month-long series on Fabulous Folklore by talking to magical practitioners and witches in the 21st century. This week, I chat to Ùna Blyth, the Shetland-based folk magic practitioner and tarot reader. We talk about what witchcraft and magically actually are, how the Shetland Islands offer different opportunities for folk magic, whether tarot is essential to witchcraft, and the mi...

Haunted libraries became famous with Ghostbusters. Our heroes investigate disturbances at the New York Public Library and encounter a ghost that tells them to shush. Surprisingly, this doesn't seem to be so far off the mark if we look at tales of haunted libraries. What stories of ghosts are there from these book-loving spaces of calm? Let's go ghost-hunting at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle, thr...

While schools and universities boast urban legends alongside ghosts, prisons tend to be more like hospitals. You find tales of hauntings, but little in the way of folklore. It's probably due to the concentration of human life in one place - and the brutality that runs alongside it. Haunted prisons somehow don't seem so surprising. Due to matters of space, our main focus is on just three prisons: J...