Scotland doesn’t lack in songs about being forsaken in love. But according to Ewan MacColl, who recorded the song I Courted A Wee Girl in 1956, typically the hero shrugs it off. “In this curious little song, however, the jilted lover, after attending his ex-sweetheart’s nuptials, just lies down and dies” The song made the […]
Folk horror from Wiltshire: The Blood Stone at Luccombe Spring, starving out the Vikings at Bratton Camp, the White Horse of Westbury and the nature of folklore
The Luccombe Valley below Salisbury Plain and Bratton Camp, just visible in the upper right. In the foreground are two of the four barrows in the valley, with one of the others being the site of the Bloodstone. While wandering on Salisbury plain one day I came across a hidden valley and as I […]
On the mystery of a white horse carved into the slopes of Bratton Downs … the White Horse of Westbury
Looking down on the White Horse of Westbury from atop Salisbury Plain Nobody really knows when or why a chalk horse was carved onto the side of Bratton Downs, below the iron age Bratton Camp. The current version has evolved over the past two centuries into its rather literal shape today. An 18th century engraving […]
On the abandoned village of Port, in Donegal Ireland … wind swept, wet and wild, the folklore of Irish music and the ideal place to go drowning
Top: The Glengesh Pass, Donegal, Ireland The top of Glengesh Pass in Donegal, Ireland is breathtaking. You’re in one of the most remote corners of the country here, sparsely populated, windswept and wild. You’re as likely to hear Gaelic spoken as English, for life hasn’t changed a whole lot over the past hundred years. The […]
On pagan sexuality, getting laid in the seventies, the great god Pan, the Marquis de Sade and the mating habits of goats
Top: Statue of Pan, The Eagles Nest, Northport, Long Island Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced. Marquis de Sade I credit my parents with instilling in me a love for pagan sexuality. Not intentionally – they didn’t advocate any kind of sex. It’s something that was only mentioned a couple […]
Old Wardour Castle … a splendidly haunted ruin in the British countryside
Top: Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire “On the south western border of Wiltshire about half between Salisbury and Shaftesbury and in the parish Tisbury stand the ivy crowned remains of the old castle Wardour.” The Antiquary, Volumes 3-4 Front Cover.W. Allen, 1873 Old Wardour Castle was built as an impressive fortified home for Lord Lovell in the late […]
A megalithic darkness descending on Stanton Drew stone circles and cove
“There among the stones they committed unspeakable acts. On the stones, against the stones. Their cloaks barriers to the storm of nature that raged around them, they were thrown aside and as two beasts they met in the circle in rut, in heat, in pure primal desire. It was a ritual of sorts, a wedding […]
Ghost stories and supernatural occurrences from Avebury circle and henge
Entrance to the Avebury henge Hair stands high on the cat’s back like a ridge of threatening hills. Sheepdogs howl, make tracks and growl — their tails hanging low. And young children falter in their games at the altar of life’s hide-and-seek between tall pillars, where Sunday-night killers in grey raincoats peek. Down to the […]
Dunbeg Fort on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula: Saved for centuries by local folklore, slowly being reclaimed by the Atlantic Ocean
View from the interior of Dunbeg Fort, with Mount Eagle in the background On the edge of Europe, along the coast of Dingle Peninsula, Dunbeg Fort is a promontory fort, not far from Dingle town towards Slea Head. Known in Gaelic as An Dún Beag, it was protected by sheer cliffs on three sides, falling into […]
An Irish folk tale, Maid of Mullaghmore and memories of Muckross Head, county Donegal
I once spent about a week hanging out with Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, noted Donegal fiddler and historian, particularly on all things Donegal fiddle. He wrote about the tune Maighdean Mhara Mhullach Mhoir, or The Maid or more precise, The Mermaid of Mullaghmore. I was driving up the coast of Donegal, on the way to the village of Teelin, […]
