Boggart and Banshee: A Supernatural Podcast

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).

Simon and Chris discuss their experiences interviewing witnesses to paranormal events. What kinds of things cause witnesses to distort their recollections? Why do some people slide from one strange story into ten stranger ones? And what should we make of angels on bridges, voltergeists, bewitched dog bowls, demonic chip bags, vampire bats (in Ohio!), and shamanic puppies? Chris draws on decades of visiting haunted houses and chatting with occupants. Simon discusses collecting reports for the Fairy Census and how people ‘know’ the difference between UFOs, ghosts, and the fey. Expect to learn red flags in interviews, Chris’ double blind-ish technique, and Simon’s tell-me-thrice memory trick, with a sprinkling of narcissism, persecution mania, environmental toxins, and one brain tumour thrown in for good measure.

In 1931 at the Irvings' farmhouse on the Isle of Man there were poltergeist bangs, words and, then, the appearance of Gef a talking weasel-like creature with human hands, 'the extra, extra clever mongoose'. Join Simon and Chris as they attempt to be extra, extra clever about Gef who could talk, sing, report gossip from all over the island and do selfies. Expect to learn what kind of families produce poltergeists, why Harry Price was a 'conman', and whether Gef's pronouncements are teenage or frustrated adult male. And what was Gef really? A poltergeist? Folie en famille? An actual talking animal? Tulpa? A witch's familiar? Or a hoax by one or all of the Irvings, so disappointed in their lives?