For this week's Haunting Season-themed Bonus Episode we're chatting all about the mythology of Zombies and Revenants! To start off with, which is which? Because one dates from Medieval times, and the other comes from a word invented by an English poet in 1819.And if we look further back, to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome and Scythia, what root creatures and legends can we find that travel forward through history to become 'The Zombie' and 'The Revenant.'One is rooted in fear surrounding death, too, and society showing due respect to the dearly departed, while the other is rooted in racism, yet both end up in the same place.A world of paranoia, filled with the fear of others, and about the belief the End Times are coming.Mix in a little bit of Samurai and Cowboy mythology and a sprinkling of Science Fiction and it turns out we've ended up exactly where we wanted to be.A place where zombies could be anywhere, or anyone... but don't worry, as zombies can be cute now, so, presumably, less dangerous?Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastProud members of the Dark Cast Network.Visit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:10:35
Haunting Season 2025 #2: Sundowners
Three Ravens Haunting Season continues today with the second of our four 'Trilogies of Terror' across the month of October!We begin, in tried and tested style, with two winning tales from our annual Three Ravens Ghost Story Writing Competition.The first of these, "The Old Way Stone" by Alex Effinger, feels almost like a late Victorian classic, set in Scotland, while the second, "The Descendant" by Tim Lane is a wildly imaginative comedic ghost story, featuring a haunted tea cozy...Lastly comes Eleanor's new story for this week, "Sundowners." Channeling her recent experiences in hospital, it's a twisty one, featuring more than just one kind of creeping dread...We sincerely hope that you enjoy all three, and speak to you again on Thursday for our Three Ravens Bestiary Bonus Episode all about Zombies and Revenants!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastProud members of the Dark Cast Network.Visit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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LIVE @ Gloucester History Festival 2025!
Roll on another month and another Three Ravens Live Show release - and of not just one but two performances recorded at Gloucester History Festival at the end of September 2025!As we explain in the episode, first comes our Forgotten Melodies Live show, performed on Sunday 21st September in the Great Hall at Gloucester's Blackfriars as part of Witch Night, followed by a retelling of Martin's Gloucester story first heard in Series 3 Episode 2 about Gloucestershire, "The Torbarrow Guardian" as recorded that afternoon in the Scriptorium Buttery.We really hope you enjoy both recordings, speak to you tomorrow for an all-new episode of Three Ravens Haunting Season, and if you would like details of the Forgotten Melodies Live set list then it's as follows:The Earth, The Air, The Fire, The Water (Trad)On Matthew Hopkins by Samuel Butler (c.1663)Ring Down Below (Trad)Hecate's Speech from Macbeth by William Shakespeare (c.1606)Old Pendle (Trad)Very Wicked People (spoken word)Witches Reel (Trad)Witch Burning by Sylvia Plath (1959)Sovay (Trad)The White Witch by James Weldon Johnson (1915)Hare Spell (Trad)Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastProud members of the Dark Cast Network.Visit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:17:01
Local Legends #45: Dr Susan Owens
For our Local Legends interview this week, the first of Haunting Season 2025, we've spoken to the celebrated author of 'The Ghost: A Cultural History' Susan Owens!Recorded at Susan's home in Suffolk, this ranging chat includes discussions of the ghost that haunted the old V&A Museum's stores of paintings, Susan's all-time favourite ghost story, and plenty of discussion of the way England's past haunts its present. Along the way we touch on the great Romantic painter John Constable, the Pre-Raphaelites, Rob Lloyd Parry, and plenty else beside.So, settle in with a nice big cup of something warm, and let's talk Medieval ghosts. Let's talk Ham House and the ghost of Elizabeth Murray, Duchess of Lauderdale. Let's also talk about the point in time when ghosts turned invisible. Before which, they were something else entirely...For now, though, let's listen in to a conversation with The Storyteller of Wales about his life, career, and this week’s Three Ravens historic county, Denbighshire.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastProud members of the Dark Cast Network.Visit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:12:57
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1:12:57
Magic and Medicines #19: Voodoo
This month's Magic and Medicines Bonus Episode definitely has Haunting Season associations, as we're talking all about Voodoo! Although, being up front, "Voodoo" is but a tiny subset of a vast number of syncretic religious and cultural practices dating back to Africa 6,000 years ago - 'syncretic' meaning something which merges different beliefs into a unified whole. Sharing lots of ideas with forms of ancient pagan animism found all over the world, 'Vodun' is a religious faith with over 60 million followers today. But how has it changed due to societal factors, including slavery, which directly birthed Haitian 'Vodou' and its curious relationship to Catholicism?So yes, we will be talking about Louisiana Voodoo, the 20th century Voodoo Revival, "Voodoo Dolls" and all sorts of other cool stuff, from temples marinaded in sacrificial blood to Mami Wata, Legba the 'Spirit of Crossroads' to Marie Laveau, and so much more. But we also need to acknowledge both where our Western concepts of Voodoo come from and how those ideas came to dominate much of the cultural consciousness.It's dark matter, as they say, and we've done our best to do the topic justice!Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcastProud members of the Dark Cast Network.Visit our website Join our Patreon Social media channels and sponsors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Three Ravens is an English myth and folklore podcast hosted by Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux.In each weekly episode, released on Mondays, we explore a historic county, digging into the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more.Across our first six series we ventured around England's 39 historic counties twice, taking turns to tell a new version of a legend from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it may have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past.Our Bonus Episodes are then released on Thursdays (Magic and Medicines about folk remedies and arcane spells, Three Ravens Bestiary about cryptids and mythical creatures, Forgotten Melodies about folk song types with original performances from us, and Magus, which is about the lives of the most famous witches and wizards in history).On Saturdays, we then release episodes of our interview series Local Legends, with each episode featuring a chat between us and an acclaimed folklorist, author, podcaster or historian, deepening discussions about that week's county.In between series, since March 2025 we have also launched our Lang Fairy Tale Project, for which we are recording and releasing the 700+ stories collected by English academics and authors Nora and Andrew Lang, published in over a dozen volumes from the end of the 19th century and changing children's literature forever.With entire other Bonus Series to enjoy, including our comic retelling of the legend of Gawain and the Green Knight, original narratives such as our upcoming series Dog Days about the supernatural adventures of young playwright Christopher Marlowe in Elizabethan London, and our annual Haunting Season every October, there's tonnes of fun to be had in our back catalogue of over 300 episodes.In addition to which, we also release a range of exclusive content on Patreon, where supporters also enjoy ad-free listening, including monthly 'One Off' episodes covering a range of folky topics, editions of the Three Ravens Newsletter, and over two-dozen episodes of the Three Ravens Film Club, through which we discuss folk horror films from across the decades, and more.For a guide of where to start, click here - but our advice is to just pick an episode that sounds interesting, then hit 'Play' and join us around the campfire to listen in...Three Ravens Series 7 launched in September 2025, and is all about the heritage and legends of the 13 historic counties of Wales. For press or collaboration inquiries or learn more about our book, published in hardback by The History Press, and the podcast in general, visit our website. Join our Patreon here, and find links to our social media channels and sponsor Three Spirit Drinks here. Use Voucher Code THREERAVENS for a 15% discount. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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