Simeon England is a blacksmith, traditional flintlock hunter, and living historian portraying the 18th-century frontiersmen, scouts and longhunters of Kentucky. We start this living history episode about the daily lives of the colonial longhunters [1760s-1770s] who set out from Virginia & North Carolina for deer skins & furs in the wilds of Kentucky, with readings of first-hand accounts about beavers and salt licks. From their hunting methods to their frontier camps we discuss topics such as: tomahawks; boiling salt; hide work; backcountry blacksmithing; traps; horses; dogs; wolves; a slippery elm cure for peeling feet; deer & bear hunting; and buffalo traces. There's learning from books & then there's learning from doing, as Simeon shares some lessons learned from hunting with period gear & flintlock rifles. We hear of Simon Kenton's harrowing experiences running the gauntlet while captured by natives and conclude on a sort of reverence for the craftsman's raw, natural materials [that perhaps we have lost in our age of fast & cheap mass manufacturing]. 

Readings from The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina by William Byrd and by A Tour of the United States of America by JFD Smyth.

Check out Simeon England's blacksmithing at SimeonEngland.com. Follow him on Instagram & watch his Townsends Longhunter living history features.

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Fair Lawn Farm's 18th-Century Trades Fair is an annual living history trades encampment in bucolic Highland County, Virginia, featuring artisans affiliated with the likes of Colonial Williamsburg, The Frontier Culture Museum, The Smithsonian and Townsends. For this in-the-field episode, we will be touring the tents, hearing from a dozen craftsmen-&-women about their historical trades ranging from gunsmithing & engraving, to powder horn making & woodworking. Topics discussed: Indian trade silver; gorgets; tin as 18th-century plastic; how to be an American peddler; the itinerant green-woodworker; bread-baking with "baker's match;" natural dyes made from wood shavings; historical uses of animal fats such as bear grease, deer & cow tallow; powder horns and the origin of scrimshaw folk art; casting lead ammunition; Fort Seybert's annual fort burning festival; the surveyor's compass & the white man's flies; acanthus scrollwork on flintlock firearms & self-taught mastery; and last and most importantly, the potential for a craft revival as the antidote to the AI Revolution. Till next year!

Reading from Colonial Craftsmen: And the Beginnings of American Industry by Edwin Tunis

Check out the Fair Lawn Farm events page at visitFairLawnFarm.com 

The Craftsmen-&-women in order:

• Tim Duff - Farm Owner/Event Organizer 
• Mitch Yates - Gunsmith/Silversmith 
• Historian's Stitch - Tinsmith 
• Ye Lowfarb Pedlar - Peddler 
• Stone House History - Bodger & Wife
• Simeon England - Engraver/Blacksmith
• Mark Bradbury - Horner/Scrimshaw Artist
• David Allen - Longhunter/Knifemaker 
• Paul Parish - Surveyor
• Mark Thomas - Engraver/Gunsmith
• David Ray Pine - Woodworker/Furniture Maker

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Simon Whitehead is an English ferreter, professional rabbit manager, traveling game fair demonstrator and author, living & working out of his van in the United Kingdom. After readings about ferreting through the ages from Ancient Rome to Victorian England, we open with Simon painting a picture of a traditional British ferreting rabbit hunt with nets, spades, lurchers [rabbit coursing dogs] and a box of ferrets. We hear of the UK's highly invasive, non-native common rabbit; the modern culture's feelings on hunting & eating wild game; and the need to control the damage of farmers' fields and urban infrastructure. Turning to history we discuss the medieval ferreting of the peasants opening conversations about poaching and class. Getting back to this charming domesticated mustelid, we touch on: working ferrets vs pets, handling, and what happens when one gets stuck down in a warren. We end on stories of digging out ferrets with historical newspaper clippings about hunters found dead in rabbit holes...

Check out Simon's book, Pugs & Drummers: A Ferreter's Fable and follow him on Instagram and YouTube. 

