Podcasts about ploughing

A new MP3 sermon from Dr David C. Mackereth is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Ploughing on the Rocks. Subtitle: C H Spurgeon Speaker: C. H. Spurgeon Broadcaster: Dr David C. Mackereth Event: Sunday Service Date: 5/22/2025 Bible: Amos 6:12 Length: 26 min.

For the first time, Southland is set host the World Ploughing Championship in 2029. New Zealand Ploughing Association chairman Scott McKenzie joins Emile Donovan to explain what the event is, how it runs and why Riversdale has been chosen to host it.

If evangelism is sowing seeds, pre-evangelism is ploughing the ground. Send questions and comments here ➡️ malcolm@malcolmcox.org Watch This Next: https://youtu.be/vxFYR3Iih5A Subscribe to my Podcast: https://audioboom.com/channels/4909728.rss Get a copy of my free eBook on spiritual disciplines, “How God grows His people”, sign up at my website: http://[www.malcolmcox.org](http://www.malcolmcox.org/).  Connect with me! Instagram: (https://instagram.com/malcolmcoxteachingtips) Facebook: (https://www.facebook.com/malcolmccox/) Website: (https://www.malcolmcox.org) I am a qualified solutions-focused coach. You can book a session with me either via the email above or at the website: https://malcolmcoxcoaching.com/ God bless, Malcolm

If evangelism is sowing seeds, pre-evangelism is ploughing the ground.

If evangelism is sowing seeds, pre-evangelism is ploughing the ground. Watch This Next: https://youtu.be/vxFYR3Iih5A Get a copy of my free eBook on spiritual disciplines, “How God grows His people”, sign up at my website: http://[www.malcolmcox.org](http://www.malcolmcox.org/).  God bless, Malcolm

The re-introduction of inheritance tax on farm assets dominated this year's National Farmers Union Conference in London. The Union President told delegates farming is facing its biggest crisis of confidence in his lifetime. Facing a frosty reception, the DEFRA Secretary Steve Reed announced a new Farm Profitability Unit to be set up with the department, but told farmers he couldn't give them the answers they wanted on inheritance tax. Elsewhere, the conference focused on growth in agriculture - through investment, exports and tech. The Climate Change Committee has called for a transformation in agriculture in its latest report. The CCC advises the UK government on ways to reduce emissions in order to meet net zero by 2050. Its 7th report sets out a plan from 2038 to 2042, and recommends a 27% drop in the number of cattle and sheep, and that we all eat less meat.The government's allowing the re-introduction of beavers into the wild in England. Up until now they've only been allowed to be released into enclosures - though there have also been some illegal releases. Wildlife groups will need a licence and to get that they'll need a 10 year plan showing the impact beavers are expected to have. The National Farmers Union has argued that farmers should be able to kill beavers should they end up in the wrong place. Scientists at Scotland's Rural College have been feeding cattle an extract from daffodil bulbs to help reduce methane. The ground-breaking research aimed at reducing emissions is called "dancing with daffodils".We round off with a bit of tradition and competition. The European Ploughing Championships are being held in Nottinghamshire we catch up with a ploughing champion who's one of the organisers

Today on the podcast. Ploughing slurry. 2 - Rogue TV sketch. 3:30 - Sex worker chat. 10 - Deep fakes & AI. 13 - Shit weed. 16 - Fly spotting. 19 - Tubby handjob & unfortunate nicknames. 24 - Dunc's dad's car. 26 - Feedback from our Snipers. 28 - Worcestershire sauce is a mistake. 30 - Are you an heir to something / Sheep shearing chat. 33 - The Mooring Knock Shop. 35:30 - Real big weekend ahead? Give us a follow if you haven't already ~ Jay and Dunc. Want to get in touch? Hit us up, here: https://linktr.ee/notforradio

Today on the radio show. 1:15 - Smoko chat. Rock the Globe. 5:35 - Ploughing slurry. 8:54 - Eyes popping out. 13:30 - Israel Adesanya fight night trailer. 17:39 - How to get 2 million dollars. 20:35 - Real big weekend? 25:28 - Friday funny. 28:30 - Watermelon knockers. 32:19 - Everyone’s an expert. 34:58 - Wayne’s Popped-out eye. 38:33 - SLipknot winner. 41:37 - Late mail. 46:28 - Last drinks. Get in touch with us: https://linktr.ee/therockdrive

This podcast is brought to you by AXA Farm Insurance*Louise Hickey and Aisling O'Brien bring you the biggest stories of the week in Irish agriculture from Agriland, which this week includes: DAFM to formally apply for renewal of nitrates derogation;Fallout continues on Mercosur deal;Agri-Food Regulator to publish weekly beef prices;Kerry Co-op dairy deal vote approaches;700 ducks seized from Wicklow farm;Live animal crib returns to Dublin city centre.Venue for Ploughing 2025 announcedDon't forget to rate, review and follow The Farming Week, Agriland's weekly review of Irish agriculture, and visit Agriland.ie for more. 

Episode 94 Aisling Meehan, Agricultural SolicitorIt takes specialist knowledge and understanding to appreciate the problems farmers face today. Every decision is affected by legal, tax and practical considerations specific to farming business. As a qualified solicitor, tax consultant and young trained farmer, Aisling Meehan (ex William Fry) can combine all three aspects to ensure that every decision is in the best interests of the farming business as a whole. Rather than offer a broad range of legal services, the firm specialises solely in agricultural legal and tax matters. As well as operating a niche agricultural law and tax practice from offices located at the home farm, Aisling farms her own land in partnership with her husband. She also writes a weekly legal column for the Farmers Journal.Her office is located in converted farm buildings, is easily accessible and informal in atmosphere. Due to the specialised nature of the work, Aisling Meehan Agricultural Solicitors have farming clients nationwide and is also regularly consulted by other professionals such as solicitors, accountants, auctioneers, bankers and agricultural advisors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julie Koeninger is Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager in Agriculture at Manulife Investment Management, where she serves as the senior agricultural portfolio manager for the Hancock Timberland and Farmland Fund and leads business development for Manulife Investment Management global agriculture strategy.  She has over 30 years of experience in agriculture investing, having worked in a series of roles at other institutions prior to joining Manulife and led the first ever securitization of US Agricultural mortgages.   Our conversation traces Julie's career at the intersection of infrastructure and finance and the evolution of those industries in terms of product creation and understanding of the asset class. We examine some of the lateral moves that Julie made throughout her career and how they contributed to her growth as a professional.  We spend some time on the innovations in products centered around agriculture and look at how investors are treating agriculture within the context of their overall portfolio.  This podcast is kindly supported by GCM Grosvenor. GCM Grosvenor is a global alternative asset management firm with a longstanding commitment to supporting small, emerging, and diverse investment managers. For over 30 years, the firm has developed expertise in funding and guiding these managers as part of its broader activity across alternative investments.  With over $20 billion in AUM dedicated to small and emerging managers and $16 billion in AUM dedicated to diverse managers, GCM Grosvenor leverages its experienced team, broad network, and proprietary sourcing capabilities to support their success. Through the Small, Emerging, and Diverse Manager Program, the firm creates opportunities for investors to access a wide range of talent while seeking to drive strong returns and impact. For more information, visit www.gcmgrosvenor.com.

YOU MUST BE JOKIN LIVE SHOW: Lads, it's finally happening... we're doing a live show! Willa White and Eric Lalor will sit down at the Laughter Lounge with some special guests to find out what their story is, have a bit of craic and delve deep into the shenanigans of life! Get your tickets here: https://laughterlounge.com/products/ymbjlive?variant=49123283304778 Our guest this week is Irish comedy royalty, Mr Neil Delamere. The lads chat about their various fitness regimes, training for a triathlon, the time Neil and Willa almost ended up in a scrap in Skerries and why You Must be Jokin should take on the ploughing next year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The schedule for National Women's Enterprise Day 2024 has been launched. The initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices takes place on the 17th October with 14 events lined up across the country that will see some of Ireland's best female entrepreneurs and businesswomen share their stories of challenges and success. Some of those taking part this year include Aimee Connolly, founder and CEO of Sculpted by Aimee, Anne Heraty founder of CPL Resources, broadcaster and entrepreneur, Norah Casey, Martina Fitzgerald of Scale Ireland, entrepreneur Chupi Sweetman and broadcaster and podcaster Sile Seoige. They will be joined at the events across the country by a host of female led small businesses and start-ups are telling their story of how they began and made it happen with their ideas. This is the 18th year of National Women's Enterprise Day and the theme of this year's event is, "Making it happen". The event aims to encourage businesswomen to take that next step whether that be to act on an idea, grow their business or take steps to change or innovate in their business. The events will outline the key supports that are available from financial and consultancy to training and mentoring to help them along the way from starting out right through to bringing a business to global markets. Breege Cosgrave, Co-Chair of National Women's Enterprise Day 2024, said; "National Women's Enterprise Day has become a flagship event for women entrepreneurs and businesswomen every year. No matter what stage you are at, idea, starting up, or trying to innovate or grow your business, there is something for you. The events will dive into those stories of success, and failure and how some of the very best businesswomen in Ireland overcame the biggest challenges. "Most of all, the day is about empowering women in business, or those with that kernel of an idea, to make that next step, whatever it is. It might be making that idea a reality, it might be innovating in your business or it might be taking those first steps in making your company greener or digitization. Whatever it is, the day will have something for you and will show you the supports that are available and the network all around you in your region that are there to help you make it happen." The Local Enterprise Offices also run a number of initiatives to foster entrepreneurship across the country. These include Local Enterprise Week, the National Enterprise Awards, the Student Enterprise Programme, the Local Enterprise Village at Ploughing and Local Enterprise Showcase. The Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities are funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland. Established in 2014, the Local Enterprise Offices are the essential resource for any entrepreneur looking to start a business or any small business that is looking for support or advice to help them grow. Since their inception eight years ago, the Local Enterprise Offices have helped create over 75,000 jobs across the country. The LEOs work with thousands of client companies across Ireland in a diverse range of sectors offering mentoring, training, expert advice and financial supports to small businesses. For more information on National Women's Enterprise Day and what events are on go to www.LocalEnterprise.ie/NWED See more stories here.

