The Three Ravens Podcast

On this month's update episode we have so much to talk about, as it's Three Ravens Haunting Season once again!Back for our fourth annual month-long celebration of original ghost stories and all things spooky a weird, we run down what's coming from us across October, including a brand new Spenser & Associates Mystery, our amazing guests for Local Legends this month (now including Joanne Harris!), we announce the winners of this year's Ghost Story Writing Competition, and also open up the Three Ravens Pumpkin Carving Competition!Before all that though, we grab our spades and dig into the loamy earth of Halloween folklore. Taking a different approach to our previous two special episodes on the subject, we dig into the specifics of how Christianity changed views and practices related to the shift from the Light Half to the Dark Half of the year. There's chat about ghosts, of course, but also the origin of the idea of "the veil being thin" around Hallowmas, divinatory customs for the season, and more. We also include some of our own news, chat about our upcoming spooky Live Shows surrounding the launch of our second book Three Ravens Ghost Tales which was literally published today, and share the opening chunks of September's two Three Ravens Patreon Exclusive episodes.First comes the opening 20 minutes of our exploration of Rowan Tree folklore for our ongoing series Nine Sacred Trees. This is then followed by the first part of our Film Club episode all about witch-tastic, Soviet-era folk fever dream Viy from 1967.Note: We have recorded a new Haunting Season theme song variation but haven't had time to quite finish it. Should be ready for Saturday!About Three Ravens

Warning: this story is set in 1909 and portrays historic racist attitudes which in no way reflect our own views. It also makes mention of body-focused repetitive behaviours.For this week's story, we're getting into the dark origins of one of Maryland's most famous monsters.The Snallygaster is better known today for giving its name to an ice cream flavour, but it wasn't always so friendly. Eleanor's story follows a young wife who dreams of a monster, but her sceptical husband carries the idea too far...This episode marks the end of our first four colonies, ahead of a break for Haunting Season 2026!About Three Ravens

Get ready to stuff a ham, because this week we're off to Maryland!We begin with the inspiring life of Harriet Tubman, before discussing Maryland's beginnings as a province, sprinkled with plenty of arguments about religion and different ideas about how to run a colony.Maryland is packed with folklore, spooky stories and cryptids, and we're on a hunt to find as many as we can, from the enigmatic Dwayyo to the famous Snallygaster, and everything in between. Along the way, we encounter Goatman, Catman, and some creepy little characters Eleanor has become oddly fascinated by - the Egg People of Pokomoke Forest!It's a fabulous journey, all fuelled by a delicious state dinner where we're not afraid to fry almost everything, so join us in a Black-Eyed Susan cocktail or two and toast the Old Line State!We really hope you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Thursday with two releases - the October Update episode, and Eleanor's story for this week, inspired by the legend of Maryland bird-reptile chimera, the Snallygaster!About Three Ravens

Today, as it's Martin's birthday, we thought we would share with you a special little bonus gift recording in his birth county - our two Three Ravens Live Show pop-up performances at 3 Wishes Fairy Festival in Somerset from last month!Hopefully timed just about perfectly to mark the very end of Summer and start of Autumn, in the first part we discuss Glastonbury's fairy folklore explicitly, addressing Somerset's Celtic mythology relating to King Arthur, the 'Winter King' under the Tor as mentioned in The Mabinogi, and the legend of the Glastonbury Thorn.In the second part we turn our attention to Somerset's folklore more widely, from Wassailing and Punkie Night to tales of giants, witches, dragons, piskies, and the Devil...Including live performances by us of the songs Three Ravens and Broomfield Hill, the whole then then concludes with Martin's live rendition of The Restless Witch of Sandhill from our book Three Ravens Folk Tales, last performed way back in our second ever episode!We hope you enjoy it, do listen back to Eleanor's Local Legends interview with Karen Kay from earlier in the Summer, and learn more about 3 Wishes Fairy Festival through its website!https://www.yeahniceevents.co.uk/festivals2026/3wishesfairyfestivalAbout Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with a celebrated New Hampshire-based folklorist, author, and entrepreneur, who has spent over two decades preserving and sharing the region's mysterious history, Roxie Zwicker.As a folklorist, Zwicker's work focuses on documenting the oral histories, legends, and paranormal accounts that define the cultural landscape of the Northeast. She has authored over nine books detailing regional history and hauntings, and her published works include popular titles like Haunted Portsmouth, Ghost Stories of the Piscataqua, and New England's Ghostly Haunts.Roxie's tour company New England Curiosities was founded in 2002, and through it Roxie offers award-winning historical and ghost walking tours, primarily based in New Hampshire. She has received numerous accolades and has appeared on major television networks like the Travel Channel and the History Channel.With what appears to be boundless energy, Roxie also channels her love for the mystical into her physical and online shop, and, because, somehow, she finds the time, to connect with a broader, global audience, Roxie launched her popular podcast and radio show Wicked Curious Radio, roughly weekly and across 100 episodes she offers deep-dives into strange history, occult practices, and bizarre folklore from New Hampshire and New England to beyond. Through her books, tours, shop, and through the aether, Roxie continues to breathe life into forgotten history, ensuring that the shadows and stories of New England are celebrated and preserved for generations to come.Learn more about Roxie through her website newenglandcuriosities.comAbout Three Ravens

For this week's story we're throwing caution to the wind, preparing for societal collapse, and offering you a different kind of folk nightmare.Written by Martin, Chocorua follows the main story beats of one of New Hampshire's most famous legends, only with the titular Native American chief replaced by a radicalized white nationalist struggling through the Covid-19 pandemic.It might not make for comforting listening, but if you're up for a nightmarish, paranoid, tech-savvy survivalist thriller then this one is for you - and if you're not, well, we hope you'll give it a try anyway, as we're pretty sure you won't have heard anything quite like it before.Drawing on Lydia Maria Child's fictional tale "Chocorua's Curse" as published in The Token magazine in 1830, and long years attempting to understand the mindset of America's radical Libertarians, it a offers a look over the edge and into the abyss where hopefully, despite everything, something sympathetic looks back...About Three Ravens

