Avsnitt
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Simon and Chris dive into a rare cryptid case from Orkney where hundreds of witnesses saw a 'mermaid' swimming in the sea, sitting on a rock, snacking on fish and eels, and tending to her child. Stories of the mermaid went viral in the press. What in the watery world was the creature? Manatee, mutant seal, giant otter or, say it quietly, an actual mermaid? And why, after several years of summer visits to the bay at Deerness, did it vanish from the papers and from history? The duo trade notes about favorite cryptids. Chris goes off on a tangent about giant pink lizards, monsters in the nineteenth-century press and an escaped iguana, and she and Simon nearly come to blows over Cannock Chase and the supernatural/natural nature of unknown creatures.
The source book for the episode is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deerness-Mermaid-Attested-Nineteenth-Century-Cryptid/dp/1915574404/ref
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Chris and Simon lift the stone on a nest of ancient terrors, with bosom serpents, snakes on tombs and in graves, helpful household ophidians, and the medicinal horrors of Asclepius’s temple. ('It did what to you?!') Simon tells of his own blood-chilling encounter with a poisonous hisser, while fake snake women, flying serpents, and the perils of vino alla vipera slither revoltingly into the podcast. The duo bicker over cryptozoological creatures’ credibility and ask whether a snake can suckle on a breast or udder: the lap vs suck debate. Also fairies and snakes? Prepare to be amazed amid the Sicilian rosemary.
Some biblio:
Boss snakes : stories and sightings of giant snakes in North America, Chad Arment
The bosom serpent : folklore and popular art, Harold Schechter
Towards a Critical Anthology of Pre-Modern Bosom Serpent Folklore, Davide Ermacora, Roberto Labanti, Andrea Marcon
Big Snake The Hunt for the World’s Longest Python, Robert Twigger.
https://richlandcountyhistory.com/2019/05/08/the-great-serpent-of-lexington/ [this needs to go up as a separate post on the page - wonderful story!]
http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/creature-feature-the-mexican-mine-monster/
Superfluous snakes – snake showers http://hauntedohiobooks.com/interesting-people/11830/
A Woman-Eating Serpent: Hissssteria over Snakes
http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/woman-eating-serpent-hissssteria-snakes/
https://www.the-daily-record.com/story/news/2012/08/19/when-wayne-was-whippersnapper-rogues/19462591007/
SNAIX: Vintage Snake Tales http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/snaix-vintage-snake-tales/
For a superlative story of snake-terror, see “The Cat of the Cane-Brake,” by Frederick Stuart Greene.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/snake-wine-china-vietnam#:~:text=Although%20this%20concoction%20is%20often,from%20rheumatism%20to%20hair%20loss.
https://strongspage.com/places/chester-bedell/ [This and the next one could also be put on the page]
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2010/07/11/mike-harden-commentary-atheist-snakes/23668024007/ -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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The Green Children of Woolpit: Fairies or Foreigners? Simon and Chris celebrate the new and definitive book by John Clark on the Green Children of Woolpit: two children with ‘leek-green’ skin who, in the middle of the twelfth century, said that they came from a twilight place called ‘St Martin’s Land’. They wore strange clothes of an unknown fabric and spoke a language none could understand. Strangest of all, they ate only beans. Had they strayed from fairyland into Suffolk or were they lost, starving children orphaned by tragedy? Simon and Chris try to sort out some of the curious details of this very curious story and also bicker about Jinn, weird birds, kosher food and Excel spreadsheets.
