The Local Mythstorian Podcast

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!Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

A quick update to let folks know that in honour of the 80th anniversary of VE Day I've made my grandfather's war memoir available in PDF for those so interested. A sergeant in the Royal Engineers, he saw action throughout North Africa and Italy.Just click on the link below and you can get it from the website. Download Albert's War here

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.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 direct and intimate connections to the religious wars of Dark Age Britain?Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The story of the Bakewell witches is unique within the annals of English witchcraft and a tale thought by some to be so fantastical that it may not even be true. Yet research cannot only place the event firmly in the context of the times, but it can also help create a picture of the events that originally brought the story into being.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 real-life figure, but that his bizarre and tragic end might just have been a reality too. Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 and its ties to a bloody revolt against King Henry IV.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 uncover the shocking true story of medieval murder that lies at the heart of the spectre's inspiration.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The figure of Samuel Johnson serves to both intrigue and fascinate, but so little of his story has been properly examined that ultimately he is little understood beyond triviality. Seeking to address that balance by casting a light across the life of one of the most remarkable and bizarre characters in all of Cheshire history, we discover that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 famous figure in green?Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 from the event itself.Happy Halloween!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Following on from the end of season 2 of the regular podcast, Five Minute Mythstoria - A Cheshire Miscellany brings bite-sized episodes regarding curious history and lore from the county of Cheshire!A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.comFollow The Local Mythstorian on Facebook Here!

Recorded live at The Grange Theatre, Hartford on May 16th 2024, the last 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.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 tradition involved in the ceremony and pairing with the country's Roman history, a startling possibility begins to emerge.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 of a genuinely hidden history of the English Civil War.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 real-life figure, but that his bizarre and tragic end might just have been a reality too. A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 patronage of one of the most powerful figures in all of local history. Recorded live at the Victoria Centre, Biddulph on January 15th 2024.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 and its ties to a bloody revolt against King Henry IV.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.  A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History 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 more fascinating for it.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.A Cestrian Song - Explorations With the Extraordinary Hinterland of Cheshire History is available here! Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The Battle of Winnington Bridge in Northwich, Cheshire is widely considered to be the last battle of the English Civil Wars, yet it is little known in comparison to many events in the conflict. It is a story which provides a crystallisation of a unique moment in English history and one that illustrates well the fears, passions and confusion of the times.In 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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

Tideswell in Derbyshire is a gem of the Peak District and home to the 'Cathedral of the Peak' - a church of grandeur which acts as a signpost back toward the village's rich medieval history; one of its most curious tales being that of the thirteenth-century feud between Lichfield Cathedral and Lenton Priory that centred on the village's prized livestock. In 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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The Bridestones is the most well known totem of prehistory in Cheshire, and indeed the Staffordshire Moorlands, standing as it does on the border between the two - but could it be that the countryside around it contains a number of other, as yet to be confirmed ritualistic sites? In 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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The Poltergeist is a form of supernatural phenomena recorded throughout human history. Scary, fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, it can prove a genuine nuisance; no more so than when such goings-on were apparent on such a scale that Derby City Council had to issue a leaflet on the matter to businesses in a local shopping centre!  In 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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

Today, Molly Leigh is remembered to residents of Stoke-On-Trent as the Witch of Burslem, but the true story of her life and death suggest she was far from the malevolent force the label suggests. Famed locally for her 'cross-ways' grave in St. John's churchyard, could it be that the particulars of her final resting place actually relate to one of the most dramatic April Fools pranks in British history? In 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.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

In 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.  This episode is a consideration of the life of Mary Brookes, a woman who was buried at St Michael's Church in the Staffordshire Moorlands hamlet of Horton in 1787...aged 119 years old.Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 direct and intimate connections to the religious wars of Dark Age Britain?Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 uncover the shocking true story of medieval murder that lies at the heart of the spectre's inspiration.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

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 Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The story of the Bakewell witches is unique within the annals of English witchcraft and a tale thought by some to be so fantastical that it may not even be true. Yet research cannot only place the event firmly in the context of the times, but it can also help create a picture of the events that originally brought the story into being.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The Chained Oak of Alton may be a unique piece of British folklore, but its creation story suffers from such a swathe of supposition that many have come to assume there is no genuine historical basis for the legend at all. Yet in the tragic history of the family who sit at the heart of the piece we may well find that the tale is indeed rooted in reality, as we look to uncover why an ancient oak tree has been wrapped in iron chains for the better part of the past 200 years.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

The figure of Samuel Johnson serves to both intrigue and fascinate, but so little of his story has been properly examined that ultimately he is little understood beyond triviality. Seeking to address that balance by casting a light across the life of one of the most remarkable and bizarre characters in all of Cheshire history, we discover that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.Mythstoric Origins - Exploring the Extraordinary Local Histories Behind the Legend and Folklore of East Cheshire, Peak District Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands  is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com

A brief intro to The Local Mythstorian Podcast with Eli Lewis-Lycett.Mythstoric Journeys, the hardback anthology collection from Eli, is available here!Visit thelocalmythstorian.com