Time to break off your search for the Great Carbuncle and adventure through New Hampshire, the "Granite State!"We start with the story of Oceanborn Mary and then discuss New Hampshire's rugged terrain and the centuries-long struggles to define its borders. From the "Presidential Range" and the now collapsed iconic 'Great Stone Face' to the state's 18-mile sea coast and northern forests, it's a pretty wild ride.Speaking of wild rides, we also debunk some of the mythology surrounding Paul Revere, explore how some of New Hampshire's most famous 'Native American' legends are not Native American at all, and do discover some New Hampshire originals, alongside some reheated stories that originated on our side of the Atlantic...We include extracts from Saturday's Local Legends interview with the wonderful Roxie Zwicker of New England Curiosities and Wicked Curious Radio, and quarry our way inside tales including The Deerfield Booms, the dubious mystique of "America's Stonehenge" and a whole tonne of cryptids, from the Devil Monkey of Danville to "Winnie" - another localized variation on the Loch Ness Monster!From the grim history of The Witch of Hampton to Odzihózo, "the giant who created himself", to The Wood Devils of Coös County and New Hampshire's intriguing interpretations of Libertarian philosophy, it's a folkloric banquet - and that's not even mentioning this week's maple syrup-infused State Dinner!About Three Ravens

Eleanor chats with the Emmy-nominated paranormal researcher, bestselling author, and legendary explorer Jeff Belanger to uncover the spooks, scares, and deep folklore of Massachusetts! Jeff joins us around the campfire to share his incredible career tracing the things that go bump in the night. As the host, writer, and producer of the New England Legends series on PBS and Amazon Prime, and the long-time lead writer and researcher for Discovery Network's Ghost Adventures, Jeff has spent decades documenting the strange and the supernatural.We dive into Jeff's early inspirations—including his formative interview with the legendary ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (the real-life inspiration behind The Conjuring franchise). From his bestselling books like Wicked Strange, Weird Massachusetts, and The World's Most Haunted Places to his pioneering online community ghostvillage.com (going strong since 1999), Jeff unpacks how history, geography, and human experience intertwine to create our most enduring urban legends. Gather in close for a spooky journey through a state known for witchcraft, cryptids, and a whole lot of history.About Three Ravens

For this week's story, we're exploring one of Massachusetts' most atmospheric abandoned places...Written by Eleanor, the tale follows a young police detective searching for a missing person in the mysterious and disorientating woodlands of Dogtown Common, as something wants to lead her further and further away from the trailpath.Drawing on real legends and history of this fascinating place, it's a straight up ghost adventure - a little early for spooky season, maybe, but it's never too early in our book!About Three Ravens

It's already time for us to visit the second of the Thirteen Colonies - Massachusetts!We start by discussing the lives of the Wampanoag peoples who inhabited the North Eastern Woodlands prior to the arrival of European settlers, before returning to the small group of religious dissenters who arrived on the Mayflower to make a home in New England.Of course, the Salem Witch Trials cast a long shadow, but so too does the bloody legacy of warfare between the colonists and the Native people, including the fascinating, awful history of King Philip's War, leading up to increased dissatisfaction with British rule and the forging of a distinct American identity with acts of protest like the Boston Tea Party.We include extracts from Saturday's Local Legends interview with the excellent Jeff Belanger, presenter of the Emmy-nominated New England Legends series, and talk through hauntings, happenings and a whole lot of folklore.From the gruesome history of Lizzie Borden to the peculiar Dover Demon and the cursed Hockamock Swamp, there's loads to get our teeth stuck into, not least some delicious Atlantic lobsters...We really hope you enjoy it - Massachusetts is a state with amazing history, and we'll put our John Hancock on that!About Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats Virginia, folklore, and cultural exchange with Dr Jon Lohman.For two decades Jon worked as the State Folklorist of Virginia, has a PhD in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania, and has enjoyed a distinguished career bridging community activism, arts education, and public media.In addition to working for many years to document, sustain, and celebrate grassroots cultural traditions in Virginia, in 2002 he launched the state's highly successful Folklife Apprenticeship Program which supports master artists in passing down essential traditions and aspects of cultural heritage across the state.He has served on curatorial committees and presented at major national events, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, America's National Folk Festival, and the Richmond Folk Festival, also running, through the Centre for Cultural Vibrancy, the innovative schools-based virtual arts programme "World Culture in Context" which connects a diverse range of national and international artists with classrooms, fostering community, empathy, and cultural understanding.Jon has also produced numerous traditional albums and contributed to documentary films, in addition to which the Centre for Cultural vibrancy facilitates border-free collaborations that bring diverse communities together to explore shared heritage. This includes deep-dive fieldwork, major public events, and the support and celebration of a broad range of traditional artists, from musicians to craftspeople to dancers and beyond.Learn more about his current work here: https://culturalvibrancy.org/About Three Ravens

For this week's story we have a ghostly legend inundated by real histories, “The Phantom Lovers of Lake Drummond.”Written by Martin, it's a dark crater of surging eco-fiction engaging with one of Virginia's most famous folk tales, the early life of George Washington, Harriet Beecher Stowe's much maligned follow-up to Uncle Tom's Cabin, the poetry of Irish folk poet and bard Thomas Moore, the teenaged adventures of Edgar Allan Poe, and more.We very much hope its atmospheric gloom and unusual voice proves to be suitably unsettling, and that you enjoy our chat which follows about some of Virginia's most famous ghost stories and recent correspondence we have received from the lovely members of the Conspiracy of Ravens. Like you!Details in the story were inspired by the poems A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp by Thomas Moore and The Lake by Edgar Allan Poe, and the chapter "Canoeing in the Dismal Swamp" from the book Athletics and Manly Sport by John Boyle O'Reilly, published in 1890. About Three Ravens

Hold onto your preconceptions if you must as we, two English people, open a can of worms in our first full episode of Series 8 to discuss Virginia, the 'Mother of States!'We begin as colonial America did - in Jamestown - before digging into some of the key differences between life in Virginia in those early days and life in England at the same time, tracking points of comparison forward through into the modern day.Enriched by extracts from this Saturday's upcoming Local Legends interview with Jon Lohman, who served as Virginia's State Folklorist for over two decades, we chat through Virginia's fundamentally important role in the global tobacco business, explain why the state was so central to the American Civil War, and talk about some aspects of what life was like in the American Indian Powhatan Confederacy, too. As you might expect, we also dig into the state's folklore, discussing some of the myths surrounding Captain John Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, hang out with some very cool cryptids including The Woodbooger, Mothman, and the Chesapeake Bay Sea Monster, dabble in some conspiracy theories, and much more besides!We also tuck into a five course State Dinner in which Martin attempts to honour the diverse range of Virginia's distinct regions and cultures, spend a bit of time with the Great Hare as he creates the world and shows a quartet of giants who's boss, and then, to conclude the episode, we argue the toss as to who we should crown as Virginia's ultimate Folk Hero.From John Henry the 'steel driving man' to the complex history of Pocahontas, we hope you find it interesting, surprising, and that it also makes you giggle, which is very much part of the point! About Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Eleanor chats with historian, curator, author and activist Dr Gabrielle Tayac.We were thrilled Gabrielle spoke to us at the beginning of Series 8, after this week's background episodes on the history of North America. As Associate Professor of Public History at George Mason University and the inaugural curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, she has a unique insight into the history of America before colonial expansion. She's a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation, a tribe based in southern Maryland, and is the granddaughter of the late Chief Turkey Tayac, a medicine practitioner involved in early and mid 20th century Native American cultural revitalization movements. As a curator, Gabi worked on one of the museum's first permanent exhibitions, Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identity, and solo curated Return to a Native Place: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region, along with the travelling exhibition IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas. She authored the popular My World: Young Native Americans Today series, along with editing and contributing to boatloads of books and journals, and has also been active in global indigenous human rights movements. Visit the Native Knowledge 360 resource: https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360About Three Ravens