If slurry was every feeling bad about itself, it just needs to look at Eoin Lynch for support. He's a self-confessed superfan and he joined Dave to chat about going viral for his passion.

Last week at the Ploughing, production company Kite Entertainment were casting for the Irish version of The Traitors. They were looking for good liars. So, are the Irish good at lying? And what happens in a lie detector test?Newstalk's Henry McKean got to try one, and joins Seán to discuss.

No ambulance available - West Cork Doctor has to send patient via car for life saving surgery… Mitchelstown student goes viral - 4 million views & counting because he loves farming.. Tears Of Rage Undercover As A Hotel Cleaner In Ireland & lots more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PJ chats to Eoin Lynch Cork agri-enthusiast who's love for slurry made him a Tik Tok Star Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode Rachel Donovan chats to Derry McCarthy from Rathmore in Co Kerry who recently graduated as a vet from UCD. They talk about repeating the leaving cert, job prospects for vets as well as current issues on farms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Farm Tech Talk comes from the Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, County Laois. Listen to Adam, Aidan, Darren and Siobhan talk about the prospects for the rest of this year and in to 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20th September, 2024  – Join Deacon Don Devaney for a discussion on Catholic teaching, current events and general updates! In this episode of Chatechesis, Deacon Don shares his experiences from the Ploughing Championships in Port Laoise, marveling at the ingenuity and technology in the farming community. He reflects on the importance of rural life and […] The post E1096 | Chatechesis – Deacon Don Devaney – Embracing Tradition and Innovation: Reflections from the Ploughing Championships appeared first on Radio Maria Ireland.

James Hanly presents the final episode of this season's Plough On podcast, bringing you the latest news and views from Ploughing 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's Tillage Podcast we chat to James Flahavan, director of Flahavan's, at the National Ploughing Championships. We have an exclusive story on the expansion to the Malting Company of Ireland, report from the Irish Drinks Forum, the latest grain prices and all the latest news. The Tillage Podcast is supported by Bayer Crop Science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian hears what it takes to be a judge at the Ploughing Championships as well as the latest from Ireland's Smartest Surname and the Emmys. Subscribe to The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show wherever you get your podcasts.

Richard has returned to Gavan and Zara from Pennsylvania to discuss the 'Kamala Wave' in America and the implications of a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump.The group discusses the political plans of politicians at the ploughing.And Pager Panic; what do the pager bombings against Hezbollah mean for tensions in the Middle East? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike the Farmer says the judge who said the Ploughing Championships is marred by bad behavior is just a bit extreme! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PJ hears how taxi drivers may quit the business after getting unexpected tax bills, how Ploughing Championship farmers are after loves not lager, how the Casement's loss could be the Páirc's gain. And more... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Day one of the Ploughing Championships at Ratheniska in Co Laois has ended, and it's safe to say that it was a success!Henry McKean has been spending time there and asked people what they love about the ploughing…

For this week's Tech Takeover, Henry McKean is taking over! He is at the Ploughing Championships in Laois, and joins Kieran to showcase all of the interesting technology on display from exhibitors.

Davy Fitzgerald joined Oliver and told him about his new tole as Antrim Hurling Manager, being co-creator and coach of 'Ireland's Fittest Family' and is now coach of participants at 'Ireland's Fittest Farmer' competition at the Ploughing Championships!

James Hanly presents Day Two of the Plough On podcast, bringing you the latest news and views from Ploughing 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Country Life this week it's a PLOUGHING CHAMPIONSHIP Special  Keith Fahy caught up with some of the people attending this years National Ploughing Championship including:  Davy FitzGerald from Ireland's Fittest Farmer Mike Devaney from Heptagon Houses Students from Ballygar Secondary School on their Angus Calf Competition Eoin Clarke from McHales  Listen back here Tune in each Tuesday evening 7-8pm for Country Life with Keith Fahy.   Country Life is brought to you with thanks to St Jarlath's Credit Union.  

The visitors, exhibitors and competitors are in high spirits, with more sunny weather expected at this year's Ploughing in Ratheniska, county Laois. Over 75,000 people, young and old, have poured on to the site from early morning. Henry McKean is there soaking up the atmosphere.

Well, today marks the start of the National Ploughing Championships. It will run until Thursday and over 200,000 people will make their way to Laois for the fun! There's plenty going on - ploughing, cookery, crafts, sheep shearing and even a search of a new boyband! Hit play now to hear the full episode.

The 93rd Ploughing Championships is well underway with over 300 tractors taking part in the fields. One of the biggest of its kind in Europe. Today saw record crowds and record heat reaching 23 degrees! The sun screen was out, with Michael D and Simon Harris in attendance.Newstalk's Henry McKean joined Kieran from the Ploughing to give all the details!

James Hanly presents the Plough On podcast, bringing you the latest news and views from Ploughing 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather & Anna Marie McHugh from the National Ploughing Association join Ray to look ahead to a beautifully sunny week for the 2024 National Ploughing Championships.

Amy Forde chats to plough woman Katie Kehoe ahead of the National Ploughing Championships next week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carlow man Eamonn Tracey joins Oliver from the World Ploughing Contest in Estonia. He is the Supreme World Ploughing Champion for the third year in a row.

Ploughing ahead with book 6 and perhaps Rob actually likes it?

Over 30 small businesses from across the country will get the opportunity to showcase themselves to almost 300,000 visitors at the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, County Laois. The Local Enterprise Village, an initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices, will be located at the heart of this year's National Ploughing Championships from the 17th to 19th September. It will showcase the best of Irish entrepreneurship featuring small businesses selling everything from Mexican salsa and chemical free fertilisers to high end fashion designers and sensory friendly clothing. With some of the biggest companies in Ireland taking up residence at the Ploughing every year, the Local Enterprise Village continues to be a popular destination on the site for those looking to pick up something unique to bring home from some of the best small businesses in Ireland. A selection of businesses from across the country helped launch the Local Enterprise Village for 2024 at Airfield Estate in Dublin. These included Leah Cleary of Fore Distillery, Dublin fashion designer Jennifer Rothwell, Anouk O'Connell of natural wool company Olanmor, Joanne Doyle of Enchanted Castle Melts in Carlow and Mildred Tang of canvas tote company Chic Tote. Kieran Comerford, Local Enterprise Offices and Head of the Local Enterprise Village, said; "This is an opportunity like no other for a small business in Ireland. The opportunity to bring their ideas and products to almost 300,000 potential customers is a showcase like no other. The Local Enterprise Village has become one of those areas everyone wants to drop into to find their local business and see what they can pick up. There is a huge variety of businesses highlighting the depth of sectors that the Local Enterprise Offices support from manufacturing to food and beverage, to software solutions. Whatever you are interested in there is something for everyone at the Local Enterprise Village." Kildare NPA Director John Dunne said "It is wonderful to see so many diverse & impressive businesses partaking in this year's 'Local Enterprise Village' at the National Ploughing Championships taking place in Ratheniska, Co Laois on September 17th, 18th & 19th. This is an ideal and unique opportunity for these companies to showcase their products & wares to over 250,000 visitors that Ploughing attracts." The Local Enterprise Village is just one of a number of initiatives that the Local Enterprise Offices run, to foster entrepreneurship across the country. Others include Local Enterprise Week, the National Enterprise Awards, the Student Enterprise Programme, National Women's Enterprise Day and Local Enterprise Showcase. The Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities are funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland. Established in 2014, the Local Enterprise Offices are the essential resource for any entrepreneur looking to start a business or any small business that is looking for support or advice to help them grow. Since their inception eight years ago, the Local Enterprise Offices have helped create over 25,000 jobs across the country. The LEOs work with thousands of client companies across Ireland in a diverse range of sectors offering mentoring, training, expert advice and financial supports to small businesses. For more information see www.LocalEnterprise.ie LOCAL ENTERPRISE VILLAGE CLIENTS @ NATIONAL PLOUGHING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2024 LEO Carlow - Enchanted Castle Melts - Hand poured soy wax melts & candles in a variety of scents, and also produce cosmetically assessed bath & body products www.enchanted-castle-melts.com LEO Carlow - Skillet & Spice - Skillet & Spice specialises in the production of high-quality seasonings and sell a range of sesame-based seasonings called 'Everything'. www.skilletandspice.ie LEO Cavan - Elena Brennan Jewellery - Handmade fine jewellery, designed and created in Co Cavan www.elenabrennan.com LEO Clare - Oir Tonics - Moss Boss Tonic is a carrageen moss based health t...

