The Fortunes of Mother Shipton

The entrance to Mother Shipton's Cave as it is today. © Richard Jenkins

The story of Mother Shipton, as well being a window on the past, is a mirror in which modern capitalism is reflected. It looks like one of the more solid of English legends: she has approximate dates; she is claimed by a definite place, Knaresborough; and she even has her own tourist attraction, in Mother Shipton’s Cave.

Castles That Go Bump in the Night

Porchester Castle © Cate Crawley

From Macbeth’s castle in the Scottish Highlands to the shores of Hampshire, Britain has many haunted castles that go bump in the night. Sad stories, gripping tales, injustices, battles and sieges, kings and queens, all spanning two thousand years of history.

A Thousand Years Before Tolkien: The Original Evil Magic Ring

Siegfried und Brunnhilde by Charles Ernest Butler (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18935890)

An evil magic ring, associated with dwarf and dragon – what a great idea Tolkien had for his books! But he actually borrowed it from ancient Viking legends…

Clown Panics and Computers: Chaos Manifests in the Age of the Internet

Scary clown. By Graeme Maclean - originally posted to Flickr as bad clown, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4083868

This article is about clowns. If you have clourophobia you might want to look away now. Not many forms of entertainment have their own phobia, yet there seems to be something about clowns that gets deep into our psyche.

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