Chris and Simon discuss fairy fashions and how they have changed through the ages, in literature, folklore, fairy sightings, and popular culture. The color green, archaic fashions, wings, and a tiny pair of shoes made of mouse skin all make an appearance on the catwalk.    

To celebrate Simon’s just released book "The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends", Chris and Simon share some of their favorite gruesome and naughty urban legends from the nineteenth century.

Chris and Simon look at the folklore of spook lights and road ghosts while discussing the story of 'The Headless Motorcyclist of Elmore,' a rural legend that shifted from a very traditional tale of the spirit of a dead man appearing as a ball of light to the dramatic tale of a motorcyclist we know today. Does folklore have its own standards of truth? 

One midsummer’s morning, c. 1820, William Butterfield opened the door to the Wells, a healing spring on the edge of Ilkley Moor. He was startled to find a band of little creatures dressed in green from head to foot, who were noisily disporting themselves in the water. As he watched, they scurried over the eight-foot-high wall, and disappeared. Is there any way to determine exactly what William Butterfield saw that morning? Were they insects, lizards, or, as William believed, fairies? Simon and Chris investigate. 

Source: http://www.strangehistory.net/puca-ghost-witch-and-fairy-pamphlets/the-witches-and-fairies-of-nineteenth-century-ilkley/

Chris and Simon look at a supernatural category: the death omen, or token of death, as it is sometimes known in the 19th century. Almost anything could be a death omen; hundreds were recorded by folklorists. These could include phantom funerals, the banshee’s scream, mysterious knockings, seeing shrouds, and ghostly birds. Is there any explanation for such portents? And would you want to know if you were about to die?

Simon and Chris discuss the “Wesley Poltergeist” that plagued the family of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism at Epworth Rectory in Lincolnshire for over a year with an unusual variety of mysterious knockings and noises that the family blamed on “Old Jeffrey.” A thing like a rabbit and a headless badger also put in appearances. Was this a teenage girl’s prank? Or, yet another example of poltergeist activity arising in an unhappy family?

 In celebration of the publication of Simon's new book The Boggart: Folklore, History, Placenames and Dialect, Chris and Simon talk about the nature of these terrifying, solitary supernatural creatures, focusing on one of their last lairs in England: Boggart Hole Clough. 

On the evening of 23 September 1979, some English schoolchildren had a bizarre encounter at Wollaton Park, Nottinghamshire with colorfully-dressed gnomes in cars. Chris and Simon look at some possible origins for these entities, and try to sort out the logistics of who, where and why, while discussing reports of other gnomes from the area.

In 1871, the Hoffman family in Wooster, Ohio were attacked by a mysterious entity they called “IT,” which, in addition to the usual poltergeist tricks of knockings and throwing items, cut up the family’s clothing, sometimes while still on the wearer.  What was the explanation? Hostile spirits? Spiritualist mediums run amok? Or the physical manifestation of family dysfunction?

An 1878 winter ghost story for our listeners set in early nineteenth-century Dorchester. Happy Christmas and please subscribe!