For this week's story we have the tale of a particularly unwelcome immigrant called “How The Devil Came to America.”Written by Eleanor, it's a piece of arcane folk horror that explores the failure of the infamous Roanoke colony, positing a new theory as to why things went wrong for the residents of ‘The City of Raleigh' in a tale which travels from the private offices of Queen Elizabeth I's chief spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham across the sea to America's eastern seaboard.For hardcore Three Ravens fans, you may notice connections to some of our other stories within this one, including to our 30-part audio adventure from last summer, Dog Days: A Kit Marlow Mystery.And if you have not listened to Dog Days then don't worry – this story stands alone on its own two hooves. Though do please check out Dog Days when you have the chance, as it's a pretty wild ride and was the very first thing we wrote well and truly together.Details in the story were inspired by Solving The Mystery of the Lost Colony Lee Miller and The American Heritage History of the Thirteen Colonies edited in chief by Michael Blow.About Three Ravens

In this month's update episode we're chatting through Autumn Equinox folklore, the end of harvest, and the Devil doing unspeakable things to blackberries...Including discussions Britain's traditional Quarter Days and the folklore of Michaelmas, from 'Stubble Goose' divination to Medieval beliefs in "Dragon Days" along with autumnal spider folklore and a slice of apple magic, we also include some of our own news, chat about our upcoming spooky Live Shows surrounding the launch of our second book Three Ravens Ghost Tales and share the opening chunks of August's two Three Ravens Patreon Exclusive episodes.First comes the opening 20 minutes of Eleanor's retelling of iconic fairy tale The Goose Girl, set against the horrifying backdrop of Soviet Romania. This is then followed by the first part of our Film Club episode all about 'Master of Horror' Stuart Gordon's cult straight-to-video Gothic/Giallo mashup movie Castle Freak.About Three Ravens

Before we begin our adventures exploring the history and folklore of the Thirteen Colonies of America, we present our first episode of Series 8: A Brief History of America!We explore the history of North America from the earliest human migration across the Beringia land bridge, now the Bering Strait.Looking at the distinct archaeological stages of American pre-history, we talk through the Lithic, the Archaic, the Formative, the Classic and the Post-Classic phases, and the development of distinct societies and cultures. It's a fascinating picture of complex early societies with incredible trade networks like the Hopewell Exchange System, which allowed goods and resources to travel great distances from their place of origin.All this came before the first contact with European explorers. Searching for a western route through to India to bypass Ottoman control of eastern trade, sailors made landfall in the Americas almost by accident, yet it ultimately led to wide-scale colonisation.We hope it's an interesting listen, whether you are American or otherwise - and the story of how 'America' got its name should at least make you laugh!About Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with Sunday Times bestselling author Marion Gibson!Regular listeners will recall that Marion last came on Three Ravens during October 2025 to chat about her wonderful book Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials, at which time we spoke about Marion's childhood and career, so we this time we skip all that and jump straight into the 17th century and witch hunt fever!This is all inspired by Marion's new book Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain as researched in partnership with the brilliant Tabitha Stanmore, author of Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic and Love Spells.The book offers readers both a history of the English Civil War and, as a product of months of digging through county archives, never-before-discussed histories of several individual everyday folk accused of witchcraft from Scotland, Newcastle and East Anglia down into Devon and Cornwall. The book also draws connections between English witch trials and their later American counterparts, all of which we dig into, along with the folkloric deaths of two of history's most infamous witch hunters/accusers... Learn more about Marion at mariongibson.co.uk and you can keep up with all her adventures on Instagram @witchesetcinsta.About Three Ravens

Our story for "Death Week" is a retelling by Martin of a ghost story, The Callow Inn.In rural Herefordshire, for over a hundred years people have reported two strange night-time phenomena connected to The Callow Inn, which was demolished at the end of the 19th century. First there are the ghostly shapes of two people carrying bodies out into Haywood Forest.Then there's the spectral windows, shining light out into the darkness... Martin's take on the story is set in the modern day and explores ideas of broken families, loss, supernatural obsession, and Midwinter symbolism. Details in the story were inspired by Kathleen Lawrence-Smith's book Tales of Old Herefordshire.About Three Ravens