*John Clark, The Green Children of Woolpit: Chronicles, Fairies and Facts in Medieval England (Exeter New Approaches to Legend, Folklore and Popular Belief, 2024)
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***This episode has been our Jonah and has been cursed from the beginning! We are re-releasing it because the first version had fuzzy audio***
Chris and Simon wind up the old gramophone and share some numbers from angelic choirs, the nodding ones beyond the grave, and from the rarely good people in the hollow hill. Sing along with a banshee! Trill to a phantom air from Dartmoor! Rhapsodize over an orca’s mermaid song! And shake your tambourine at yellow bats, breeding foxes, Dolly Parton and finger-chewing nereids! Are our listeners in harmony with the Music of the Spheres or are these mysterious melodies something more mundane? Kudos also to our organ player from Ohio and to the poltergeist who follows us through the recording
Bibliography
Paracoustics: Sound & The Paranormal, edited by Steven T. Parson s & Callum E. Cooper
Music from Elsewhere, Haunting Tunes From Mythical Beings, Hidden Worlds, and Other Curious Sources, Doug Skinner, 2024. Has music notation. “anomalous music” including fairy, trow [troh or trouw ow and troll music, Spiritualist music, “music of the sky people”
No Earthly Sounds- Faery Music, Song & Verse, John Kruse
Music and the paranormal : an encyclopedic dictionary
Melvyn J. Willin (Author)
Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night
By Wolfgang Behringer chapter on unearthly music in the Alps
The Music of “An Adventure”, Ian Parrott, 1966
Barbara Hillers: “Music from the Otherworld: Modern Gaelic Legends about Fairy Music” in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, Vol. 14 (1994), p59
Ríonach Uí Ógáin: “Music Learned from the Fairies” in Béaloideas Bay la Gish 60-61 (1992-3), pp197-214
Chapter on fairy music in The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands, Alasdair Alpin MacGregor 1937
https://archive.org/details/peatfireflamefol00macg/page/30/mode/2up?q=gigha&view=theater
Lovely and Mysterious: The Music of Fairyland, Chris Woodyard, Fortean Times October 2014
NAD A study of Some Unusual “Other-World” Experiences, D. Scott Rogo
NAD Vol. 2 A psychic study of the “Music of the Spheres”, D. Scott Rogo
Musica Trascendentale, E. Bozzano, 1943 -
Get lost in familiar places? You're not alone! Simon and Chris are bewildered by supernatural disorientation, including cases of people being pixy-led by Newfoundland fairies and Balkan witches. Discover traditional defenses against non-human misleaders, from carrying bread to wearing clothes inside out (and yes, sometimes even stripping naked!). While our hosts consider scientific explanations - glitches in human compasses, they grapple with bizarre reports of impossible landscapes: gardens without paths, eighty foot hedges, and fields that trap their victims. Plus, one host recounts their own uncanny pixy-led experience in a car. Care to guess who?
Our readings from this month
Janet Bord, Fairies: Real Encounters with Little PeopleDermot Mac Manus, The Middle Kingdom [stray sod]
John Gregorson Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, - Gaistig on the Island of Coll
Jeremy Harte, Explore Fairy TraditionsMirjam Mencej, '‘Something Came Over Him’: Narratives on Being ‘Carried by Witches’ and Their Possible Connection to Altered States of Consciousness', Preternature 7 (2018)
Barbara Rieti, Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland
Chris Woodyard, http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/the-lost-children/ - disorientation in the woods
S. Young, ‘Pixy-Led in the South West’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association 148 (2016), 311-336 https://www.academia.edu/35045282/Young_Pixy_Led_in_Devon_and_the_South_West
S. Young, ‘Four Neglected Pixy-Led Sources from Devon’, The Devon Historian 85 (2016), 39-49 https://www.academia.edu/33316277/Young_Four_Neglected_Pixy_Led_Sources_from_Devon
Any others to recommend? -
Chris and Simon ring the changes on bell folklore: bells mysteriously rung by polts (or rats or monkeys or blackbirds), bells ringing in churches beneath the waves and in coalmines, and bells with the power ('supernatural bleach') to drive away plague, the Devil and the Fae. Bells toll as death omens the 'death-bell' or ringing in the ears predicts imminent death, and Big Ben chimes thirteen when a royal is about to die. Chris finds a-peal in some physics experiments testing whether bells drive away thunderstorms and Simon chimes in with mermaids and their watery bells. Also, Great Aunt Moll, fierce disagreements over servants, and tips on how to keep your teenage kids in at night...
