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Pumpkins, carved. Candles, lit. Units, absolute. Welcome to a special Halloween bonus podcast by The Museum of English Rural Afterlife.

This time, ghosts Ollie and Joe welcome fiend-of-the-show Mark Norman (author, host of the Folklore Podcast, and founding curator of the Folklore Library and Archive) for a candle-lit walk through the history of Halloween. 

Join us as we cycle through the origins of Halloween, the challenges of collecting folklore (and intangible cultural heritage), the crossovers between the conventionally spooky and the rural, and what Scooby Doo can teach us about all these, and more.

Listen now —  if you dare! And should you brave our audio feast to its final course, please remember to leave us a glowing review praising how scary and charming we are.

Also, politely ask your neighbour to remove that garlic from their front porch. It’s, um, causing quite the stench, and our visitors are starting to complain.

• Listen to the Folklore Podcast: https://www.thefolklorepodcast.com/

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Special thanks to Kevin MacLeod for the recording of J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Absolute Units is the official podcast of The Museum of English Rural Life. This series is made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England and Museums Partnership Reading, a partnership of The MERL with Reading Museum. Theme tune by Tai Dawson. This podcast contains audio from Epidemic Sound.

Co-hosts: Ollie Douglas and Joe Vaughan
Producer: Joe Vaughan

• Shop MERL merch: https://merl-shop.co.uk/shop/absolute-unit.html
• Support the pod: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/visit-us/donate/