Interview with Michael Carpenter telling the story of his life and how listening to Bott Radio Network, by accident, changed his life. Michael was raised by his grandparents while his mom worked hard taking care of his siblings after his father left home when Michael was only three years of age. That estranged relationship with Michael's Dad caused deep wounds, making it hard to forgive. He discovered giving back by serving troubled youth living in a state-run home and over-seeing a prayer ministry through his church at Brown Baptist in Southaven, MS, was helpful for personal healing.

In today's episode of The Raw and Wild Hearts podcast, Charles Dowding and I drop into the life lessons, wisdom and wisdom and true connection that is offered in so many ways from the garden. The no dig approach is the ultimate example of how we can allow life to thrive from very little control. Charles has such a gentle and welcoming spirit. He is the ultimate ambassador for a homegrown spirit and life, as well as finding ease in every phase of your garden! So much to share in this enlightening and informative chat! Show Notes -The future is our children -Soil is the root -The power of language -No dig gardening and a mission -Ploughing a lonely furrow -Pioneering and sharing -“It's not what you know, it's what you understand” -Objectivity and subjectivity -Lessons from compost -The hard way has been made the way -Find more of what we know -Bottom up -Using waste -Weeds in reality and as a metaphor -Clear it up quickly -The words we use -Empowered gardening through understanding -Start small and grow every year -Efficiency is optimal -No dig vs digging -The process of decomposition -Earthing and sky gazing -The Charles Dowding vibe! -The intuitive garden magic -Our unique compost heaps Links mentioned Charles Dowding Website https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg Instagram https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw== Pre-order his new book Compost out September 2024! https://geni.us/Compost Lori Reising Website https://therawandwildhearts.com/ Come hang with Lori on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/therawandwildhearts/

Gareth & Greg are back by popular demand as it seems everyone loves when I get picked on by my big brothers, but it's all in love... well that's what I tell myself anyway. No sympathy for the sickest man in Ireland. We answer everything you want to know...

Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan discuss Book 18 of the Iliad: The Shield of Achilles. Arguably the MOST philosophically dense book in the entire Iliad. Summary of the NarrativeWhat lesson does the "heart" of Achilles teach?How do we interpret the shield of Achilles?Check out our 115 QUESTION GUIDE to the Iliad. How should we interpret the shield of Achilles?The shield of Achilles presents a commentary on the cosmos. It is a testament to the Greek belief that the world is ordered and in balance. From the heavens to human civilization to the boundaries of the known world, a certain order and intelligibility permeates reality. Reality is not chaotic. Man inhabits an ordered whole.Homer presents the scenes on the shield starting with the center and moving outward in concentric circles toward the edge with certain circles having multiple parts. The scenes on the shield may be described as follows: 1. The earth, sky, sea, sun, and moon (18.565)2. The constellations (18.567)3. City at Peace: The wedding feast (18.573)4. City at Peace: The court of justice (18.580)5. City at War: A city under siege (18.593)6. City at War: Raid by the besieged (18.598)7. Ploughing the field (18.629)8. Harvesting the field (18.639)9. The vineyard festival (18.654)10. The cattle under attack (18.670)11. The flock in the meadow at peace (18.686)12. The circle of dancing and courtship (18.690)13. Ocean's River (18.708) On the shield itself, one may expect that Zeus would inhabit the center of shield rather than the heavenly bodies. The absence of Zeus at the center raises the question of the role of the gods within the cosmos. Notably, there is no ring dedicated to the Olympian gods, as one may think vital to a testament on the order of the cosmos. Moreover, the only Olympian gods that are mentioned are in the City at War. One may question whether there is a Homeric lesson embedded here on whether the gods are agents of order or chaos within the cosmic whole.The City at Peace is characterized by love and justice. The marriage is a witness to love and binding, while the court scene is a witness to justice and resolution. Note that the City at Peace is not without conflict; rather, the City at Peace is able to resolve the conflict through justice. The City at War is an obvious contrast. The city under siege inevitably recalls the current plight of Troy. It is, as noted above, the only section that includes the gods.The ploughing and harvesting scenes are naturally coupled. The plowmen enjoy wine as they work, and the harvesting depiction includes the presence of the king and terminates in a harvest feast (18.650). The pastoral imagery is coupled with characteristics of civilization. The vineyard scene is one of wine, music, innocence, and joviality. Though unnamed, it is all characteristic of Dionysus, the jovial wine-god. The cattle scene, however, is one marked by duty, danger, death,...

BBC Radio Newcastle's Colin White and Nick Barnes discuss the Ipswich defeat and reflect on the past 25 seasons with James Hunter, who has just left The Chronicle.

Hailing from Carlow, Ireland, David Halpin is a writer with a deep knowledge of Ireland's fairy lore and  pagan heritage. On his facebook blog, Circle Stories, he explores these themes in great depth.  David is also the creative force behind Occult Book Review on Twitter and YouTube. What I really love about David's work is he is an active participant in preserving the lore and mythology of Ireland. He goes out and sees the stones and raths and teases their stories from them. Which provides us with a vital link to our past.In the show David talks how fairy spirits of alleged different forms can manifest in the same ways. He gives his thoughts on the parallels with UFOs and we get into the differences and similarities between cities and rural places with fairies and go down a bit of a rabbit hole after the Pooka.  In the plus show we get into the dangers of summoning the Good People and David regals us with a story of brushing up against the strange while on a trip to a remote stone circle. We also discuss fairy ointments and from there discuss the use of psychedelics in Irish mythology and folk practice and go off on interesting tangents on the Djinn, Our Lady of Fátima and consciousness. Enjoy Show notes:Circle Stories https://www.facebook.com/CircleStoriesDavidHalpin/ Occult Book Reviewhttps://twitter.com/OccultReviewWolf-Men and Water Hounds: The Myths, Monsters and Magic of Ireland https://www.waterstones.com/book/wolf-men-and-water-hounds/manch-n-magan/steve-doogan/9780717196111  The Duchas archives, home of the Irish folklore collections https://www.duchas.ie/enCillín, a burial ground for unbaptised children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cill%C3%ADn Corpse toothache cure https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4569057/4567629/4574604?HighlightText=corpse+hand&Route=stories&SearchLanguage=gaThe Spancel of Death https://youtu.be/6CstZ-0Lwxo?si=NdnJ6N_MofOAFNx4 Athgreany stone circle https://visitwicklow.ie/listing/pipers-stones/ The Amadán https://www.facebook.com/505240543157960/posts/904390903242920/Biddy Early https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddy_Early Puck Fair https://puckfair.ie/Púca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%BAca Krampus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KrampusSt Knut's day and Nuuttipukki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Knut%27s_Day Poulaphouca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poulaphouca Living with Djinns https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780863566950/Living-Djinns-Understanding-Dealing-Invisible-0863566952/plpFairy mist or ‘Ceo draíochta' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9th_f%C3%ADada David on WMiT https://whatmagicisthis.com/2023/02/27/fairies-ireland-with-david-halpin/ Cenobites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenobite_(Hellraiser) Fairy ointment story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Ointment The witches of Selwood https://www.hobnobpress.co.uk/books/p/the-witches-of-selwood-witchcraft-belief-and-accusation-in-seventeenth-century-somerset-by-andrew-pickering Entopic phenomena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entoptic_phenomena_(archaeology)Irish slang of mushrooms is Pookies https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fungi-folklore-and-fairyland/Ploughing the Clouds, the search for Irish Soma https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/657241Aos sí https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD Tuatha Dé Danann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatha_D%C3%A9_DanannGaoithe Sídhe https://beanfeasa9.wordpress.com/an-sluagh-sidhe/Malak Taus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taw%C3%BBs%C3%AE_MelekOur Lady of Fátima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_F%C3%A1timaStalking the wild pendulum https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalking-Wild-Pendulum-Mechanics-Consciousness/dp/0892812028Eddie Lenihan Storyteller TV show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATjJX7C6fiI --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/spirit-box/message