The inevitable has occurred, dear listener, so pay up your Eye Money as Death Week has arrived on Three Ravens, riding a pale horse...The final part of our month-long celebration of the Cycles of Life, on this episode we're chatting through the history and folklore of that undiscovered country where all dreams may come - and from which the ancestors might return if we're not careful!We start at the end of the last Ice Age, with humankind surviving in cave systems, engaging in ritual cannibalism and secondary burial rites, then move forward chronologically through the Stone Ages to explore how pre-literate societies embraced sky burials, megalithic portals and community bone hordes to create rituals which linked the end of life with the natural world and the safe functioning of the cosmos.Then, from Ancient Mesopotamian Dying Chairs and the Egyptian Book of the Dead via Ancient Greek and Roman funerary rites, including Defixio tablets to pass messages to the Underworld, we proceed through to the dawn of Anglo Saxon pagan magic and pre-Christian concepts of the hereafter.From radical Medieval shifts towards nakedness in death and circuitous Lych Ways to post-Reformation practices like Telling The Bees and Sin Eating, we hope you find it a reassuring and inspiring listen which places passing on in context.Because it isn't an end - it's the start of something new, like an Ouroboros biting its own tail - with Three Ravens Series 8 launching a week today.Though with several historical spells to help guide us through the dark, and protect us from pesky ghosts, let us journey together into the Twilight Realm feet first, as there's no going back, which is no bad thing!About Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Eleanor chats with Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah Clegg.We first met Sarah last year, when she was one of the guests at our Three Ravens Christmas Feast. Sarah had just published her book The Dead of Winter, all about the origins and changing lore of the dark side of Christmas.Sarah has a PhD in ancient history from the University of Cambridge, and you'd struggle to find another person with such an encyclopaedic knowledge and clear passion for Medieval Romances. In addition to The Dead of Winter, she's the author of Women's Lore: 400 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi. We're speaking just ahead of the publication of her latest book Perilous Enchantment: The True History of Faeries. Perilous Enchantment is a meticulously researched history and travelogue which takes us from elf fires in Iceland to a stream in Cottingley and even a fairy ball in Los Angeles. We talk about the book and her research and the shift in fairy narratives, from dangerous and seductive to childish and whimsical, to explore why stories of the fae continue to fascinate us today. It's a conversation which spans medieval chivalric romances, spicy romantasy, nostalgia and some of the world's most magical places.Learn more about Sarah at https://www.sarahclegg.com, and you can keep up with all her adventures on Instagram @readingartefacts.About Three Ravens

Our story for "Marriage Week" is a retelling by Eleanor of a giant legend, Alderman and Alphin.Set in Saddleworth, which was once a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire but is found in Lancashire today, not far from Oldham and Manchester, it's the tale attached to two particular landscape features, Alderman's Hill and Alphin Pike, two hills overlooking the entrance to the Upper Tame Valley. Eleanor's telling of the tale and its frame narrative, set in the early 19th century before the advent of the power loom, certainly takes inspiration from Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Gaskell. Details in the story were inspired by Ammon Wrigley's 1909 book "Saddleworth Superstitions and Folk Customs."About Three Ravens

This week we have our second installment of our month long mini series about cycles of life, all about the history and folklore of marriage!We explore the early beginnings of marriage contracts, legal regulation by the Church and state, and how utterly unromantic most weddings were for much of history!Discussing superstitions and preparations leading up to the big day, from arrangements between families through to big dramatic gestures of love, we work our way towards walking down the aisle - with all the strange bells and whistles tradition dictates!With something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue to guide us - not forgetting the sixpence in the shoe, of course - we navigate cultural and familial expectations, evil spirits hovering to get a slice of wedding cake, and exactly which aspects of weddings are ancient, and which are surprisingly modern...About Three Ravens

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with best-selling author of over 80 books, Sue Bentley! As Sue explains, her decision to 'become a writer' didn't happen particularly early in her life, though she was ever a reader, inspired by books like Denys Watkins-Pitchford's The Little Grey Men, Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows, and C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.Only when she was a Mum with children off at school did she decide to put pen to paper, and after ten years of work found herself in print - as an erotic novelist, working under the first of what soon became many pen names!From children's fairy stories to ghost written celebrity books to the dark Gothic fantasy she most enjoys writing today, she has had a fascinating career, rooted in a fascinating place!We dig into Northamptonshire's folklore and heritage, including Sue's love of the Romantic poet John Clare, and, because it's 'Birth Week' on Three Ravens we chat birth folklore as well, including fairy 'stocks', changelings, and 'Chime Children'.We of course get into Sue's most recent novels as well, including We Other, Second Skin, and her upcoming book Flesh Endures - and along the way dig into condescending ideas of 'Women's Fiction' and Romantasy, the significance of the Lang Fairy Tales, and a whole bunch more!Learn more about Sue and her wonderful books at https://www.suebentley.co.uk - though Sue's brand new website goes live on 28th August - which is also the day of the cover reveal for Flesh Endures, so mark your diaries!And as for where to find Sue on social media, she is on Instagram @therealsuebentley, Facebook @suebentleyauthor and on TikTok @suebentley09About Three Ravens

Our story for "Birth Week" is a retelling from Martin of recently rediscovered Northamptonshire legend The Brigstock Fox.A tale of Medieval changelings, magic, princes and parenthood, it begins as the folktale does, with a strange, seemingly uncatchable creature stalking the forests around Fotheringhay Castle.Richard of York, away in Ireland, offers a bag of gold to whoever can catch the beast and prevent the savaging of the ducks, geese, hogs and lambs that belong to his vassals.Only when hunting dogs catch not a monstrous fox but a man in their snapping jaws, and he claims to know 'Proud Cis' - Richard's wife - events are set in motion that reveal hidden secrets, true characters, and prophecies that will shape British life for generations to come...Plus, because we thought it would be fun, we have also recorded a version of the classic folk song "The Fox" and given it some special Three Ravens, Brigstock-specific twists...Martin's telling is inspired by the research of folklorist and Northamptonshire Heritage Forum regular Steve Dimmer as part of his project Tales & Legends of Northamptonshire, through which Steve has also uncovered obscure, largely forgotten stories including The Witch of Benfield, The Daughter of the Earl of Corby, The Ringstead Round, and more.We really hope you enjoy the telling, song, and chat that follows, and you can find Icy Sedgwick's episode of Fabulous Folklore that we mention, "Foxes in Folk Tales: From Aesop to Reynard" and the associated blog post here.About Three Ravens

