Simon and Chris are pixelated by household helpers, those elusive, often hairy beings like Brownies, Tomten, and Skrats who muck out stables, scrub pans, rock babies, edit podcasts and occasionally fetch the midwife, all in exchange for a humble bowl of porridge. Our domestic duo explore why these spirits have such complicated relationships with clothing, what draws them to a home (or sends them storming off), and wonder aloud if you can still hire one in today’s difficult real estate market. Along the way, the two squabble over whether houses go up or down in value with a helper, the emotional climate of homes, and the surprising requirements for crafting your own supernatural assistant (spoiler: toes and horses are involved). UK helpers are compared with their Scandinavian, North European, and North American cousins. While Simon berates Chris for her shocking ignorance of the Swiss variety, Chris lectures Simon on a brave new world of railway-building brownies on the other side of the Atlantic.
--------
47:32
--------
47:32
Supernatural Feathers: Death Beds, Witchcraft and Angels
Chris and Simon wing it through the strange world of feather folklore — from cursed peacock plumes to pillows that prevent the dying from slipping away. Do feather crowns signal a heavenly reward or a witch’s curse? Simon’s disturbed by beds hiding feather rats and spectral bouquets; Chris dares to suggest a rational explanation. There's a detour into swan-lined pits, angel relics, deer hunting and the suspiciously decorative world of Victorian featherwork. Listener beware: this one might leave you checking your pillow twice.
--------
51:21
--------
51:21
The Deerness Mermaid: The Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid
Simon and Chris dive into a rare cryptid case from Orkney where hundreds of witnesses saw a 'mermaid' swimming in the sea, sitting on a rock, snacking on fish and eels, and tending to her child. Stories of the mermaid went viral in the press. What in the watery world was the creature? Manatee, mutant seal, giant otter or, say it quietly, an actual mermaid? And why, after several years of summer visits to the bay at Deerness, did it vanish from the papers and from history? The duo trade notes about favorite cryptids. Chris goes off on a tangent about giant pink lizards, monsters in the nineteenth-century press and an escaped iguana, and she and Simon nearly come to blows over Cannock Chase and the supernatural/natural nature of unknown creatures. The source book for the episode is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deerness-Mermaid-Attested-Nineteenth-Century-Cryptid/dp/1915574404/ref
--------
49:49
--------
49:49
Supernatural Serpents: Flying, Milking and Shape-Changing Snakes
Chris and Simon lift the stone on a nest of ancient terrors, with bosom serpents, snakes on tombs and in graves, helpful household ophidians, and the medicinal horrors of Asclepius’s temple. ('It did what to you?!') Simon tells of his own blood-chilling encounter with a poisonous hisser, while fake snake women, flying serpents, and the perils of vino alla vipera slither revoltingly into the podcast. The duo bicker over cryptozoological creatures’ credibility and ask whether a snake can suckle on a breast or udder: the lap vs suck debate. Also fairies and snakes? Prepare to be amazed amid the Sicilian rosemary. Some biblio:Boss snakes : stories and sightings of giant snakes in North America, Chad ArmentThe bosom serpent : folklore and popular art, Harold SchechterTowards a Critical Anthology of Pre-Modern Bosom Serpent Folklore, Davide Ermacora, Roberto Labanti, Andrea MarconBig Snake The Hunt for the World’s Longest Python, Robert Twigger. https://richlandcountyhistory.com/2019/05/08/the-great-serpent-of-lexington/ [this needs to go up as a separate post on the page - wonderful story!]http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/creature-feature-the-mexican-mine-monster/Superfluous snakes – snake showers http://hauntedohiobooks.com/interesting-people/11830/A Woman-Eating Serpent: Hissssteria over Snakeshttp://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/woman-eating-serpent-hissssteria-snakes/https://www.the-daily-record.com/story/news/2012/08/19/when-wayne-was-whippersnapper-rogues/19462591007/SNAIX: Vintage Snake Tales http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/snaix-vintage-snake-tales/For a superlative story of snake-terror, see “The Cat of the Cane-Brake,” by Frederick Stuart Greene.https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/snake-wine-china-vietnam#:~:text=Although%20this%20concoction%20is%20often,from%20rheumatism%20to%20hair%20loss.https://strongspage.com/places/chester-bedell/ [This and the next one could also be put on the page]https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2010/07/11/mike-harden-commentary-atheist-snakes/23668024007/
--------
46:46
--------
46:46
The Green Children of Woolpit: Fairies or Foreigners?
The Green Children of Woolpit: Fairies or Foreigners? Simon and Chris celebrate the new and definitive book by John Clark on the Green Children of Woolpit: two children with ‘leek-green’ skin who, in the middle of the twelfth century, said that they came from a twilight place called ‘St Martin’s Land’. They wore strange clothes of an unknown fabric and spoke a language none could understand. Strangest of all, they ate only beans. Had they strayed from fairyland into Suffolk or were they lost, starving children orphaned by tragedy? Simon and Chris try to sort out some of the curious details of this very curious story and also bicker about Jinn, weird birds, kosher food and Excel spreadsheets.*John Clark, The Green Children of Woolpit: Chronicles, Fairies and Facts in Medieval England (Exeter New Approaches to Legend, Folklore and Popular Belief, 2024)
So a Brit and a Yank walk into a supernatural podcast… Nattering on fairies, folklore, ghosts and the impossible ensues. Cross your fingers, turn your pockets inside out and join Simon and Chris as they talk weird history, Fortean mysteries, and things that go bump in the night.
Listen to Boggart and Banshee: A Supernatural Podcast, The General & the Journalist and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
UK