After the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, Caz Graham hears from a range of experts about what it contains for farm businesses and the countryside. For many people a sticking point in regenerative farming is the herbicide glyphosate. It's used to kill weeds and cover crops before planting new seeds, so removing the need to plough. But there are concerns about the impact of glyphosate on both human and soil health. We ask which is worse or better - ploughing or glyphosate? Presented by Caz Graham Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons

  The Haunter of the Dark By H. P. Lovecraft (Dedicated to Robert Bloch) I have seen the dark universe yawning Where the black planets roll without aim— Where they roll in their horror unheeded, Without knowledge or lustre or name. —Nemesis. Cautious investigators will hesitate to challenge the common belief that Robert Blake was killed by lightning, or by some profound nervous shock derived from an electrical discharge. It is true that the window he faced was unbroken, but Nature has shewn herself capable of many freakish performances. The expression on his face may easily have arisen from some obscure muscular source unrelated to anything he saw, while the entries in his diary are clearly the result of a fantastic imagination aroused by certain local superstitions and by certain old matters he had uncovered. As for the anomalous conditions at the deserted church on Federal Hill—the shrewd analyst is not slow in attributing them to some charlatanry, conscious or unconscious, with at least some of which Blake was secretly connected. For after all, the victim was a writer and painter wholly devoted to the field of myth, dream, terror, and superstition, and avid in his quest for scenes and effects of a bizarre, spectral sort. His earlier stay in the city—a visit to a strange old man as deeply given to occult and forbidden lore as he—had ended amidst death and flame, and it must have been some morbid instinct which drew him back from his home in Milwaukee. He may have known of the old stories despite his statements to the contrary in the diary, and his death may have nipped in the bud some stupendous hoax destined to have a literary reflection. Among those, however, who have examined and correlated all this evidence, there remain several who cling to less rational and commonplace theories. They are inclined to take much of Blake's diary at its face value, and point significantly to certain facts such as the undoubted genuineness of the old church record, the verified existence of the disliked and unorthodox Starry Wisdom sect prior to 1877, the recorded disappearance of an inquisitive reporter named Edwin M. Lillibridge in 1893, and—above all—the look of monstrous, transfiguring fear on the face of the young writer when he died. It was one of these believers who, moved to fanatical extremes, threw into the bay the curiously angled stone and its strangely adorned metal box found in the old church steeple—the black windowless steeple, and not the tower where Blake's diary said those things originally were. Though widely censured both officially and unofficially, this man—a reputable physician with a taste for odd folklore—averred that he had rid the earth of something too dangerous to rest upon it. Between these two schools of opinion the reader must judge for himself. The papers have given the tangible details from a sceptical angle, leaving for others the drawing of the picture as Robert Blake saw it—or thought he saw it—or pretended to see it. Now, studying the diary closely, dispassionately, and at leisure, let us summarise the dark chain of events from the expressed point of view of their chief actor. Young Blake returned to Providence in the winter of 1934–5, taking the upper floor of a venerable dwelling in a grassy court off College Street—on the crest of the great eastward hill near the Brown University campus and behind the marble John Hay Library. It was a cosy and fascinating place, in a little garden oasis of village-like antiquity where huge, friendly cats sunned themselves atop a convenient shed. The square Georgian house had a monitor roof, classic doorway with fan carving, small-paned windows, and all the other earmarks of early nineteenth-century workmanship. Inside were six-panelled doors, wide floor-boards, a curving colonial staircase, white Adam-period mantels, and a rear set of rooms three steps below the general level. Blake's study, a large southwest chamber, overlooked the front garden on one side, while its west windows—before one of which he had his desk—faced off from the brow of the hill and commanded a splendid view of the lower town's outspread roofs and of the mystical sunsets that flamed behind them. On the far horizon were the open countryside's purple slopes. Against these, some two miles away, rose the spectral hump of Federal Hill, bristling with huddled roofs and steeples whose remote outlines wavered mysteriously, taking fantastic forms as the smoke of the city swirled up and enmeshed them. Blake had a curious sense that he was looking upon some unknown, ethereal world which might or might not vanish in dream if ever he tried to seek it out and enter it in person. Having sent home for most of his books, Blake bought some antique furniture suitable to his quarters and settled down to write and paint—living alone, and attending to the simple housework himself. His studio was in a north attic room, where the panes of the monitor roof furnished admirable lighting. During that first winter he produced five of his best-known short stories—“The Burrower Beneath”, “The Stairs in the Crypt”, “Shaggai”, “In the Vale of Pnath”, and “The Feaster from the Stars”—and painted seven canvases; studies of nameless, unhuman monsters, and profoundly alien, non-terrestrial landscapes. At sunset he would often sit at his desk and gaze dreamily off at the outspread west—the dark towers of Memorial Hall just below, the Georgian court-house belfry, the lofty pinnacles of the downtown section, and that shimmering, spire-crowned mound in the distance whose unknown streets and labyrinthine gables so potently provoked his fancy. From his few local acquaintances he learned that the far-off slope was a vast Italian quarter, though most of the houses were remnants of older Yankee and Irish days. Now and then he would train his field-glasses on that spectral, unreachable world beyond the curling smoke; picking out individual roofs and chimneys and steeples, and speculating upon the bizarre and curious mysteries they might house. Even with optical aid Federal Hill seemed somehow alien, half fabulous, and linked to the unreal, intangible marvels of Blake's own tales and pictures. The feeling would persist long after the hill had faded into the violet, lamp-starred twilight, and the court-house floodlights and the red Industrial Trust beacon had blazed up to make the night grotesque. Of all the distant objects on Federal Hill, a certain huge, dark church most fascinated Blake. It stood out with especial distinctness at certain hours of the day, and at sunset the great tower and tapering steeple loomed blackly against the flaming sky. It seemed to rest on especially high ground; for the grimy facade, and the obliquely seen north side with sloping roof and the tops of great pointed windows, rose boldly above the tangle of surrounding ridgepoles and chimney-pots. Peculiarly grim and austere, it appeared to be built of stone, stained and weathered with the smoke and storms of a century and more. The style, so far as the glass could shew, was that earliest experimental form of Gothic revival which preceded the stately Upjohn period and held over some of the outlines and proportions of the Georgian age. Perhaps it was reared around 1810 or 1815. As months passed, Blake watched the far-off, forbidding structure with an oddly mounting interest. Since the vast windows were never lighted, he knew that it must be vacant. The longer he watched, the more his imagination worked, till at length he began to fancy curious things. He believed that a vague, singular aura of desolation hovered over the place, so that even the pigeons and swallows shunned its smoky eaves. Around other towers and belfries his glass would reveal great flocks of birds, but here they never rested. At least, that is what he thought and set down in his diary. He pointed the place out to several friends, but none of them had even been on Federal Hill or possessed the faintest notion of what the church was or had been. In the spring a deep restlessness gripped Blake. He had begun his long-planned novel—based on a supposed survival of the witch-cult in Maine—but was strangely unable to make progress with it. More and more he would sit at his westward window and gaze at the distant hill and the black, frowning steeple shunned by the birds. When the delicate leaves came out on the garden boughs the world was filled with a new beauty, but Blake's restlessness was merely increased. It was then that he first thought of crossing the city and climbing bodily up that fabulous slope into the smoke-wreathed world of dream. Late in April, just before the aeon-shadowed Walpurgis time, Blake made his first trip into the unknown. Plodding through the endless downtown streets and the bleak, decayed squares beyond, he came finally upon the ascending avenue of century-worn steps, sagging Doric porches, and blear-paned cupolas which he felt must lead up to the long-known, unreachable world beyond the mists. There were dingy blue-and-white street signs which meant nothing to him, and presently he noted the strange, dark faces of the drifting crowds, and the foreign signs over curious shops in brown, decade-weathered buildings. Nowhere could he find any of the objects he had seen from afar; so that once more he half fancied that the Federal Hill of that distant view was a dream-world never to be trod by living human feet. Now and then a battered church facade or crumbling spire came in sight, but never the blackened pile that he sought. When he asked a shopkeeper about a great stone church the man smiled and shook his head, though he spoke English freely. As Blake climbed higher, the region seemed stranger and stranger, with bewildering mazes of brooding brown alleys leading eternally off to the south. He crossed two or three broad avenues, and once thought he glimpsed a familiar tower. Again he asked a merchant about the massive church of stone, and this time he could have sworn that the plea of ignorance was feigned. The dark man's face had a look of fear which he tried to hide, and Blake saw him make a curious sign with his right hand. Then suddenly a black spire stood out against the cloudy sky on his left, above the tiers of brown roofs lining the tangled southerly alleys. Blake knew at once what it was, and plunged toward it through the squalid, unpaved lanes that