This week on Three Ravens, as part of our month long exploration of cycles of life, we're talking all about Birth Folklore! From Ancient Mesopotamian "birth bricks" and fires lit to smoke babies out of the womb to 20th century beliefs in hairy babies prompting their mothers to experience heartburn, human societies have cleaved to a whole load of fairly wild concepts related to reproduction.Yet, as we explore in this conversation, it's surprising how universal many motifs to do with birth and pregnancy are, from forms of sympathetic magic like the danger of mothers tying knots, weaving, or even crossing their legs for fear they will risk the lives of their unborn children to ideas of phases of the moon influencing whether births will be easy or whether children grow up to be harmonious darlings or challenging little devils. Working roughly chronologically, we open up a whole range of discussions, including of how prehistoric peoples treated the remains of children who died before joining society to particular demons and supernatural forces believed dangerous to pregnant women and methods for defending against them. From the changing roles of fathers in relation to birth superstitions and lots of highly spurious methods for determining a child's gender while in utero to enduring customs like the baking of Groaning Cakes and the passing of mothers or babies through hollow spaces in rocks or wheels of cheese, we've done our best to account for how everyday people viewed and navigated conception, pregnancy, and birth itself across millennia. As ever, we really hope you enjoy the episode, and hope you will join us again on Thursday for this week's story - Martin's retelling of a Northamptonshire legend of changelings, cunning, and tricky parental dynamics, The Brigstock Fox, all before Saturday's birth-themed conversation with bestselling 'Northants' author of over 80 books, including some pretty spicy magical romances, Sue Bentley.Three Ravens is a myth and folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with veteran British broadcaster and host of Folk on Foot Matthew Bannister. In a conversation that folds in some of Matthew's other wonderful projects including The Song Detectorists and Last Word, while Martin and Matthew don't quite go on a wander together, our main focus is Matthew's multi-award winning podcast Folk on Foot, which combines folk music, outdoor walking, and acoustic on-location performances. In each episode, Matthew walks with a prominent folk artist through a landscape that has inspired their craft, capturing natural ambient sounds and intimate live sessions that cast a bit of a spell. Though how does a person go from being a budding fiddle player and chorister from Yorkshire to becoming not just a radio presenter but a BBC Executive, managing a huge whack of TV production for this nation's state broadcaster? Moreover, how has Matthew found routes through to a creative career that has lasted longer than Martin's entire life?We of course get into all that, and, because our theme on Three Ravens this week is Harvest, we'll also be chatting about Matthew's favourite Harvest folk song, his experiences walking across England to raise money for Help Musicians, and so much more. So, gather in close around the Three Ravens campfire and listen in to a conversation about the power of radio, Ley Lines, and what it's like to hang out around the kitchen table with the entire McCarthy and Waterson extended family, with a true Local Legend, Matthew Bannister! Three Ravens is a myth and folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this week's story, sticking with our theme of Harvest, we present a slice of US-set folk horror for you to enjoy!The tale begins with Robin, a recently widowed wheat farmer whose crops have failed due to drought. At his farmhouse Mother rules, although a new feminine energy has arrived in the shape of Amelia, who believes Robin's loss might open space in his heart for her. Though out on Robin's farm, too far to walk from town, Amelia begins to wonder if the the scarecrow in the vegetable garden out back is watching her, or if, even across the long days while Robin works the land and Mother forages in the nearby woodland, she is ever truly alone...We really hope you enjoy Eleanor's reading of this one, which Martin wrote back in 2019 - as we dig into in the post-story discussion, which engages with themes of natural cycles, the land's response to mankind's interference, and why we find scarecrows so unsettling...Speak to you again on Saturday for this week's Local Legends interview with Folk on Foot's Matthew Bannister who, along with lots of other interesting things, speaks about his favourite traditional English Harvest folk song.Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the first time we've done a Seasonal Special in a while, but this week we're celebrating the harvest and exploring the history and folklore of Lughnasa and Lammastide.We begin by discussing the Festival of First Fruits and the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Classical World, before getting into the nitty gritty of Lughnasa, or 'The Aseembly of Lugh.' From Irish festivals of games, hand-fasting rituals and ceremonial fires to a PR stunt for the Roman Emperor Augustus and all the way through to the 19th century Gaelic revival, Lughnasa has changed a fair bit over time. We have a brief brush with the Burryman of South Queensferry, then explore the king of the vegetative spirits himself, John Barleycorn and the archetype of the Dying and Rising God. The episode is accompanied by a selection of English poetry, exploring the harvest from the differing perspectives of Robert Herrick, John Donne, Thomas Hardy, Ted Hughes and William Wordsworth. We've also included a live recording of our version of the traditional song 'John Barleycorn' from Black Shuck Festival in 2025. We really hope you find the episode relaxing and enjoyable, and we will be back to reap the season more on Thursday, when Eleanor will be giving a creepy reading of Martin's story The Corn Maiden...Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastREGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this month's update episode we're welcoming in the harvest and exploring some of August's lesser-known traditional festivals!We're talking about Marymas, which seems like it would have been pretty witchy, and Bartlemas, which was quite violent and packed with "back swording" - though that's not all, as, in addition to sharing some of our own news, we're chatting about Christopher Nolan's cinematic adaptation of The Odyssey and sharing the opening chunks of July's two Three Ravens Patreon Exclusive episodes.First comes the opening 25 minutes of our special audio ghost tour of Chiltern Open Air Museum, recorded in the witching hours of May 30th into June 1st this year, which is followed by the first part of our Film Club episode all about the delightfully chilly, Iceland-set 2024 folk horror movie The Damned.We really hope you enjoy this tasting menu and selection of Three Ravens bits and pieces, do be sure to also check out today's Local Legends interview with the amazing Richard Dawson, and we will be back again on Monday with a Seasonal Special episode all about Lammas and Lughnasa...Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastREGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with award winning singer-songwriter and progressive artist Richard Dawson. Hailing from England's northernmost city, Newcastle upon Tyne, Richard doesn't much like being pigeon-holed or for his music to be put into a genre, but across this chat he just about surrenders to Martin's insistence that he's a folk musician, and proudly avant garde.Starting with his 2017 album Peasant in particular, he has been on a near decade long run of writing, amongst other things, detailed, tender, thought-provoking story songs as a solo artist, along with experimental jazz as a member of the band Hen Ogledd and experimental rock music with Finnish band Circle.In addition to talking about his career so far and the changing nature of an artist's life in the 21st century, this conversation ranges from family stories of haunting to personal experiences with a UFO, and chats about aspects of Northumberland's folklore including The Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh and the Simonside Dwarves plus much more besides. So gather in close around the Three Ravens campfire for a chat with one of Martin's favourite musicians, who also just happens to be a Three Ravens listener!Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We round out our recent completion of the Red Fairy Book by taking a deeper look at Leonora and Andrew Lang. Who were they, what were their lives like, and where did they fit into society and culture at the end of the 19th century?Looking at what we know so far about the Langs' own story, we talk about the boom in print culture after the advent of steam, and the rise of the wide variety of periodicals available to the Victorian reading public. Examining the twelve coloured fairy books through the lens of the Victorian collector mindset, we talk commercial publishing and its critics, and explore the extraordinary creative coterie the Langs cultivated in order to produce their immense catalogue of work, both personal and collaborative. We really hope you enjoy the episode! We're giving the Langs a rest for a while, though we certainly intend to return to the project in 2027. We will speak to you again on Saturday, when Martin is interviewing musician Richard Dawson.If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month on Magus, for our final episode of the series, we're casting a circle and exploring the life of the last great name in British magic, Gerald Gardner!Suffering with crippling asthma all his life, we begin with Gardner's youth and young manhood overseas where, accompanied by his nurse, nanny, and personal tutor, he explored Europe and parts of North Africa and the Middle East, developing an interest in folklore, paganism, and ethnography.After a career working on tea and rubber plantations, spending his free time digging into the mysteries of Malay cultures, he then became a colonial administrator, controlling the British opium monopoly during the interwar years. It is only on his return to England, alongside his wife Donna, that Gerald's magical life really begins. Through his membership of an obscure Rosicrucian order and then the New Forest Coven, he became certain that it was his task to revive an ancient British mystery cult close to extinction.How did he do this? Well, by cobbling together a lot of occult learning from yesteryear, often as presented by Aleister Crowley - an aspect of his new, duotheistic nature religion that did not sit comfortably with its High Priestesses...From his relationships with the likes of Cecil Williamson and Doreen Valiente to his boastful courting of the tabloid press, we then follow the downward trajectory of his life - as well as his legacy, as in part embodied in the hundreds of thousands of people who identify as Wiccan today. From his books to his anthropological studies, his preoccupations with flagellation and nudism to his fiction and non-fiction books, we're digging into it all. And at the end of it, bearing in mind what we've explored across the thirteen episodes of Magus, are we to believe he was really magical at all, or whether he himself believed in the things that have since become a full-blown religious faith...We really hope you enjoy the episode, and will speak with you again on Thursday for our special episode on the literary context into which the Lang's coloured fairy books were published, changing the worlds of children's fiction and folklore forever!Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin chats with British author, LGBTQ+ historian, museum researcher and escape room artist Sacha Coward.Sacha's first book, Queer As Folklore, explores how LGBTQ+ communities have historically found safety and representation in the shadows of mythology, bridging centuries of storytelling, and it won Best Non-Fiction Book at the British Fantasty Society Awards too!Sacha has had a diverse career, from giving tours of museums and archives to designing escape rooms, covering topics from Viking burials to Alan Turing's law, ancient Greek myths and RuPaul's Drag Race.So gather in close around the Three Ravens campfire for a chat about mermaids, videogames and the playfulness inherent in identity, with a true local legend, Sacha Coward.Find out more about Sacha via his channels @sachacoward.Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's been a strange, charming, and sometimes baffling journey, but we've reached the end of the Red Fairy Book!Two very different stories finish the collection off. The Marvellous Musician is a German tale, collected by the Grimms. It's a curious tale with an extremely questionable hero, leaving a rather unpleasant taste behind. Is our musician marvellous, monstrous, or perhaps even the Devil himself?As for The Story of Sigurd - it's an epic Norse and Germanic legend, dramatised in poems, prose and a series of operas by Richard Wagner. All that ought to mean a wonderful, dramatic story - but will the Langs' version live up to the hype?After we've discussed and rated the stories, we look back at the stories in the Red Fairy Book and consider highlights, least favourites, and the collection as a whole.We really hope you enjoy the last instalment in the second Lang Fairy Book, and we will speak to you again on Saturday, when Martin is interviewing Local Legend and author of Queer As Folklore, Sacha Coward. If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this final episode of our 13-part exploration of folk music history we are concluding with Death and Afterlife Songs!We welcome our musical collaborators for the series Ben and Katie to join us for this bumper-length episode, which includes a conversation at the end in which we reflect on the journey we have been on together over the last 15 months.As for the songs, we begin with Death and the Lady, a song that feels like it ought to have Medieval roots and which seems inspired by the Black Death, yet which is only recorded for the first time in the 18th century.Next, we sing and discuss one of the finest English songs of all, The Lyke Wake Dirge, with Martin deploying his shruti box and his snare drum to get the skeleton parade marching along...Lastly, we go out on a very Ben choice with Fiddler's Green, a song which is the 40th we've recorded together.We really hope you enjoy the songs, the conversations about death, the afterlife, reincarnation, and more, and remember, every new person who listens to this episode, or who joins our Patreon, enables us to be more ambitious with our projects and push Three Ravens into new and exciting places.So, thank you very much for listening, we hope to release mastered versions of some of the songs as an album (funds and time willing) and thank you for spreading the word about what we're doing so that this can be how we make our living.We really hope you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Thursday for our final stories from the Lang Red Fairy Book, featuring The Marvellous Musician and The Story of Sigurd!The Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of Local Legends Eleanor is chatting with the Fairy Whisperer, Karen Kay.Fairies are notoriously tricksy beings, but if there's anybody out there with exactly the right advice for inviting fairy energies in and adding a dash of magic to your day, it's Karen Kay. Karen's work is all about sharing and building a kind, positive community, which reflects in her many projects - from starting Fae Magazine as a handmade zine back in 2007, to dreaming up and creating magical fairy events, from the Three Wishes Fairy Festival to the Glastonbury Faery Ball. So, gather in close around the Three Ravens cosmic campfire for a fascinating chat, in which we discuss experiences with the fae, the importance of listening to your heart - and of course, address the currently very popular theme on Instagram and TikTok - romantasy and ‘fairy smut' with a true Local Legend, Karen Kay. Find out more about Karen at www.karenkay.co.uk.Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our penultimate episode of the Red Fairy Book, we have a triple bill of rather different stories.First, we have one of the best known fairy tales out there - Snowdrop, otherwise known as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It's got some excellent moments, though things get a little out of hand closer to the end!We follow that up with another Grimm tale, The Golden Goose, an example of the 'All Stick Together' tale type from the ATU Index. Follow an unlikely hero called Dullhead, his magical little grey friend, and a very sticky goose...The last in the trio is a Norwegian tale, The Seven Foals (but don't worry, they don't meet the same fate as those in Dapplegrim!) With a sadistic king, an enticing hairdressing hag and a surprisingly Christian message, it's a bit of an odd one!As ever, we discuss, compare and rate the stories afterwards! We hope that you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Saturday, when Eleanor is interviewing the Fairy Whisperer herself, Karen Kay!If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the final episode in our 26 part A-Z of mythical creatures we're slipping into some liminal spaces to talk about Fairies!Starting with the question of what even is "a fairy" and how did that word come to be?Should we think of them as handsome and seductive, like in the Romantasy genre, or as nature spirits that need feeding with human blood, via your sourdough starter?Do we still identify with the pagan idea of fairies shaping human destiny as they fancy, or the post-Reformation concept of the fairy as a form of beautiful ghost seeking to lead us to damnation?For most people today they're icons of cuteness and childish whimsy, but why did the Victorians shrink them down and give them wings?Also, why does nobody explain the rules of Fairyland in any Fairy Tales, and what makes marriage so important in so many tales about these poor, fallen, yet somehow powerful creatures?With examples from Ancient Rome to Medieval chronicles, Witch Trial transcripts to the case of the Cottingley Fairies, join us to explore how 'The Fairy' ultimately reflects the shape of human consciousness era-to-era.So feed your green child her broad beans, don't get off your horse until your fairy dog does, and toss your wishes into the river, as it's a topic befitting the end of this series - massive, but also tiny, and constantly transforming to mirror the strange shape of life in the real world...We also hope you increasingly pleased by our new Bestiary episode art, as drawn by our good friend Tom Peteuil of Creature Castle - check out brand new Fairy merch here and visit the Creature Castle shop for prints and other wonderful things here.Speak to you again on Thursday for this week's Lang Fairy Tale triple bill all before Saturday's Local Legends interview with author and Fairy Whisperer Karen Kay!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, we take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of Local Legends Martin is chatting with recovering Medievalist, occult bookshop owner, and esoteric researcher Christina Oakley Harrington!Growing up for a large part overseas, then crash-landing into the north American education system, Christina was perhaps always destined to be an outsider. Yet through her dedication to academic rigour, her life in Wicca, and her passion for bringing well-read, curious people together, she has built a remarkable community at her bookshop, Treadwell's.If you want to know more about Wicca in particular, you are in the right place - but as this conversation shows, Christina's life experiences have been diverse and inspiring, and speak to both the challenges and the privileges of living life as an outsider. So. gather in close around the Three Ravens campfire and listen in to a chat which explores topics as wide-ranging as ecstatic trance states, how the early Irish church gave women statuses not enjoyed elsewhere, the distinctions between English and North American Wicca, and so much more, with a true Local Legend, Christina Oakley Harrington!Visit the Treadwell's website here.Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This Norwegian tale from the Red Fairy Book features a plucky, diminutive hero so unscrupulous, he might just be worse than Dapplegrim!With trolls with increasing numbers of heads (returning favourites), princesses with suspicious motives, mysteriously intelligent babies and flying ships, Minnikin really does have it all.Also known as Lillekort in Norwegian, and Shortshanks in translation, it's certainly a fairy tale which takes us on a journey - but will Minnikin get the full three out of three ravens in our discussion?We really hope that you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Saturday, when Martin is interviewing founder and director of Treadwell's Books, Dr Christina Oakley-Harrington!If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the last episode in the second series of Magic and Medicines, we're talking about Palmistry and Phrenology!We start by looking at uses of palmistry across the world, from Vedic astrology with Hindu Jyotish over to the divination practices of the Chinese Ming dynasty.We discuss whether or not it's true that Aristotle discovered an ancient palmistry text and got Alexander the Great into the art, and explore the stereotypes associated with fortune telling in general, and some nasty xenophobic history.Then, we have a look at our own hands, and try and work out whether we've got 'fire hands' or 'air hands', and what the lines in our palms say about us.In the third part of the episode, we look at the concept of phrenology, from its roots as possible brain science through to its manipulation and abuse by proponents of eugenics, and its alarming similarity to the work done by some algorithms today...We really hope you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Thursday with a new tale from the Red Fairy Book, Minnikin!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this very special episode of Local Legends Martin is chatting with the brilliant British folk singer-songwriter Frankie Archer!To mark the release of her debut album, The Dance of Death, Frankie made time to come on the podcast to discuss how she has ended up making the music she has, which fuses centuries-old traditional melodies with modern electronic production, synthesizers, and manipulated samples.Hailing from the North East of England, Frankie loves folk songs and folk tales, making her a perfect guest. We are both massive fans, and, best of all, we have permission to include some of Frankie's brilliant songs in this episode, which are:Death and the MaidenThe Dance of DeathIn Oxford CityThe Lover's GhostThe Demon LoverIn Brunton TownWe won't labour the point – she's ace – so gather in close around the Three Ravens campfire and listen in to a chat which explores topics as wide-ranging as the icon of Death, the Lambton worm, Cushie Butterfield and the business of being a folk musician in this strange year of 2026, with a true Local Legend, Frankie Archer!Learn more about Frankie, buy her music, and find links to tickets for her upcoming tour at frankiearchermusic.com.Photo credit Rob Irish.Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For today's episode of the Lang Fairy Tales, we're proceeding on apace through the Red Fairy Book, and we've got another double bill of stories.First up is the excellently named Bushy Bride, a Norwegian story which exploits the fairy tale obsession with very, very long noses - and has some very curious features. There is a charming dog called Little Snow, though!We follow that on with Mother Holle, a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and included in their 1812 collection Kinder und Hausmarchen before the Langs got their hands on it. It includes legends about Mother Holda, or Frau Perchta, a winter spirit who lives in a well and has the power to make it snow - and teach powerful moral lessons too.They're a surprisingly good pairing to compare and contrast! As ever, we discuss and analyse the stories and apply our Raven Ratings to them.We hope you enjoy the episode, and we'll speak to you again on Saturday, when Martin is interviewing folk artist Frankie Archer all about her new album, The Dance of Death.If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this month's update episode we're chatting all about the folkiness of summertime - including Well Dressing and Rush Bearing!Though that's not all, as, in addition to sharing some of our own news, we're working through the story of Swithin, the English weather saint who once had a very holy hole, Swan Upping, the origins of cricket, Canada Day and America's birthday, too. Then we share the opening chunks of June's two Three Ravens Patreon Exclusive episodes.First comes the opening 25 minutes of our special episode about The History and Folklore of Board Games, which is followed by the first part of our Film Club episode all about Powell & Pressburger's 1947 nun-stravaganza Black Narcissus.We really hope you enjoy this tasting menu and selection of Three Ravens bits and pieces, and we will be back again tomorrow with a new Lang Fairy Tales episode!Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month on Magus, for our penultimate episode of the series, we're exploring the life and work of the father of Western esotericism, Cornelius Agrippa!Born into a Europe wracked by wars, he attends university in Cologne at thirteen, earns his MA by sixteen, and then he abandons the Holy Roman Empire for France.There, under the noses of the House of Valois, he begins to establish a hidden brotherhood of occult learning stretching from England to Catalonia to Italy and Switzerland. Influenced by Erasmus and Martin Luther, and mentored by the court necromancer of Emperor Maximilian I, Agrippa then pioneers a new, coherent, rational model of the universe which bridges the gap between Medieval and Renaissance thinking, combining esoteric learning from the ancient world with cutting edge humanist philosophy.Was he really accompanied everywhere he went by a demonic magical hound that aided him in his research?Were his writings cursed such that if an unwitting person read from them alive they risked being strangled by demonic spirits?Also, how did Agrippa not realise that embarassing the Inquisition, and then insulting your patrons in print, might be hazardous to the health?We'll be answering these questions and many others - but fair warning going in: these are knotty concepts that Agrippa himself would argue should not really be known to common people like thee and we...Speak with you again on Wednesday for our monthly Update Episode all about the folkloric fun of July, if not our Patreon Exclusive Flim Club episode about Black Narcissus, all before a new double bill of Lang fairy tales and chats about them on Thursday!Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode, we go where no podcast has gone before - welcome to Three Ravens Live @ Great Dunmow BookFest!During a one day festival where an entire Essex town famous for giving out sides of bacon to married couples turned itself into a bookshop, we were warmly welcomed to Jack's 1952, an outdoor goods shop who gave us a space in their basement and several dozen camping chairs to record a free 45 minute show. Our audience ranged from newborn children gurgling away up to retirees, along with hardened Three Ravens fans, and plenty of people who had never heard of us before!With regular interruptions from the beeping sounds of the shop's door being opened upstairs, and customers popping by to purchase hiking boots, we carried on regardless, with Eleanor joined by our friend and regular collaborator Katie Sommers to sing a capella versions of Three Ravens, Sumer is icumen in, and We Gets Up In The Morn.Between these musical highlights we dig into some of our favourite bits of Essex's folklore, including the ghostly goings-on at Borley Rectory and the legend of Old King Cole, the county's six distinct dragon tales, the Canvey Island Monster, Boudica's rampage, and the sad fate of Anglo Saxon queen Edith Swan-neck. Also including Eleanor's telling of the tale of the weather witch Sarah Moore of Leigh on Sea in the form of Three Knots, it's a slightly mad show, and hopefully an interesting listen!We really hope you enjoy the episode, and will speak to you again on Monday for the penultimate episode of our Bonus Series Magus, all about the magical life of 16th century occultist, scholar, and theologian Cornelius Agrippa!Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England or Wales' 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of a traditional story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county - and Live Shows come out on Saturdays.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Lang Fairy Tales episode we have another triple-bill - though these ones are all slightly wonky...We begin with Rapunzel, a tale with its roots in ancient Persian mythology, although what the Langs do with it leaves a little to be desired!Next up it's The Nettle Spinner, another Charles Deulin legend out of Flanders which seems to speak to the power of the Protestant work ethic in the face of villainy!Last then comes Farmer Weatherbeard, a story drawn from Norse mythology that gets completely muddled in translation, missing the point of the original and focusing not on the apprentice who undoes his master, but on the apprentice's father, who has very little to recommend him as a protagonist...Collectively, it makes for an episode of slightly broken stories - and, in turn, some really interesting chats about them which we hope you enjoy!Speak to you again on Saturday for our Essex-themed Three Ravens Live Show from Great Dunmow BookFest and, as soon as it's not too hot to sit and record it, our Patreon Exclusive episode for June all about The History and Folklore of Boardgames!If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get ready to escape to the lake isle of Innisfree, because for the penultimate episode of Forgotten Melodies we're talking all about Nature Songs!We explore the English trees and plants which have inspired folk musicians, poets and all true Romantics, and the songs which use them as motifs.First, we look at stone cold classic A North Country Maid, and its oak, ash and bonny ivy.More oak and ash abound in our second selection, A Tree Song, written by Rudyard Kipling for the 1906 book Puck of Pook's Hill, and set to music by Peter Bellamy. The third song might just be the best known song we've covered in the series, a staple of pub folk sessions, ideal for the end of the night. We'll be gathering the Wild Mountain Thyme - or possibly just making an elaborate excuse to take our sweethearts up into the hills...Martin and Eleanor explore the history and context behind each song, and the surrounding folklore for the plants and trees which inspired them!We really hope you enjoy the episode, and we will speak to you again on Thursday for a new Lang Fairy Tale triple bill, featuring Rapunzel, The Nettle Spinner, and Farmer Weatherbeard!The Three Ravens is a Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on a historic county, exploring the heritage, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded on steamy summer's evening in the John Abel Room of Grange Court, welcome to Three Ravens Live @ Leominster Festival!While Hereford might try to steal all the glory - literally in some cases - "Lemster" was just as grand a place in the Medieval era, famed most of all as a market town rich in wool. This recording, made on Thursday 11th, explores that historic rivalry, along with the tale of Jenny Pipes, the last English woman sentenced to the ducking stool, demon dogs such as the Hound of Hergest, a diverse range of ghosts including a seven foot big boy, Herefordshire's history of helpful witches, and a very large Civil War siege engine called 'The Sow.' From the county's legacy in apple growing and cider making to the haunted doll kept not too far away from a church bell stolen by a mermaid, there's so much to talk about - and that's not mentioning Eleanor's performance of local legend The Dragon of Mordiford!A Q&A session with our live audience follows, in which we end up telling yet more stories, including one in which we ourselves were haunted, we hope you enjoy the episode, and heartily encourage everybody to visit Leominster!Speak to you again on Monday for the penultimate episode of our Bonus Series Forgotten Melodies, all about Nature Songs, featuring new versions of The North County Maid, Wild Mountain Thyme, and The Tree Song by us!Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England or Wales' 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of a traditional story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county - and Live Shows come out on Saturdays.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Lang Fairy Tales episode we're encountering a tale by folklorist Charles Deulin, The Enchanted Canary.Positioned as a legend out of Flanders, it sees a prince head out to find a wife whose skin is not white or pink...Perhaps wisely, he goes south, following his dream of an orange grove, waylaid by witches, bricklayers, and his own inability to follow advice.A surprisingly rounded story, packed with gags and some genuine pearls of wisdom - “The danger which is most to be feared is never the danger we are most afraid of...” - it's an excitingly rich fairy tale, as we discuss in the analysis section at the end. Is it a retelling of the Solar Prince? Is it a tale about the integration of the Anima? Is it about how great immigration can be?Is it all three at once?!Let's get into it - and of course we really hope you enjoy the episode! Speak to you again on Saturday for our Herefordshire-themed Three Ravens Live Show, recorded last weekend at Leominster Festival!If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?REGISTER FOR THE TALES OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND TOURVisit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.