Bear Folklore, Through Myths, Legends and Folktales
Whenever a bear shows up in a folktale, we know something wonderful, and maybe a bit scary, is about to happen
The Grotter & the Strange History of Shell Grottos
Shell grottos have a certain murky ambiguity to their history and folklore. This for me made them all the more enticing to use as the basis for a ghost story in my tale, ‘The Grotter’ in Nyctophobias. Especially with my roots as a Whitstable native in Kent, where grottos are still primarily lit once a year as part of the Oyster Festival celebrations. These grottos are usually stacked in a ‘beehive’ style pyramid, held together with wet sand and illuminated by a short candle.
Tatterdemalion: a Needle, an Egg, a Novel Being Born
‘I can’t describe to you what it feels like to hold your own death in a needle in your hands,’ says the childless Molly in Tatterdemalion.
Of Kobolds and Heinzelmen: Forgotten Creatures Brought Back to Life
German artist Florian Schäfer is creating life-like art dolls & figurines of strange but mostly unknown creatures to fight against their cultural oblivion.
Psychogeography & Landscape in ‘Spirits of Place’: An Interview with Contributors
Spirits of Place is an anthology examining the relationship between place and narrative: how stories, folkloric or historic, become embedded in a location.