climbed from the avenue. Twice he lost his way, but he somehow dared not ask any of the patriarchs or housewives who sat on their doorsteps, or any of the children who shouted and played in the mud of the shadowy lanes. At last he saw the tower plain against the southwest, and a huge stone bulk rose darkly at the end of an alley. Presently he stood in a windswept open square, quaintly cobblestoned, with a high bank wall on the farther side. This was the end of his quest; for upon the wide, iron-railed, weed-grown plateau which the wall supported—a separate, lesser world raised fully six feet above the surrounding streets—there stood a grim, titan bulk whose identity, despite Blake's new perspective, was beyond dispute. The vacant church was in a state of great decrepitude. Some of the high stone buttresses had fallen, and several delicate finials lay half lost among the brown, neglected weeds and grasses. The sooty Gothic windows were largely unbroken, though many of the stone mullions were missing. Blake wondered how the obscurely painted panes could have survived so well, in view of the known habits of small boys the world over. The massive doors were intact and tightly closed. Around the top of the bank wall, fully enclosing the grounds, was a rusty iron fence whose gate—at the head of a flight of steps from the square—was visibly padlocked. The path from the gate to the building was completely overgrown. Desolation and decay hung like a pall above the place, and in the birdless eaves and black, ivyless walls Blake felt a touch of the dimly sinister beyond his power to define. There were very few people in the square, but Blake saw a policeman at the northerly end and approached him with questions about the church. He was a great wholesome Irishman, and it seemed odd that he would do little more than make the sign of the cross and mutter that people never spoke of that building. When Blake pressed him he said very hurriedly that the Italian priests warned everybody against it, vowing that a monstrous evil had once dwelt there and left its mark. He himself had heard dark whispers of it from his father, who recalled certain sounds and rumours from his boyhood. There had been a bad sect there in the ould days—an outlaw sect that called up awful things from some unknown gulf of night. It had taken a good priest to exorcise what had come, though there did be those who said that merely the light could do it. If Father O'Malley were alive there would be many the thing he could tell. But now there was nothing to do but let it alone. It hurt nobody now, and those that owned it were dead or far away. They had run away like rats after the threatening talk in '77, when people began to mind the way folks vanished now and then in the neighbourhood. Some day the city would step in and take the property for lack of heirs, but little good would come of anybody's touching it. Better it be left alone for the years to topple, lest things be stirred that ought to rest forever in their black abyss. After the policeman had gone Blake stood staring at the sullen steepled pile. It excited him to find that the structure seemed as sinister to others as to him, and he wondered what grain of truth might lie behind the old tales the bluecoat had repeated. Probably they were mere legends evoked by the evil look of the place, but even so, they were like a strange coming to life of one of his own stories. The afternoon sun came out from behind dispersing clouds, but seemed unable to light up the stained, sooty walls of the old temple that towered on its high plateau. It was odd that the green of spring had not touched the brown, withered growths in the raised, iron-fenced yard. Blake found himself edging nearer the raised area and examining the bank wall and rusted fence for possible avenues of ingress. There was a terrible lure about the blackened fane which was not to be resisted. The fence had no opening near the steps, but around on the north side were some missing bars. He could go up the steps and walk around on the narrow coping outside the fence till he came to the gap. If the people feared the place so wildly, he would encounter no interference. He was on the embankment and almost inside the fence before anyone noticed him. Then, looking down, he saw the few people in the square edging away and making the same sign with their right hands that the shopkeeper in the avenue had made. Several windows were slammed down, and a fat woman darted into the street and pulled some small children inside a rickety, unpainted house. The gap in the fence was very easy to pass through, and before long Blake found himself wading amidst the rotting, tangled growths of the deserted yard. Here and there the worn stump of a headstone told him that there had once been burials in this field; but that, he saw, must have been very long ago. The sheer bulk of the church was oppressive now that he was close to it, but he conquered his mood and approached to try the three great doors in the facade. All were securely locked, so he began a circuit of the Cyclopean building in quest of some minor and more penetrable opening. Even then he could not be sure that he wished to enter that haunt of desertion and shadow, yet the pull of its strangeness dragged him on automatically. A yawning and unprotected cellar window in the rear furnished the needed aperture. Peering in, Blake saw a subterrene gulf of cobwebs and dust faintly litten by the western sun's filtered rays. Debris, old barrels, and ruined boxes and furniture of numerous sorts met his eye, though over everything lay a shroud of dust which softened all sharp outlines. The rusted remains of a hot-air furnace shewed that the building had been used and kept in shape as late as mid-Victorian times. Acting almost without conscious initiative, Blake crawled through the window and let himself down to the dust-carpeted and debris-strown concrete floor. The vaulted cellar was a vast one, without partitions; and in a corner far to the right, amid dense shadows, he saw a black archway evidently leading upstairs. He felt a peculiar sense of oppression at being actually within the great spectral building, but kept it in check as he cautiously scouted about—finding a still-intact barrel amid the dust, and rolling it over to the open window to provide for his exit. Then, bracing himself, he crossed the wide, cobweb-festooned space toward the arch. Half choked with the omnipresent dust, and covered with ghostly gossamer fibres, he reached and began to climb the worn stone steps which rose into the darkness. He had no light, but groped carefully with his hands. After a sharp turn he felt a closed door ahead, and a little fumbling revealed its ancient latch. It opened inward, and beyond it he saw a dimly illumined corridor lined with worm-eaten panelling. Once on the ground floor, Blake began exploring in a rapid fashion. All the inner doors were unlocked, so that he freely passed from room to room. The colossal nave was an almost eldritch place with its drifts and mountains of dust over box pews, altar, hourglass pulpit, and sounding-board, and its titanic ropes of cobweb stretching among the pointed arches of the gallery and entwining the clustered Gothic columns. Over all this hushed desolation played a hideous leaden light as the declining afternoon sun sent its rays through the strange, half-blackened panes of the great apsidal windows. The paintings on those windows were so obscured by soot that Blake could scarcely decipher what they had represented, but from the little he could make out he did not like them. The designs were largely conventional, and his knowledge of obscure symbolism told him much concerning some of the ancient patterns. The few saints depicted bore expressions distinctly open to criticism, while one of the windows seemed to shew merely a dark space with spirals of curious luminosity scattered about in it. Turning away from the windows, Blake noticed that the cobwebbed cross above the altar was not of the ordinary kind, but resembled the primordial ankh or crux ansata of shadowy Egypt. In a rear vestry room beside the apse Blake found a rotting desk and ceiling-high shelves of mildewed, disintegrating books. Here for the first time he received a positive shock of objective horror, for the titles of those books told him much. They were the black, forbidden things which most sane people have never even heard of, or have heard of only in furtive, timorous whispers; the banned and dreaded repositories of equivocal secrets and immemorial formulae which have trickled down the stream of time from the days of man's youth, and the dim, fabulous days before man was. He had himself read many of them—a Latin version of the abhorred Necronomicon, the sinister Liber Ivonis, the infamous Cultes des Goules of Comte d'Erlette, the Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, and old Ludvig Prinn's hellish De Vermis Mysteriis. But there were others he had known merely by reputation or not at all—the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Book of Dzyan, and a crumbling volume in wholly unidentifiable characters yet with certain symbols and diagrams shudderingly recognisable to the occult student. Clearly, the lingering local rumours had not lied. This place had once been the seat of an evil older than mankind and wider than the known universe. In the ruined desk was a small leather-bound record-book filled with entries in some odd cryptographic medium. The manuscript writing consisted of the common traditional symbols used today in astronomy and anciently in alchemy, astrology, and other dubious arts—the devices of the sun, moon, planets, aspects, and zodiacal signs—here massed in solid pages of text, with divisions and paragraphings suggesting that each symbol answered to some alphabetical letter. In the hope of later solving the cryptogram, Blake bore off this volume in his coat pocket. Many of the great tomes on the shelves fascinated him unutterably, and he felt tempted to borrow them at some later time. He wondered how they could have remained undisturbed so long. Was he the first to conquer the clutching, pervasive fear which had for nearly sixty years protected this deserted place from visitors? Having now thoroughly explored the ground floor, Blake ploughed again through the dust of the spectral nave to the front vestibule, where he had seen a door and staircase presumably leading up to the blackened tower and steeple—objects so long familiar to him at a distance. The ascent was a choking experience, for dust lay thick, while the spiders had done their worst in this constricted place. The staircase was a spiral with high, narrow wooden treads, and now and then Blake passed a clouded window looking dizzily out over the city. Though he had seen no ropes below, he expected to find a bell or peal of bells in the tower whose narrow, louver-boarded