Dowsing is a fascinating form of divination since it is often used to find water, minerals, or even lost items. While other forms of divination like tarot or botanomancy seek to provide information, here the information is often of a tangible sort. Rather than telling a fortune, or providing a prophetic dream that must be interpreted, dowsing appears to relate information about the presence of something the dowser is looking for.

Given dowsing can be used to find a whole range of things, this article will focus on the use of dowsing to locate water. After all, this comprises much of the discussion about dowsing within folklore. This form of dowsing also enjoyed other names, including water witching, well witching, water divining, or rhabdomancy.

While dowsing can also be performed using a pendulum, sometimes held over a map when dowsing for water, this article will also focus on the use of rods, since this appears more frequently in folklore. Let's find out more about dowsing in this week’s episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/folklore-of-dowsing/

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There can be a tendency to view folklore as antiquated customs, old legends, or outdated practices. Yet folklore is not disconnected from contemporary life, and is an ever-evolving part of our lived experience. Folk music and folk art are two obvious branches, yet dialect and language is another.

Louise Pound refers to dialect as "a species of folklore" while J. D. A. Widdowson described language and folklore as "those twin pillars on which the whole fabric of our cultural traditions rests".

True, language does evolve and change over time, but as dialects run parallel to folklore, and preserve traditions in linguistic form, I thought it high time that we visit a specific dialect - mine.

Let's explore some of the background of the Geordie dialect - and some of its phrases - in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/geordie-dialect/

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The Loch Ness Monster is perhaps one of the world's most enduring mysteries. Does a giant reptile really lurk in a Scottish loch? Has it somehow survived for millennia on its own? Or is it something darker and more dangerous? It is, after all, a monster.

Its legend dates to the 7th century, although recorded sightings really begin in earnest in the 1930s. It feels somehow ancient and modern at the same time, with scientists on a quest to find evidence either way as to its existence.

While the 'reality' of the Loch Ness Monster is beyond my scope, the legends and the ways in which people have shared their sightings are not. Much like ghost stories, Nessie sightings echo across time, with people poring over their similarities - and their differences - in search of the truth.

So let's explore the Loch Ness Monster's legends in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/loch-ness-monster/

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Few maritime disasters have captured the public imagination like the RMS Titanic. Perhaps it's because of the relatively recent nature of its sinking, compared to the loss of the Mary Rose warship. 

The countless films, documentaries, and exhibitions probably help in prolonging fascination. New theories and reconstructions attempt to pin blame on one factor or another as the reason the ship sank.

But as we're focused on folklore and legends here, what legends or ghost stories have become attached to RMS Titanic? Why are people convinced that ghosts still linger in the wreckage, or that a cursed mummy is to blame for the disaster? Let's find out in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/legends-of-RMS-Titanic/

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In this month's episode of Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm talking to Russ Williams, the author of Where the Folk: A Welsh Folklore Road Trip. Russ grew up in Caernarfon in North Wales, where he was raised on Welsh stories, like the one about a mountain that would send you mad or turn you into a gifted poet if you camped out on it, or the one about the lost civilization drowned by the sea, and the one about the bottomless lake leading down to the Welsh Otherworld. He now lives in Cardiff. 

In this chat, we get into the origin story of the Devil's Bridge legend, we talk about whether stories can ever truly be claimed by one place, and an eccentric figure from Welsh history who has passed into legend.

Buy Where the Folk from Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/12992/9781915279705

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When we look at types of folkloric creature, we often encounter the same types in different places, such as mermaids or fairies. But occasionally, you encounter a creature so localised that it only appears in a single place. The Blue Men of the Minch are one such example.

Feared by sailors, the Blue Men of the Minch lived in the straight between the Shiant Islands and Long Island. This stretch of water is known as sruth nam Fear Gorm, or the Stream of the Blue Men.

Most descriptions mention how similar they look to humans - if those humans had blue skin. They usually have grey faces, white beards, and long arms. They're also fearfully strong. And they're also humans with a fondness for pulling ships into the depths.

Let's find out more about them in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/blue-men-of-the-minch/

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If we think of submerged cities, lost beneath the waves, we're probably most likely to think of Atlantis, that thought-experiment that took on a life of its own. Closer to home, there's the lost Welsh kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod, believed to lie between Bae Ceredigion and Ynys Enlli. 

Yet there are countless tales of submerged villages along both the west and east coast of England too, not to mention villages lost to the depths of lakes or reservoirs.

Many of them share a preoccupation with drowned church bells continuing to toll beneath the water. Others tell stories of losses often assigned to divine retribution. So how do these villages appear in folklore? Let's take a look in this week’s episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/submerged-villages/

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The humble mouse appears in a surprising amount of folklore. Both a harbinger of death if spotted in the house, and a medical remedy for a range of ailments, it seems the mouse both harms and heals.

This reputation even stretches back to ancient Egypt, demonstrating just how ambivalent humans have felt about the tiny rodent for centuries. With strange origin stories, links to a Belgian saint, a use in divination, and a helpful role as the Tooth Mouse, their lore covers a lot of bases!

Let's take a look at the mouse in folklore in this week’s episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/mouse-in-folklore/

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Welcome back to Fabulous Folklore Presents. This time, I'm delighted to be talking to Darragh Mason, a multi-award-winning photographer, author, and researcher. He studied photography at Dublin City University and has traveled extensively across Asia, Europe, and America, where he has written articles and published his photography. His work has taken him to post-war countries such as Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo. Darragh is particularly renowned for his photographic work on the Aghori Hindu sect and his research on the Djinn.

Darragh also hosts the award-nominated podcast *Spirit Box*, which explores topics of folklore, magic, and the spirit world. Beyond photography, he is the co-creator of the Sigil Engine, a technomantic art project. His book, "Song of the Dark Man, Father of Witches, Lord of the Crossroads", delves into the Dark Man as a devil-like figure in folklore and magic, exploring his role as trickster, initiatory guide of witches and creative force.

In this chat, we talk about the Dark Man as a concept, discuss his role in initiatory tales, and get into folklore as a continuum, rather than something that just happened in the past. There's a bonus rant about AI too!

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Humans first domesticated horses in around 3500 BC. Since then, they’ve pulled our chariots and carts, carried royalty and soldiers, worked on farms, and been steadfast companions.

Horses are actually a prey animal, which perhaps explains their vulnerability to supernatural attack by witches and fairies. 

Yet as the stories in this episode will show, they’re also famous for their speed, ability to help humans, and even fantastical leaps and bounds.

But let’s look at these horses, from spectres to Black Bess, in this week’s episode of Fabulous Folklore!

Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/horses-in-folklore/

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