Boggart and Banshee: A Supernatural Podcast

Chris and Simon sniff out some supernatural scents, ranging from the prosaic, like tobacco and flower perfumes to the sinister, like the odor of rotting bodies. They note the link between scent and memory and wonder whether some ghostly scents are just a spirit’s shortcut to announce its presence or even to communicate. 'Odor Mortis', a musky aroma said to predict death, may, it transpires, be a physiological, rather than a supernatural, phenomenon: ask the hospital cat 'Death'. Simon gives listeners a whiff of why sulphur and brimstone are associated with the devil and our fragrant duo examine fairy stenches (mushrooms and sweaty crowds anyone?). Simon accuses Chris of being in the pay of the powerful Sasquatch lobby, while Chris tells of a strange paranormal odor experience of her own and comes up, as always, smelling of roses.
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You’re walking down a road in the twilight. Suddenly you’re surrounded by a jostling crowd and see a coffin being carried in a funeral cortege with many mourners. You might recognize your neighbors in the procession — or in the coffin — and are the people brushing past you fairies, phantoms, or something worse? In the high heat, Chris and Simon clash on Scotland, the pronunciation of Duchas, William Blake, FFFFs, and the question of what exactly these ghostly funerals are. In a fit of summer madness, Chris even bets a non-existent motorhome against a quarter litre of olive oil for the honour of the Fair People of Wales! Our mourning duo exchange barbs over fairy predictions, the American ghost that allegedly appears once a century, and swap notes on hummingbirds, Excel sheets, and fireflies. There are oh so useful tips on how not to die when you meet a phantom funeral ('get to the side, you fool!'), good reasons never to attend a fairy wedding, and one pressing lesson above all: read Woodyard 2022,* but beware of siren Victorians.

*Woodyard, C. (2022). 'Poets, Pipes, and Petals: Some Accounts of Fairy Funerals.' Fairy Investigation Society Newsletter, 16, 17-25
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Simon and Chris venture, for this historic episode,* into the nursery at the witching hour to ask why so many children see fairies in bed, in the dark, and at the edge of sleep. Along the way there are tiny soldiers marching across eiderdowns, horse-trading fairy women in pointy hats, airborne night visitors in upstate New York, nasty little wolves running out of wardrobes, and the vexed question of whether these experiences belong to folklore, popular culture, the sleeping brain, or some more troubling corner where all three meet. Why do so many of these memories last a lifetime? Why do children so often feel singled out by them? And when angels and demons retreat, do fairies move in to fill the gap? Expect to learn how to speak in tongues, the truth about the tinkerbell syndrome and why lemon heads are to be feared.

*This was an early test episode and we thought it would be fun to release.

Simon and Chris flip their lids with a capful of questions about supernatural, magical, and unlucky hats. Why are witch and wizard hats pointed? What is the fashionable color for fairy caps? What headwear does the Leprechaun favor? Chris suggests an ancient origin for magical pointed hats and goes off on a medieval tangent. Simon tops that by pointing out the importance of hats in signaling status, even in the fairy world. Chris, naturally, finds omens of death associated with hats and tells of some unlucky military headwear. Expect to learn the identity of the hat man; how to be the strongest person in your parish; and why you should always buy your wife an Easter bonnet (or die trying).

Simon and Chris follow in the mystical footsteps of Walter Evans Wentz, who journeyed from New Jersey real-estate hustler to theosophic acolyte to roving collector of fairylore in the deep west. Tramping through Ireland, Scotland, Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, Walter sat by many a peat fire hearing tales of fairy nurses, stolen brides, knockers, pixies and the Gentry — and Chris wonders what these narrators really made of such a singular American. Along the way there is fairy seer extraordinaire Barney Crystal of Grange, Walter’s crush on W. B. Yeats, the spelling of Cambridge, the problem of fairy shorthand, and the question of whether Walt was a cold fish, a sociopath, a bully or an all-round good guy. There is also the strange afterlife of The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries in the Age of Aquarius (and just a tiny bit of the Tibetan Book of the Dead).