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Simon and Chris focus in on the new collection of essays on The Cottingley Fairy Photographs, developing the psychic experiences that inspired the images. The two clash over Elsie and Frances’s personalities, recounting Frances’s sightings of “little men” and Elsie’s run ins with a ghost family haunting her own home. They also trade blows over Cottingley conspiracies. And stay tuned for the unexpected dog invasion!
Available from all good online booksellers, fifteen authors from six nations: The Cottingley Fairy Photographs. -
From Tinseltown to Windsor: tales of mysterious encounters with James Dean, Rudolph Valentino, Elvis Presley, Lord Byron (in Florida), Elizabeth the first and second! Does the late Princess Diana visit her butler in Cheshire to console him? Has Marilyn Monroe reincarnated to marry the ghost of Michael Jackson? Are these tulpas, “real” ghostly encounters, or para-social fantasies—where an intimate connection is claimed with a celebrity? How do the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Jolly Green Giant fit into the puzzle? Join Chris and Simon as they unravel bizarre celebrity connections—including Chris’ movie star crush and that unforgettable moment at Rome airport (which Simon would rather forget).
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Simon has just published a book on European fairies, trolls, and other supernatural creatures, who like humans live in societies: going to war, dancing, seducing, holding weddings and funerals, burying the elderly alive....
Looking at beliefs from Ireland to Ukraine and from Iceland to the Balkans, Simon and Chris debate the merits of trying to classify supernatural beings, find chilling parallels for the ‘fairy blast’ in Croatia and Greece, and shudder at the vengeful Nixen of Germany’s rivers. They also clash about vampires and werewolves in Ohio, but that is another story...
Sometimes these social folklore beings look human, but are given away by their hollow back or a wet hem dragging in the road. They may be helpful to humans, or they may be vampiric, luring young men and women to their doom.
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Chris and Simon take a quantum leap as they ponder the mysteries of vanishing houses and time slips. Did two English ladies walk back in time at Versailles? Is there a street in Liverpool where visitors are transported to the 1950s? Did three Royal Navy cadets find themselves in a 14th century plague village? Vanishing hotels and diners, mysterious visions of medieval Paris, and inexplicable forests in Newfoundland: are faulty memories—or fairies—responsible?
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Chris and Simon, don their snorkels and flippers to explore the world of mermaids. Join them as they sail past shaved monkeys, triton hot-spots and a prized vintage tuna doll. Dive in, with our daring duo, to search out mermaid fakes in Belfast, the only living Fish woman, and a singing mer-vicar in Cornwall. Then we navigate around mermaid graves in Scotland, murdered sirens in Germany, and inexplicably, a turnip in a bag on Tyneside. Whether you're a folklore buff, a Weeki Wachee groupie, a wet-suit-wearing cryptozoologist or just like the occasional splash this, dear listener, is the episode for you.
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Things get steamy in this R-rated episode where Simon and Chris discuss the hot topic of sex and the supernatural. The duo passionately debate the forbidden thrills of witch orgies, fairy intercourse (with one of the seven sisters), spirit marriages (generally with rich old men), randy ghosts named as co-respondents in divorce suits, and coitus in the séance room. All climaxes with succubi, mermaids and demons, oh my! You might want to listen something else if you have kids in the car...
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Prepare to be haunted by the evidence as star witnesses Chris and Simon summon compelling arguments for paranormal claims in court. Our learned friends cross-examine the standard of proof for mermaid and sasquatch affidavits, exhume the details of changeling murder cases, and put a rapping medium on trial for disturbing the peace in church. The dearly departed won't escape scrutiny either, as our hosts investigate cases of defamation from beyond the grave and leave no tombstone unturned in their search for justice. Will you join the jury and decide the fate of the supernatural on the latest Boggart and Banshee podcast?
