When we think about folklore, we often think about the characters involved: King Arthur, Queen Mab, Lady Godiva, and more. Yet folklore has an intrinsic link with place, too.  Even the most throwaway comment about a place can reveal stories linked with them. Such stories can reveal how we feel about places, especially when human…

English folklore is full of peculiarities. The legends of the so-called screaming skulls are definitely among them. These are skulls kept in mansions and farmhouses, sometimes considered to be guardians of the property. Legends abound of the violent deeds done to the owners of the skulls. But many of these stories come with hauntings attached…

I’m talking to Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux from the Three Ravens podcast about the difficulties in defining ‘folklore’, the importance of storytelling, which of England’s 39 historic counties has the best folk tales, why people love ghost stories, and making folklore accessible to wider audiences! Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux are the brains behind…

Poltergeist marked Hollywood’s big-budget engagement with the ghost film in 1982. Produced by Stephen Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper, it took the haunted house film and mashed it together with the family adventure film. Throw in some special effects courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic, and you end up with the film that relocated…

S.A. Lawless is an herbalist, gardener, forager, mycophile, outdoor educator, and published author and illustrator, with a long-held fascination with folklore and witchcraft, currently living in rural Ontario, Canada. She has been studying and practicing herbalism for 20 years and has worked as a professional nature field guide for 15 years. As a herbalist her…

Last week, we looked at some poltergeist definitions and whether such definitions are even helpful. Can something as truly bizarre as a ‘knocking spirit’ be boiled down to a series of checkboxes on a form? Yet they’re also not the invention of the 20th century. Nor are they the preserve of ghost hunters or psychics….