lancet windows his field-glass had studied so often. Here he was doomed to disappointment; for when he attained the top of the stairs he found the tower chamber vacant of chimes, and clearly devoted to vastly different purposes. The room, about fifteen feet square, was faintly lighted by four lancet windows, one on each side, which were glazed within their screening of decayed louver-boards. These had been further fitted with tight, opaque screens, but the latter were now largely rotted away. In the centre of the dust-laden floor rose a curiously angled stone pillar some four feet in height and two in average diameter, covered on each side with bizarre, crudely incised, and wholly unrecognisable hieroglyphs. On this pillar rested a metal box of peculiarly asymmetrical form; its hinged lid thrown back, and its interior holding what looked beneath the decade-deep dust to be an egg-shaped or irregularly spherical object some four inches through. Around the pillar in a rough circle were seven high-backed Gothic chairs still largely intact, while behind them, ranging along the dark-panelled walls, were seven colossal images of crumbling, black-painted plaster, resembling more than anything else the cryptic carven megaliths of mysterious Easter Island. In one corner of the cobwebbed chamber a ladder was built into the wall, leading up to the closed trap-door of the windowless steeple above. As Blake grew accustomed to the feeble light he noticed odd bas-reliefs on the strange open box of yellowish metal. Approaching, he tried to clear the dust away with his hands and handkerchief, and saw that the figurings were of a monstrous and utterly alien kind; depicting entities which, though seemingly alive, resembled no known life-form ever evolved on this planet. The four-inch seeming sphere turned out to be a nearly black, red-striated polyhedron with many irregular flat surfaces; either a very remarkable crystal of some sort, or an artificial object of carved and highly polished mineral matter. It did not touch the bottom of the box, but was held suspended by means of a metal band around its centre, with seven queerly designed supports extending horizontally to angles of the box's inner wall near the top. This stone, once exposed, exerted upon Blake an almost alarming fascination. He could scarcely tear his eyes from it, and as he looked at its glistening surfaces he almost fancied it was transparent, with half-formed worlds of wonder within. Into his mind floated pictures of alien orbs with great stone towers, and other orbs with titan mountains and no mark of life, and still remoter spaces where only a stirring in vague blacknesses told of the presence of consciousness and will. When he did look away, it was to notice a somewhat singular mound of dust in the far corner near the ladder to the steeple. Just why it took his attention he could not tell, but something in its contours carried a message to his unconscious mind. Ploughing toward it, and brushing aside the hanging cobwebs as he went, he began to discern something grim about it. Hand and handkerchief soon revealed the truth, and Blake gasped with a baffling mixture of emotions. It was a human skeleton, and it must have been there for a very long time. The clothing was in shreds, but some buttons and fragments of cloth bespoke a man's grey suit. There were other bits of evidence—shoes, metal clasps, huge buttons for round cuffs, a stickpin of bygone pattern, a reporter's badge with the name of the old Providence Telegram, and a crumbling leather pocketbook. Blake examined the latter with care, finding within it several bills of antiquated issue, a celluloid advertising calendar for 1893, some cards with the name “Edwin M. Lillibridge”, and a paper covered with pencilled memoranda. This paper held much of a puzzling nature, and Blake read it carefully at the dim westward window. Its disjointed text included such phrases as the following: “Prof. Enoch Bowen home from Egypt May 1844—buys old Free-Will Church in July—his archaeological work & studies in occult well known.” “Dr. Drowne of 4th Baptist warns against Starry Wisdom in sermon Dec. 29, 1844.” “Congregation 97 by end of '45.” “1846—3 disappearances—first mention of Shining Trapezohedron.” “7 disappearances 1848—stories of blood sacrifice begin.” “Investigation 1853 comes to nothing—stories of sounds.” “Fr. O'Malley tells of devil-worship with box found in great Egyptian ruins—says they call up something that can't exist in light. Flees a little light, and banished by strong light. Then has to be summoned again. Probably got this from deathbed confession of Francis X. Feeney, who had joined Starry Wisdom in '49. These people say the Shining Trapezohedron shews them heaven & other worlds, & that the Haunter of the Dark tells them secrets in some way.” “Story of Orrin B. Eddy 1857. They call it up by gazing at the crystal, & have a secret language of their own.” “200 or more in cong. 1863, exclusive of men at front.” “Irish boys mob church in 1869 after Patrick Regan's disappearance.” “Veiled article in J. March 14, '72, but people don't talk about it.” “6 disappearances 1876—secret committee calls on Mayor Doyle.” “Action promised Feb. 1877—church closes in April.” “Gang—Federal Hill Boys—threaten Dr. —— and vestrymen in May.” “181 persons leave city before end of '77—mention no names.” “Ghost stories begin around 1880—try to ascertain truth of report that no human being has entered church since 1877.” “Ask Lanigan for photograph of place taken 1851.” . . . Restoring the paper to the pocketbook and placing the latter in his coat, Blake turned to look down at the skeleton in the dust. The implications of the notes were clear, and there could be no doubt but that this man had come to the deserted edifice forty-two years before in quest of a newspaper sensation which no one else had been bold enough to attempt. Perhaps no one else had known of his plan—who could tell? But he had never returned to his paper. Had some bravely suppressed fear risen to overcome him and bring on sudden heart-failure? Blake stooped over the gleaming bones and noted their peculiar state. Some of them were badly scattered, and a few seemed oddly dissolved at the ends. Others were strangely yellowed, with vague suggestions of charring. This charring extended to some of the fragments of clothing. The skull was in a very peculiar state—stained yellow, and with a charred aperture in the top as if some powerful acid had eaten through the solid bone. What had happened to the skeleton during its four decades of silent entombment here Blake could not imagine. Before he realised it, he was looking at the stone again, and letting its curious influence call up a nebulous pageantry in his mind. He saw processions of robed, hooded figures whose outlines were not human, and looked on endless leagues of desert lined with carved, sky-reaching monoliths. He saw towers and walls in nighted depths under the sea, and vortices of space where wisps of black mist floated before thin shimmerings of cold purple haze. And beyond all else he glimpsed an infinite gulf of darkness, where solid and semi-solid forms were known only by their windy stirrings, and cloudy patterns of force seemed to superimpose order on chaos and hold forth a key to all the paradoxes and arcana of the worlds we know. Then all at once the spell was broken by an access of gnawing, indeterminate panic fear. Blake choked and turned away from the stone, conscious of some formless alien presence close to him and watching him with horrible intentness. He felt entangled with something—something which was not in the stone, but which had looked through it at him—something which would ceaselessly follow him with a cognition that was not physical sight. Plainly, the place was getting on his nerves—as well it might in view of his gruesome find. The light was waning, too, and since he had no illuminant with him he knew he would have to be leaving soon. It was then, in the gathering twilight, that he thought he saw a faint trace of luminosity in the crazily angled stone. He had tried to look away from it, but some obscure compulsion drew his eyes back. Was there a subtle phosphorescence of radio-activity about the thing? What was it that the dead man's notes had said concerning a Shining Trapezohedron? What, anyway, was this abandoned lair of cosmic evil? What had been done here, and what might still be lurking in the bird-shunned shadows? It seemed now as if an elusive touch of foetor had arisen somewhere close by, though its source was not apparent. Blake seized the cover of the long-open box and snapped it down. It moved easily on its alien hinges, and closed completely over the unmistakably glowing stone. At the sharp click of that closing a soft stirring sound seemed to come from the steeple's eternal blackness overhead, beyond the trap-door. Rats, without question—the only living things to reveal their presence in this accursed pile since he had entered it. And yet that stirring in the steeple frightened him horribly, so that he plunged almost wildly down the spiral stairs, across the ghoulish nave, into the vaulted basement, out amidst the gathering dusk of the deserted square, and down through the teeming, fear-haunted alleys and avenues of Federal Hill toward the sane central streets and the home-like brick sidewalks of the college district. During the days which followed, Blake told no one of his expedition. Instead, he read much in certain books, examined long years of newspaper files downtown, and worked feverishly at the cryptogram in that leather volume from the cobwebbed vestry room. The cipher, he soon saw, was no simple one; and after a long period of endeavour he felt sure that its language could not be English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, or German. Evidently he would have to draw upon the deepest wells of his strange erudition. Every evening the old impulse to gaze westward returned, and he saw the black steeple as of yore amongst the bristling roofs of a distant and half-fabulous world. But now it held a fresh note of terror for him. He knew the heritage of evil lore it masked, and with the knowledge his vision ran riot in queer new ways. The birds of spring were returning, and as he watched their sunset flights he fancied they avoided the gaunt, lone spire as never before. When a flock of them approached it, he thought, they would wheel and scatter in panic confusion—and he could guess at the wild twitterings which failed to reach him across the intervening miles. It was in June that Blake's diary told of his victory over the cryptogram. The text was, he found, in the dark Aklo language used by certain cults of evil antiquity, and known to him in a halting way through previous researches. The diary is strangely reticent about what Blake deciphered, but he was patently awed and disconcerted by his results. There are