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Terri Conroy is an Irish herbalist, homesteader, and YouTuber under the name Danu's Irish Herb Garden in Connemara, Ireland. After a reading from Irish mythology about reincarnation during the founding invasions of Ireland, we begin with Terri describing the dramatic landscape where she lives & how the likes of her family subsistence farmed along the windy coast; from cutting turf in the bogs for their winter's heating to the use of various herbal remedies. For her first numinous story, she tells of a mysterious night in her youth, when without the cottage window she heard enchanting fairy music. Of course fairies open up folk-mythic conversations about the Tuatha dé Danann, the gods and goddesses of Irish mythology: the salmon of knowledge, fairy trees, Dian Cécht the healing god, and family anecdotes about the fairies in the fields and the ragged ghosts along the roads, ghosts who hearken back to the devastating mid-19th-century potato famine. From there, we hear about the Celtic holidays of the year, highlighting the upcoming summer festival of harvest, sports and crafts, Lughnasadh. We end by ruminating on connecting to one's roots, plant journeys, and the Irish mother goddess, Danu. 

Check out Terri's YouTube channel, Danu's Irish Herb Garden and find out more at her website, Danusirishhergarden.com.

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Russ Williams is a Welsh blogger & the author of Where the Folk; A Welsh Folklore Road Trip from Caernarfon, Wales. After readings about the Cŵn Annwn [a mythological pack of otherworldly hunting hounds], we open our conversation on Welsh identity with the preservation of their Celtic language along with tidbits of history and local foods such as the lunch meal of the miners, the Welsh oggie. Jumping into Russ' book on the folkways and lore of Wales we hear about: the macabre horse skull costume known as the Mari Lwyd; a mermaid sex-slave; a tourist town banking on the legend of Gelert the Dog killed by his own master; and finally the epic Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh mythology. For his own uncanny story, Russ takes us out of his homeland to the streets of Bangkok where he was outwitted by a fortuneteller. We bring it back around on more canine folklore and a travel tip for Eryri National Park, formerly known as Snowdonia. 

Reading from the Mabinogion translated by Lady Charlotte Guest. 

Check out Russ' book Where the Folk; A Welsh Folklore Roadtrip. And learn more about him at RussWilliams.org

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Oliver Lavery is an English mythologist, folklorist, traveling professional storyteller, and host of The Story Crow YouTube channel from Wiltshire County, England, the home of Stonehenge. For this summer solstice special, our return guest describes our recent trip to Avebury, Britain's largest Neolithic complex with its stone circles, village-sized henge [ditch], passage graves and giant manmade mound. First we've got to know, who built these mysterious megaliths & ancient earthworks; and for what purpose? Oliver shares a psychedelic vision he had during the annual solstice festivities that correlates with recent metaphysical theories that the stone circles assist the spirits of the dead. With the many burial mounds scattered across the landscape, we hear of uncanny sights & senses while camping amongst them along the ancient Ridgeway Trail. We conclude the highlights of mysterious Avebury with the largest prehistoric artificial mound in Europe, Silbury Hill. From there we muse on crop circles; hallucinogenic goblins; the similarity between bards & shamans; and finally, a little local lore from Wiltshire.

Check out Oliver's Story Crow YouTube Channel and follow his van-life Instagram @The_Folk_Bus


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Dom Flemons, aka The American Songster, is a Grammy-award winning, founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, as well as a solo Piedmont blues, folk, and old-time musician and historian/scholar of American music residing in Chicago, Illinois. After a reading from the memoir of a 19th-century black cowboy, we begin by hearing how folk music, with a focus on the African American contribution, transformed as it migrated with the people from the rural south to the northern cities. From there we dissect three folk instruments: the rhythm bones, stone mason jugs, and washboards with musical examples of each. Dom's early interest in history and literature led the way to his pioneering Black Cowboys Smithsonian Folkways album. He describes his research into this forgotten chapter of American history and his collecting of folk stories & cowboy poems. We come to an end on this musical episode with a haunting story about playing a song at the graves of an influential African American family band. 

Reading from The Life and Adventures of Nat Love by Nat Love.

Check out Dom Flemon's website, follow him on Instagram @domflemons and check his upcoming tour dates. 

