Folk Horror itself was formally introduced to the world on 16th October 2016 at an event at the British Museum. Deriving from and referring to aspects of the sinister that are perceived by some to exist within society’s general picture of the bucolic and unthreatening British countryside, such as the worldview in films like The Witchfinder General, TV programmes like Penda’s Fen and countless books, this conference gave a context to the subject matter whilst bringing it to the attention of the wider world. In short, the idea is that something lurks beneath the greenery that bears us malice and ill-will; something that is not normally perceived in direct sunlight and in direct contrast to the seeming relaxing restfulness of trees, fields and sky.
The London Fortean Society is an association of people of whom I will write about in the future. Suffice it to say here that they arrange fascinating talks by folk from and around the edges of the paranormal community who know their subject and have an affinity for it.
Conway Hall is a venue in central London dedicated to free and independent speech. The union of Forteana and the Hall, therefore, is a happy and fortuitous one.
I have, since I can remember, had interests that strayed from the path of normality. There may be reasons for this. When I was a child our father, when it was Hallowe’en, would get a book from the local library and read spooky tales to us by candle and torchlight. We would all gamely hack at turnips to create jack o’lanterns, which is the way it was done before pumpkins were employed, then huddle round in the gloom to drink in the safe horror and enchantment that the time of year is notorious for. This was at a time when I believe that we may have been the only family celebrating Hallowe’en in the neighbourhood. The autumnal fire festival that is Guy Fawkes’ Night was the climax, of course, when effigies were placed on questionably-safe, community-built bonfires of prodigious size. Some of my favourite reading around this time of life were books, illustrated with luscious artwork, of Robin Hood and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. To continue the theme, some of my preferred toys were Crusader Knights made by a company called Timpo. Without realising it I was looking at and playing with caricatures of the Knights Templar; something that would have a large impact on my life as an adult. Throw such TV programmes as Worzel Gummidge and Catweazle into the mix and there you have the seeds for a life less ordinary. Below I look briefly at the talks given at Conway Hall on that day.
The Rites and Wrongs of Autumn
The meeting started off in a lively fashion as Doc Rowe displayed his collection of pictures of Morris people and other villagers commemorating the arrival of that most atmospheric of seasons; autumn. Here were folk decked out in home-made costumes of varying complexity, having what seemed to be a thoroughly good time bringing in that time of year in celebrations that are rooted in their locality and of varying complexity. Rituals are recorded that took place quite a few years in the recent past. Photographs and film are some of the media used here, combining the recent past with older ceremonies. The good Doc has an online archive where his collection may be viewed if your interests incline in that direction.
Magical House Protection: The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft
Brian Hoggard researches the objects and marks that everyday people used to keep malevolent magic at bay. Folk in our past believed that others had sufficient magickal powers to wreak great evil at a distance, and that this could be directed against specific individuals. The anti-witchcraft items range from simple marks scratched into surfaces such as walls to odd and sometimes repulsive objects such as witch-bottles containing nails, both ironmongery and finger, hair and urine; from horse skulls to whole dead cats immured so that they would become the protecting spirit of the place. Much more on this immersive subject can be found on Brian’s website.
The Croglin Grange Vampire
Deborah Hyde regaled us with the folk tale of this denizen of the undead, said to have lurked in and around Croglin in Cumbria. It was supposed to have attacked a woman there, whose brothers eventually hunted it down to a local crypt. Deborah deconstructed the story, pointing out that no-one has found a Croglin Grange but that there are two similar buildings called Croglin High Hall and Croglin Low Hall. There are also sufficiently strong similarities between this narrative and that of Varney the Vampire, a story serialised in the Victorian publications known as penny dreadfuls, to throw suspicion onto it as having any authenticity outside of being fictional.
Fairies: A Dangerous History
It was mainly in Victorian times that fairies were tamed into the tiny humanoid children well-known in picture books of the time. Before that they were capricious and dangerous creatures it was considered extremely unsafe to cross. Much country folklore is concerned with staying on the right side of these ethereal beings or, once under their influence, of how to extract oneself with the minimum of repercussions. Richard Sugg is lecturer in Renaissance Literature at the University of Durham. Despite this he finds time to raise our hairs on our necks by informing us of the misdeeds of the Fair Folk, especially in Ireland, where possibly due to the country being mainly rural well into the twentieth century, sightings of and belief in leprechauns persists to this day.
Hollow Places: The Dragon Slayer’s Tomb
How many of us now have heard of the mighty dragon-slayer, Piers Shonks? He was awarded the honour of a tomb in the Hertfordshire church of Brent Pelham for his prodigious deed. Piers himself was a giant, so that would have given him a head start against his reptilian foe, which was curled in a cave beneath the roots of a yew tree outside the village. Piers, accompanied by a servant and his three hounds, which some said had the power of flight, soon polished off the unfortunate serpent. Christopher Hadley took us on a journey across the centuries where the tomb of a dragon slayer is actually embedded in the wall of a rural parish church.
England’s Historic Graffiti: Voices Preserved in Stone. Graffiti is generally considered undesirable, especially when executed in spray paint on public surfaces. This takes on a different twist, however, when discovered in buildings that predate the creation of aerosols. Normally incised into wood, stone or brick, this more intimate means of expression can offer us an insight into the everyday thoughts of everyday people that mainstream histories may overlook. Crystal Hollis has inspected such markings in depth from a chapel in the USA to churches in Suffolk.
Wolves in the Wolds: The Weird case of Old Stinker
AKA the Beast of Barmston Drain, the Hull Werewolf. The wolves that roamed these islands may have been killed as people expanded and the packs were seen as an economic liability, but tales of their existence cling on in the tales of British werewolves. Even though, despite being present right up until the 16th century, wolves ceased to be a threat to the average Briton when the Saxon kings held sway. Folk memory reaches back beyond the modern and empirical, bringing us face-to-face with the dark and unknowable. Dr Sam George, who is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Convener of the Open Graves, Open Minds research project at the University of Hertfordshire, brought this strange and unlikely case to our attention.
English Witches and their Familiars
Time to revisit the world of witches, only instead of protecting ourselves from them, we look at one of the most intriguing ways that witches were reported to have extended their influence into the wider world. Dr Victoria Carr shared some of her research with us about the popular pet and sidekick of the witch. It can be an uphill task attempting to comprehend just how much fear was caused by the concept of the witch and, by extension, their familiars, in our post-Enlightenment, post-industrial world. We can conjure horrors undreamed of by our ancestors and project them onto cinema screens. Arguably no terror created by our artifice, whether it be on a computer screen or moulded from latex, will ever match the unnameable, ill-formed demons of our own imaginations. The witches’ familiar could be any animal, even the overlooked, seemingly humble garden snail, of which at least one was intended as an assassin(!).
Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting, For fear of little men…
Paul Devereux, a veteran of Forteana, examines the invisible paths across our land, death roads, spirit ways and fairy paths. These were a real and powerful part of the landscape to those who went before us. Associated with, but not necessarily synonymous with ley lines, people have reported strange happenings on these lines, which were linked with the spirits of the departed. These happenings affected the lives of the people involved in a powerful way. The talk culminated in Mr Devereux telling us of a startling encounter that he himself had had with an entity associated with the spirit ways.
It was quite a day! The talks, whilst containing common strands, were varied, entertaining and informative, opening the listener’s mind to the mysterious and sinister place that the British countryside had been to those who dwelt there in the past. Every speaker was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, making it hugely enjoyable to listen to them. It was Folk Horror in action, showing us both painstaking research combined with the indefinable, eldritch atmosphere that impregnates the mysteries of the land.