references to a Haunter of the Dark awaked by gazing into the Shining Trapezohedron, and insane conjectures about the black gulfs of chaos from which it was called. The being is spoken of as holding all knowledge, and demanding monstrous sacrifices. Some of Blake's entries shew fear lest the thing, which he seemed to regard as summoned, stalk abroad; though he adds that the street-lights form a bulwark which cannot be crossed. Of the Shining Trapezohedron he speaks often, calling it a window on all time and space, and tracing its history from the days it was fashioned on dark Yuggoth, before ever the Old Ones brought it to earth. It was treasured and placed in its curious box by the crinoid things of Antarctica, salvaged from their ruins by the serpent-men of Valusia, and peered at aeons later in Lemuria by the first human beings. It crossed strange lands and stranger seas, and sank with Atlantis before a Minoan fisher meshed it in his net and sold it to swarthy merchants from nighted Khem. The Pharaoh Nephren-Ka built around it a temple with a windowless crypt, and did that which caused his name to be stricken from all monuments and records. Then it slept in the ruins of that evil fane which the priests and the new Pharaoh destroyed, till the delver's spade once more brought it forth to curse mankind. Early in July the newspapers oddly supplement Blake's entries, though in so brief and casual a way that only the diary has called general attention to their contribution. It appears that a new fear had been growing on Federal Hill since a stranger had entered the dreaded church. The Italians whispered of unaccustomed stirrings and bumpings and scrapings in the dark windowless steeple, and called on their priests to banish an entity which haunted their dreams. Something, they said, was constantly watching at a door to see if it were dark enough to venture forth. Press items mentioned the long-standing local superstitions, but failed to shed much light on the earlier background of the horror. It was obvious that the young reporters of today are no antiquarians. In writing of these things in his diary, Blake expresses a curious kind of remorse, and talks of the duty of burying the Shining Trapezohedron and of banishing what he had evoked by letting daylight into the hideous jutting spire. At the same time, however, he displays the dangerous extent of his fascination, and admits a morbid longing—pervading even his dreams—to visit the accursed tower and gaze again into the cosmic secrets of the glowing stone. Then something in the Journal on the morning of July 17 threw the diarist into a veritable fever of horror. It was only a variant of the other half-humorous items about the Federal Hill restlessness, but to Blake it was somehow very terrible indeed. In the night a thunderstorm had put the city's lighting-system out of commission for a full hour, and in that black interval the Italians had nearly gone mad with fright. Those living near the dreaded church had sworn that the thing in the steeple had taken advantage of the street-lamps' absence and gone down into the body of the church, flopping and bumping around in a viscous, altogether dreadful way. Toward the last it had bumped up to the tower, where there were sounds of the shattering of glass. It could go wherever the darkness reached, but light would always send it fleeing. When the current blazed on again there had been a shocking commotion in the tower, for even the feeble light trickling through the grime-blackened, louver-boarded windows was too much for the thing. It had bumped and slithered up into its tenebrous steeple just in time—for a long dose of light would have sent it back into the abyss whence the crazy stranger had called it. During the dark hour praying crowds had clustered round the church in the rain with lighted candles and lamps somehow shielded with folded paper and umbrellas—a guard of light to save the city from the nightmare that stalks in darkness. Once, those nearest the church declared, the outer door had rattled hideously. But even this was not the worst. That evening in the Bulletin Blake read of what the reporters had found. Aroused at last to the whimsical news value of the scare, a pair of them had defied the frantic crowds of Italians and crawled into the church through the cellar window after trying the doors in vain. They found the dust of the vestibule and of the spectral nave ploughed up in a singular way, with bits of rotted cushions and satin pew-linings scattered curiously around. There was a bad odour everywhere, and here and there were bits of yellow stain and patches of what looked like charring. Opening the door to the tower, and pausing a moment at the suspicion of a scraping sound above, they found the narrow spiral stairs wiped roughly clean. In the tower itself a similarly half-swept condition existed. They spoke of the heptagonal stone pillar, the overturned Gothic chairs, and the bizarre plaster images; though strangely enough the metal box and the old mutilated skeleton were not mentioned. What disturbed Blake the most—except for the hints of stains and charring and bad odours—was the final detail that explained the crashing glass. Every one of the tower's lancet windows was broken, and two of them had been darkened in a crude and hurried way by the stuffing of satin pew-linings and cushion-horsehair into the spaces between the slanting exterior louver-boards. More satin fragments and bunches of horsehair lay scattered around the newly swept floor, as if someone had been interrupted in the act of restoring the tower to the absolute blackness of its tightly curtained days. Yellowish stains and charred patches were found on the ladder to the windowless spire, but when a reporter climbed up, opened the horizontally sliding trap-door, and shot a feeble flashlight beam into the black and strangely foetid space, he saw nothing but darkness, and an heterogeneous litter of shapeless fragments near the aperture. The verdict, of course, was charlatanry. Somebody had played a joke on the superstitious hill-dwellers, or else some fanatic had striven to bolster up their fears for their own supposed good. Or perhaps some of the younger and more sophisticated dwellers had staged an elaborate hoax on the outside world. There was an amusing aftermath when the police sent an officer to verify the reports. Three men in succession found ways of evading the assignment, and the fourth went very reluctantly and returned very soon without adding to the account given by the reporters. From this point onward Blake's diary shews a mounting tide of insidious horror and nervous apprehension. He upbraids himself for not doing something, and speculates wildly on the consequences of another electrical breakdown. It has been verified that on three occasions—during thunderstorms—he telephoned the electric light company in a frantic vein and asked that desperate precautions against a lapse of power be taken. Now and then his entries shew concern over the failure of the reporters to find the metal box and stone, and the strangely marred old skeleton, when they explored the shadowy tower room. He assumed that these things had been removed—whither, and by whom or what, he could only guess. But his worst fears concerned himself, and the kind of unholy rapport he felt to exist between his mind and that lurking horror in the distant steeple—that monstrous thing of night which his rashness had called out of the ultimate black spaces. He seemed to feel a constant tugging at his will, and callers of that period remember how he would sit abstractedly at his desk and stare out of the west window at that far-off, spire-bristling mound beyond the swirling smoke of the city. His entries dwell monotonously on certain terrible dreams, and of a strengthening of the unholy rapport in his sleep. There is mention of a night when he awaked to find himself fully dressed, outdoors, and headed automatically down College Hill toward the west. Again and again he dwells on the fact that the thing in the steeple knows where to find him. The week following July 30 is recalled as the time of Blake's partial breakdown. He did not dress, and ordered all his food by telephone. Visitors remarked the cords he kept near his bed, and he said that sleep-walking had forced him to bind his ankles every night with knots which would probably hold or else waken him with the labour of untying. In his diary he told of the hideous experience which had brought the collapse. After retiring on the night of the 30th he had suddenly found himself groping about in an almost black space. All he could see were short, faint, horizontal streaks of bluish light, but he could smell an overpowering foetor and hear a curious jumble of soft, furtive sounds above him. Whenever he moved he stumbled over something, and at each noise there would come a sort of answering sound from above—a vague stirring, mixed with the cautious sliding of wood on wood. Once his groping hands encountered a pillar of stone with a vacant top, whilst later he found himself clutching the rungs of a ladder built into the wall, and fumbling his uncertain way upward toward some region of intenser stench where a hot, searing blast beat down against him. Before his eyes a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of a vast, unplumbed abyss of night wherein whirled suns and worlds of an even profounder blackness. He thought of the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose centre sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a daemoniac flute held in nameless paws. Then a sharp report from the outer world broke through his stupor and roused him to the unutterable horror of his position. What it was, he never knew—perhaps it was some belated peal from the fireworks heard all summer on Federal Hill as the dwellers hail their various patron saints, or the saints of their native villages in Italy. In any event he shrieked aloud, dropped frantically from the ladder, and stumbled blindly across the obstructed floor of the almost lightless chamber that encompassed him. He knew instantly where he was, and plunged recklessly down the narrow spiral staircase, tripping and bruising himself at every turn. There was a nightmare flight through a vast cobwebbed nave whose ghostly arches reached up to realms of leering shadow, a sightless scramble through a littered basement, a climb to regions of air and street-lights outside, and a mad racing down a spectral hill of gibbering gables, across a grim, silent city of tall black towers, and up the steep eastward precipice to his own ancient door. On regaining consciousness in the morning he found himself lying on his study floor fully dressed. Dirt and cobwebs covered him, and every inch of his body seemed sore and bruised. When he faced the mirror he saw that his hair was badly scorched, while a trace of strange, evil odour seemed to