Music by Dom Flemons

"Old Chisholm Trail"
Written & Performed by Dom Flemons

"Rabbit Foot Rag"
Written & Performed by Dom Flemons

"John Henry y los vaqueros"
Written & Performed by Dom Flemons

"Ol' Proc"
Performed by Dom Flemons

"Snowden's Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)"
Written & Performed by Carolina Chocolate Drops

"It's Cold Inside"
Written & Performed by Dom Flemons

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Laura Stotts is a North Carolina photographer, genealogist, and writer known as Diary of Abandonment, dedicated to the lost histories of abandoned houses. We begin with her recent preservation work, a field day chinking a cabin at the world's largest collection of log structures. Then we're in the deep end as Laura shares her moving life story, from her trials of addiction & hopelessness to finding a divine calling & a meaningful connection to God, a journey of healing paved with synchronicities that involved abandoned places, saving the life of an elderly veteran and the funeral of a Tuskegee Airman lost since WWII. From there we get into the rubble and hear about her adventures exploring abandoned houses: from booby-traps; to an unhinged & armed landowner; to an ominous basement; and a haunting story about finding a stack of WWII letters between sons at war and their mother & wives at home.  We come to an end of this subtly gothic episode, hearing of illuminating dreams in which Laura's grandparents delivered important encouragement about her role as the family historian, furthering her appreciation for the difficult lives of her ancestors.

Check out Laura's website Diary of Abandonment and follow her on Instagram and Facebook. 

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Donna La Pré is an esotericist and biodynamic farmer who under the name Tender Flower creates potent perfumes and natural skincare products in her home workshop in Rappahannock County, Virginia. On this highly esoteric exploration of unseen worlds through an Anthroposophic lens, Donna begins by introducing the 19th-century Austrian clairvoyant, Rudolf Steiner & his wisdom path known as Anthroposophy. We deep dive into topics such as: primitive clairvoyance; Christ as the living power of love; the physical, astral, and etheric bodies; reincarnation; and natural rhythms as an antidote to the negative effects of our hyper-technological world. Artificial Intelligence and the creepiness of transhumanism shifts the conversation to the deceptive, materialistic, coldly intellectual being Steiner called Ahriman whose aim is to harden our souls and halt human evolution. For the last third we get into the elementals, the entities or forces of the natural world. Donna ends with three enchanting tales of how she has tangibly experienced the elementals, from building a community-healing urban garden to the etheric medicine emanating from a holly tree. 

Check out Tender Flower and follow Donna on Instagram. 

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Phoenix Aurelius is a modern day alchemist & founder of the Phoenix Aurelius Research Center [specializing in spagyric medicine] tucked away in the mountains of Webster County, West Virginia. On this esoteric excursion into the mind of an alchemist, we open on the four dimensions of our multi-dimensional reality: the physical, the astral, the causal, and the spiritual. From there we delve into the history and teachings of Paracelsus, the 16th-century alchemist & physician, exploring topics such as: fire-water-air-earth; sulfur-mercury-salt as the soul-spirit-body of any material; life-death-rebirth and reaching immortality in the laboratory; the difference between herbalism & spagyria; and the historical alchemists' fixation on generating gold. Phoenix then describes in vivid detail the recipe for creating the legendary Philosopher's Stone, that if ingested, according to lore, brings everlasting life! Following is a wild story about a FBI phone call & the death of a fellow alchemist. After thoughts & impressions on past-lives, dwarves, and Carl Jung's alchemical psychology, Phoenix shares a potent story about his near-death experiences as a kid with lucid visions of ancestors & the lobby of heaven. Pop open your bubbling lab flask & take a huge swig of this mind-bending sonic elixir! 

Learn more about Phoenix, his spagyric products & research at PhoenixAurelius.org

Music by BAILE

"Follow"
Written & Performed by BAILE & Ellyn Woods

"Intro"
Written & Performed by BAILE

"Diner"
Written & Performed by BAILE

"Dent"
Written & Performed by BAILE

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Contact: [email protected]