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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Dan Wells Ph.D. is a scholar of American religious history, consulting faculty at Duke Divinity School, Methodist pastor, and hunter outdoorsman in Muskingum County, Ohio.  On this episode focused on the Christian God & wild snake handling churches of Appalachia, we begin with a haunting story about Dan's ancestors' old home-place. Back-&-forth we share experiences about our Christian upbringings, early skepticisms on the likes of hypocrisy and the problem of evil, followed by Dan's religious calling as an intellectual pursuit. From there we're into the serpents with Dan describing his first-hand experiences at a Kentucky snake church, diving into the history, beliefs, deaths and legal restrictions of these serpent handling practitioners opening conversations about martyrdom & sainthood, the Hopi snake dance, Biblical snake symbolism, and rattlesnake catch-&-release hunting. From there we bring together Christianity and reverence for nature through the teachings of the early desert fathers and mystics. We end on dreams and an allegorical hunting story about God's fatherly protection over his spiritual children.

Reading from Foxfire 7: "The People Who Take Up Serpents" by Elliot Wigginton

Learn more about Dan at DrDanWells.com

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William Hess-Martin of Venatic Opus is a writer, hunter, artist and Jungian in Southern Quebec, Canada. On this Jungian walkabout, we explore a handful of the ideas of Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, as they relate to hunting. After Jungian readings about hunting taboos & ritual in native cultures, we begin with musings on Canada, America, Europe, Catholicism and Protestantism all leading to St. Hubert [the patron saint of hunters] for a discussion about the symbology, history and legend of the saint's conversion before the divine stag. From Hubert's stag to William's buck, we hear the story of William's first whitetail hunt and what that meant for him opening conversations on instincts, the search, and the numinous. Through the symbol of the white deer, William dives into Carl Jung's study of alchemy as a metaphor for personal transformation, a combining of the material with the spiritual; including the Greek myth of the huntress Atalanta appearing in an alchemical text from the 1600's. Then we're on to the fantastical unicorn of medieval legend & lore with William beautifully describing the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries with their Edenic forests, hounds, huntsmen, and the pure-hearted virgin. We end this Jungian trek on the most Jungian topic possible...the interpretation of dreams, and hunting dreams no less! 

Reading from Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales and Interpretation of Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz. 

Check out William's Instagram and Venatic Opus blog.

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Dr. Scott Yarbrough, PhD is a professor of English at Charleston Southern University, as well as the host of two literary podcasts, Reading McCarthy & Great American Novel out of Charleston, South Carolina. This episode is dedicated to the hunting novella "The Bear" by America's 20th-century literary master, William Faulkner. After a reading, we begin with Faulkner's biography as Scott describes the major themes within his writing: the southern gothic push back to the over-romanticization of the old south; race & the aftermath of slavery; time & history; and the tension between loving & hating where one comes from. Then we turn to a discussion, synopsis & analysis of "The Bear;" a coming-of-age tale about a boy's hunting camp as they search for a dog powerful enough to bay the mythic bear, Old Ben, that haunts a 100-square miles of Mississippi wilderness that soon will vanish under the logger's ax. Woven throughout are conversations about: the evolution of curse words; writers that hunt; "toxic masculinity;" bear symbolism; the wildness within; Scott's rural upbringing; urbanites appreciating southern literature; and last but not least, William Faulkner's feist dogs!

Reading from Big Woods: The Hunting Stories by William Faulkner. 

Check out Scott's podcasts, Reading McCarthy and Great American Novel Podcast.

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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. For this Christmas special we focus in on one of the most mysterious Yuletide tales, the anonymous medieval poem of Sir Gawain & The Green Knight. After a reading about a royal deer hunt, Oliver opens on where he lives, amongst countryside & stone circles in south-western England. Giving us a summary of the The Green Knight legend, Oliver inspires conversations on the mythological & psychological: integrating the wild man within; hunting & ferreting; the Celtic roots behind the Arthurian legends; Cernunnos [the ancient European god of wild beasts]; Green Man; the headdress of a German shaman; and the overuse of the Jungian word "archetype." To wrap up this mythically merry chat, Oliver shares a haunting story about his own numinous experience at a burial cairn on the windy moors of Devon.

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

Readings from Sir Gawain & The Green Knight translated by Simon Armitage

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Mark Norman is an English folklore researcher, author, lecturer and host of The Folklore Podcast in Devon, England. We begin with comparative readings about spectral road dogs in Virginia and in England. Mark tells us a bit about his county, of ship scuttlers & Wistman's Wood. Looking for the oldest written account of ghostly black dogs in the United Kingdom, we hear of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a wild hunt of demonic hunters. From there we focus in on the lore: the Black Shuck event at Bungay & Blythburgh churches in 1577; black dog sightings as omens of death; and protective spirit dogs. We end on how landscape features become part of folklore, the future of folklore, and the winter tradition of Wassailing around the apple orchard.

Check out Mark's folkloric books and his popular podcast, The Folklore Podcast.

Painting discussed on podcast: "The Wild Hunt of Odin"

Readings from Virginia Folk Legends edited by Thomas Barden and Black Dog Folklore by Mark Norman. 

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