For the bridal month of June, Chris and Simon discuss wedding divination and love charms both racy and grim, as well as the links between weddings and death. Unlucky wedding omens and dress superstitions, brides stolen by the Good People, trousseaux shrouds, and a special guest appearance by the versatile St Joseph. Adult content? Perhaps too much...

Chris and Simon delve into the mystery of the miniature coffins and their doll-corpses, found on Arthur’s Seat in 1836. Who made them and why? Are they murder memorials, malign magic, or outsider art? The redoubtable pair look at funerary fashions, toy soldiers, and the Odd Fellows fraternal order and bicker about how best to curse your enemy. 

Zombies and Draugar and Byland, oh my! Simon and Chris discuss a series of unique supernatural tales from Byland Abbey and fifteenth-century Yorkshire. There are revenants who talk through their entrails, very busy shapeshifters, and a revolving hay-cock with a light in the middle. Questions are raised about why the soul hangs around its rotting body, and what the purgatory do all these walking dead want. Chris herself turns very briefly into a zombie and both Chris and Simon mourn a dog. 

In this episode on late examples of American witchcraft, Chris and Simon discuss a bewitched village, a witch trial—in Salem, Ohio, 'calico soup' made with a witch’s dress, and some horrifying witch murders. Unusually, the two actually agree on some of the similarities between American Witch/Hex Doctors and Britain's Cunning Men and Women.

Chris and Simon are all aflap over the history of fairy wings—when did fairy wings first appear and how did they become a standard feature of western fairies? Sylphs, putti, and Victorian prostitutes flit by as the two bicker over how images of supernatural beings change when influenced by popular culture. Strap into your stage flying harnesses--it's going to be a bumpy ride... 

Chris and Simon talk about the folklore and Forteana of charms and talismans and ways to either attract good luck or keep off the bad: bones and blood and corpse magic for gamblers, military charms of the Great War, cauls and German submarines and the condemnation of ‘mascotitis.’  Some adult content...
The source book is free! 

A spooky story for our listeners from nineteenth-century Ohio. Happy Christmas and please subscribe!

Chris and Simon discuss fairy food, ‘hungry ghosts’, and a little-known case of Mary Doheny, a ‘fairy resurrectionist’ in 19th century Ireland, who claimed to be able to bring the dead back to life. Transcripts from the Doheny’s trial for fraud illuminate contemporary Irish beliefs about the dead and the world of the Good People. Witnesses swore that they saw their dead loved ones in the flesh, but how did Mary do it? A booklet accompanies the podcast: The Fairy Witch of Carrick-on-Suir: A Source Book for a Nineteenth-Century Resurrectionist

Chris and Simon ponder the fundamental question: What is a ghost? Are they merely folktales? Blots of undigested mustard? Proof of life after death? Also news of a boggart and banshee Facebook page, a t-rex ghost and a naked Icelandic zombie doing housework.

Simon and Chris celebrate the first year anniversary of the Boggart and Banshee podcast  by examining a little-known case of a North Yorkshire family tormented by witches and their familiars. Trances were minutely documented in a journal kept by poet Edward Fairfax, father of two bewitched and one witch-murdered daughter.  Accompanying booklet: Edward Fairfax, The Fewston Witches 1621-1623: A Yorkshire Coven (Pwca Books and Pamphlets).