Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

There are extraordinary numbers of superstitions about shoes - though most are now unfamiliar to us 21st century mortals.  According to Iona Opie and Moira Tatem’s ‘Dictionary of Superstitions’, an old shoe hung up at the fireside was thou...

This is a short ‘gaslamp fantasy' set in Victorian London, in Wapping, circa 1870. With the single exception of  ‘Mr Eden’s’ house, all the streets, pubs, factories and other buildings named in it really existed and may be found on maps...

 I do love lists. Especially lists of mysterious creatures, like the well-known one by Reginald Scot in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), a book in which he takes the robustly sceptical line that even if witches, ghosts and fairies do exist,...

From ‘British Goblins’ by Wirt Sikes, 1880The Gwyllion are female fairies of frightful characteristics, who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains and lead night-wanderers astray.  The Welsh word gwyll is variously used to signify gloom,...

As we head towards Hallowe'en - are there any female leaders of the Wild Hunt? The answer is yes, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s ever heard of a Valkyrie. Njal’s Saga tells of a man in Caithness named Dorrud, who on Good Friday sees ‘...

Originally published as 'Inevitable Tales' in 'Unsettling Wonder' Issue 6, September 2017  Nothing, they say, is sure but death and taxes. By creating a comic equivalence between two such different but universally unpopular processes, the maxim...

This essay was originally published nearly two years ago in the 12th issue of Gramarye, Winter 2017(It will take you a while to read! 😊 )  Maid Maleen (Kinder- und Hausmärchen, tale 198) isn’t particularly popular as fairy tales go. It wa...