cling to his upper outer clothing. It was then that his nerves broke down. Thereafter, lounging exhaustedly about in a dressing-gown, he did little but stare from his west window, shiver at the threat of thunder, and make wild entries in his diary. The great storm broke just before midnight on August 8th. Lightning struck repeatedly in all parts of the city, and two remarkable fireballs were reported. The rain was torrential, while a constant fusillade of thunder brought sleeplessness to thousands. Blake was utterly frantic in his fear for the lighting system, and tried to telephone the company around 1 a.m., though by that time service had been temporarily cut off in the interest of safety. He recorded everything in his diary—the large, nervous, and often undecipherable hieroglyphs telling their own story of growing frenzy and despair, and of entries scrawled blindly in the dark. He had to keep the house dark in order to see out the window, and it appears that most of his time was spent at his desk, peering anxiously through the rain across the glistening miles of downtown roofs at the constellation of distant lights marking Federal Hill. Now and then he would fumblingly make an entry in his diary, so that detached phrases such as “The lights must not go”; “It knows where I am”; “I must destroy it”; and “It is calling to me, but perhaps it means no injury this time”; are found scattered down two of the pages. Then the lights went out all over the city. It happened at 2:12 a.m. according to power-house records, but Blake's diary gives no indication of the time. The entry is merely, “Lights out—God help me.” On Federal Hill there were watchers as anxious as he, and rain-soaked knots of men paraded the square and alleys around the evil church with umbrella-shaded candles, electric flashlights, oil lanterns, crucifixes, and obscure charms of the many sorts common to southern Italy. They blessed each flash of lightning, and made cryptical signs of fear with their right hands when a turn in the storm caused the flashes to lessen and finally to cease altogether. A rising wind blew out most of the candles, so that the scene grew threateningly dark. Someone roused Father Merluzzo of Spirito Santo Church, and he hastened to the dismal square to pronounce whatever helpful syllables he could. Of the restless and curious sounds in the blackened tower, there could be no doubt whatever. For what happened at 2:35 we have the testimony of the priest, a young, intelligent, and well-educated person; of Patrolman William J. Monahan of the Central Station, an officer of the highest reliability who had paused at that part of his beat to inspect the crowd; and of most of the seventy-eight men who had gathered around the church's high bank wall—especially those in the square where the eastward facade was visible. Of course there was nothing which can be proved as being outside the order of Nature. The possible causes of such an event are many. No one can speak with certainty of the obscure chemical processes arising in a vast, ancient, ill-aired, and long-deserted building of heterogeneous contents. Mephitic vapours—spontaneous combustion—pressure of gases born of long decay—any one of numberless phenomena might be responsible. And then, of course, the factor of conscious charlatanry can by no means be excluded. The thing was really quite simple in itself, and covered less than three minutes of actual time. Father Merluzzo, always a precise man, looked at his watch repeatedly. It started with a definite swelling of the dull fumbling sounds inside the black tower. There had for some time been a vague exhalation of strange, evil odours from the church, and this had now become emphatic and offensive. Then at last there was a sound of splintering wood, and a large, heavy object crashed down in the yard beneath the frowning easterly facade. The tower was invisible now that the candles would not burn, but as the object neared the ground the people knew that it was the smoke-grimed louver-boarding of that tower's east window. Immediately afterward an utterly unbearable foetor welled forth from the unseen heights, choking and sickening the trembling watchers, and almost prostrating those in the square. At the same time the air trembled with a vibration as of flapping wings, and a sudden east-blowing wind more violent than any previous blast snatched off the hats and wrenched the dripping umbrellas of the crowd. Nothing definite could be seen in the candleless night, though some upward-looking spectators thought they glimpsed a great spreading blur of denser blackness against the inky sky—something like a formless cloud of smoke that shot with meteor-like speed toward the east. That was all. The watchers were half numbed with fright, awe, and discomfort, and scarcely knew what to do, or whether to do anything at all. Not knowing what had happened, they did not relax their vigil; and a moment later they sent up a prayer as a sharp flash of belated lightning, followed by an earsplitting crash of sound, rent the flooded heavens. Half an hour later the rain stopped, and in fifteen minutes more the street-lights sprang on again, sending the weary, bedraggled watchers relievedly back to their homes. The next day's papers gave these matters minor mention in connexion with the general storm reports. It seems that the great lightning flash and deafening explosion which followed the Federal Hill occurrence were even more tremendous farther east, where a burst of the singular foetor was likewise noticed. The phenomenon was most marked over College Hill, where the crash awaked all the sleeping inhabitants and led to a bewildered round of speculations. Of those who were already awake only a few saw the anomalous blaze of light near the top of the hill, or noticed the inexplicable upward rush of air which almost stripped the leaves from the trees and blasted the plants in the gardens. It was agreed that the lone, sudden lightning-bolt must have struck somewhere in this neighbourhood, though no trace of its striking could afterward be found. A youth in the Tau Omega fraternity house thought he saw a grotesque and hideous mass of smoke in the air just as the preliminary flash burst, but his observation has not been verified. All of the few observers, however, agree as to the violent gust from the west and the flood of intolerable stench which preceded the belated stroke; whilst evidence concerning the momentary burned odour after the stroke is equally general. These points were discussed very carefully because of their probable connexion with the death of Robert Blake. Students in the Psi Delta house, whose upper rear windows looked into Blake's study, noticed the blurred white face at the westward window on the morning of the 9th, and wondered what was wrong with the expression. When they saw the same face in the same position that evening, they felt worried, and watched for the lights to come up in his apartment. Later they rang the bell of the darkened flat, and finally had a policeman force the door. The rigid body sat bolt upright at the desk by the window, and when the intruders saw the glassy, bulging eyes, and the marks of stark, convulsive fright on the twisted features, they turned away in sickened dismay. Shortly afterward the coroner's physician made an examination, and despite the unbroken window reported electrical shock, or nervous tension induced by electrical discharge, as the cause of death. The hideous expression he ignored altogether, deeming it a not improbable result of the profound shock as experienced by a person of such abnormal imagination and unbalanced emotions. He deduced these latter qualities from the books, paintings, and manuscripts found in the apartment, and from the blindly scrawled entries in the diary on the desk. Blake had prolonged his frenzied jottings to the last, and the broken-pointed pencil was found clutched in his spasmodically contracted right hand. The entries after the failure of the lights were highly disjointed, and legible only in part. From them certain investigators have drawn conclusions differing greatly from the materialistic official verdict, but such speculations have little chance for belief among the conservative. The case of these imaginative theorists has not been helped by the action of superstitious Dr. Dexter, who threw the curious box and angled stone—an object certainly self-luminous as seen in the black windowless steeple where it was found—into the deepest channel of Narragansett Bay. Excessive imagination and neurotic unbalance on Blake's part, aggravated by knowledge of the evil bygone cult whose startling traces he had uncovered, form the dominant interpretation given those final frenzied jottings. These are the entries—or all that can be made of them. “Lights still out—must be five minutes now. Everything depends on lightning. Yaddith grant it will keep up! . . . Some influence seems beating through it. . . . Rain and thunder and wind deafen. . . . The thing is taking hold of my mind. . . . “Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies . . . Dark . . . The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light. . . . “It cannot be the real hill and church that I see in the pitch-darkness. Must be retinal impression left by flashes. Heaven grant the Italians are out with their candles if the lightning stops! “What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man? I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets. . . . “The long, winging flight through the void . . . cannot cross the universe of light . . . re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron . . . send it through the horrible abysses of radiance. . . . “My name is Blake—Robert Harrison Blake of 620 East Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. . . . I am on this planet. . . . “Azathoth have mercy!—the lightning no longer flashes—horrible—I can see everything with a monstrous sense that is not sight—light is dark and dark is light . . . those people on the hill . . . guard . . . candles and charms . . . their priests. . . . “Sense of distance gone—far is near and near is far. No light—no glass—see that steeple—that tower—window—can hear—Roderick Usher—am mad or going mad—the thing is stirring and fumbling in the tower—I am it and it is I—I want to get out . . . must get out and unify the forces. . . . It knows where I am. . . . “I am Robert Blake, but I see the tower in the dark. There is a monstrous odour . . . senses transfigured . . . boarding at that tower window cracking and giving way. . . . Iä . . . ngai . . . ygg. . . . “I see it—coming here—hell-wind—titan blur—black wings—Yog-Sothoth save me—the three-lobed burning eye. . . .”

By Bill Morris: Ploughing-the epitome of the colonial 'civilising' of land-is as fundamental to this country's history as war and rugby. Perhaps it's not surprising that we make a sport out of it.