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Simon raps once for ‘yes’ and Chris raps twice for ‘no ‘over the results of the five-year ‘Philip Experiment’. Canadian parapsychology researchers invented a fictional character, the dashing but suicidal cavalier Philip. Then they began to receive communications from Philip through rappings and table tippings. Expect to learn how you can best create a ghost at home: glasses of wine, sing-songs and wishful thinking top the list. The correct pronunciation of Tibetan tulpa (sorry sprulpa). And all hail the bronies who create anthropomorphic multicoloured ponies at will.
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The first rule of fairy gifts is you don’t talk about fairy gifts. Chris and Simon recklessly flout that rule in this look at artifacts stolen from or given by the fairies to human neighbours. Some are exotic, like The Luck of Edenhall and the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan. Others, like elf shot and tiny tobacco pipes, are common field finds. Chris waxes lyrical about fairy textiles, and the connection between Huldrefolk bridal crowns and the Virgin Mary. Simon shoe-horns in a discussion of tiny footwear said to be made by leprechauns, some of which, worringly, show signs of wear. And what about that ‘leprechaun suit’ from County Louth? And should you ever amputate a fairy foot? (Only if you have arthritis...). Our Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1396529487421974
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Simon and Chris are all atwitter over stories of supernatural birds: spectral ravens, death-predicting rooks, ghostly-bloodied doves, glass-smashing partridges and, the horror, housebound robins. Chris causes a flutter with an intolerably creepy magpie rhyme; our thoughtful pair wonder at phantom birds often being heard and not seen; and why oh why do birds keep attacking Simon?
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Chris and Simon cross swords over a medieval X-files collection: necromancers, monsters emerging from graves, an encounter with a fairy-like Woman in White, the walking dead, and, best of all, a trustworthy demon named Oliver, all found in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s thirteenth-century Dialogue on Miracles. Although Caesarius’s purpose was to instruct Cistercian novices, these stories of medieval high strangeness can still delight the Fortean, the anomalist and anyone else interested in the supernatural. So step into the cloister, dear friend...
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In the 1880s, two sisters had an encounter with three gyrating, squeaking, white veiled supernatural women at Sennen Cove, Cornwall. Chris and Simon dance around the topics of Cornish otherworldliness, supernatural languages and circle jigs. Were the women goddesses, fairies, vestal virgins or amorous cats? Where do fairies 'foot it all the night'? Why do so many supernatural encounters report high-pitched voices? And most importantly did the ladies of Sennen Cove mess with Simon's mike, which played up in parts of this episode... The booklet with the text of the encounter is Pwca's Magicians, Red Heads and Small People: The Legends and Folklore of Sennen and Sennen Cove.
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Chris and Simon embark on a quest to uncover the origins of the archetypal ghost in a sheet, tracing its lineage back to the death shroud. With a dash of sartorial flair, they explore sheet chic, evolving trends of ghostly attire through the ages. They muse on shroud styles, the mystery of naked phantoms, potato thieves, headless Vikings, and that all-important 'Tailored Terror' accessory, rusty chains. But questions linger. Why have apparitions in white draperies become a rarity? Is there a link between zombies and shrouded spectres? And why was phosphorous so important for Victorian ghost enthusiasts?
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Hold your horses for the latest episode of Boggart and Banshee. Simon and Chris gallop headlong into the world of horse spirits with headless ponies, phantom hoofbeats, and equine shape-changers, including the mischievous colt-pixie and the dread shag foal. But we're not just horsing around with were-horses. There are also serious questions to add to the neigh-rative. Why are spectral horses so often heard, but not seen? Why are trickster spirits frequently spotted in equine form? And why, on earth, do horse spirits on both sides of the Atlantic insist on coming into houses and up the stairs? A source book has been published for this epiosde: S. R. Young, Haunting Horses: Equine Ghosts, Portents and Shapechangers from Britain, Ireland and World Folklore
- Visa fler
