Trick-or-Treating, Turnips and Jack-o-lanterns
Irish Central, Atlas Obscura, and the English Heritage Blog have some stories about the origins of Halloween and a man named, “Jack.”
These Lonely, Haunted Places
Mentally unpacking Penda’s Fen, a 1974 entry in the BBC’s “Plays for Today” series of television movies tackling controversial subjects often in similarly controversial fashion, can seem at first a tad overwhelming. There is so much going on in this deceptively modest looking movie that one scarcely knows […]
Folk Horror for the Atomic Age
Folk horror is one of those nebulous sub-genres that seems, when one first sets out to define it, relatively simple. Yet the longer one dwells on it, the more one is exposed to it, the more complicated the definition becomes, until at last one simply throws up one’s […]
Strange Men and Magic
This week’s Guest Star Kate Laity writes about the television adaptation of Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell. Laity is an author, Medieval Studies scholar and History Witch. At Edge-Lit 4, my publisher, Adele Wearing of Fox Spirit Books, was on a panel about Grimdark. What is ‘grim dark?’ […]
“Strange & Norrell: III–Away With The Fairies”
John Reppion continues his series on English magic and Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell. Next up, “Away With The Fairies.”
“Strange & Norrell : II–On Fairies & Witchcraft”
John Reppion continues his discussion of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell at The Daily Grail, “pluck[ing] out some of the more easily disentangled fragments of folklore, magic, and the like from the book (and the show) and takes a closer look at them.” This time, he considers fairies […]
The Cultural Gutter 