The landscape of these isles is embedded with stories: of how the Devil and a race of giants became architects of hills, mountains, and caves; of a host of faeries glimpsed in twilight tales; of the outlaw hero who defiantly embodies the countercultural essence of England; of an innate magic emanating from the land itself.
Hares that are witches in disguise, ravens with prophetic powers, sacrificial wrens representing the god-king. Animals are often included in folk horror narratives because of their symbolic traits, or because of the folk beliefs surrounding them.
Spectral Roman armies wading across newly built motorways, grey ladies roaming the corridors of stately homes, phantom coaches driven by headless squires. Britain is a haunted land, with layers of history crawling between the shadows.
As Samhain heralds the darker half of the year, we descend into the domain of darkness to explore its associations with folklore, myth, and legend. In this issue we delve into the night as the domain of shadows—the time when demonic creatures prey on the living and people could easily become the Devil’s own.
In our perceptions of landscapes we are not only informed by our senses, our knowledge, and our experience, but also by something ineffable—a link between our imagination, our inner life, and something that transcends us.
The image of the veiled feminine figure— Isis, Artemis of Ephesus, Calypso— has haunted Western culture since Antiquity.
Mummers with ill intentions, sacrificial May Queens, ecstatic trances. Folk horror is consistently fascinated by the power of ritual. In this issue we question the subgenre’s distrust of communal expression while we celebrate communities and their power to re-enchant.
From the Witch of Endor to Aleister Crowley, from the Satanic feminism of the suffragette era through to the current occult revival, The Summoning Issue delves into the history of witchcraft, magic, and the occult to analyse the impulses behind acts of conjuration
For the ancients, the subterranean world was the realm of the dead; in the Medieval era it became the abode of demons. With earth we cover our dead.
Midwinter. The shortest day, the symbolic death and rebirth of the Sun. It is a time of darkness, but also of hope and celebration.
Curses and hexes are a recurring trope in folk horror and occult fiction. They’re active forces, invisible and unstoppable, disrupting the social order and threatening the Establishment.
The notion of paganism as a wild and primitive force has exerted a huge influence on folk horror. In fiction, pagan rituals are often seen as primitive and barbarous, but also as an antidote to repression and conventionalism.
Human sacrifice is perhaps the most recurring trope in folk horror, whether it’s practised by rural communities, as seen in The Wicker Man, or part of a Dark Arts ritual, such as that of The Blood on Satan’s Claw. We’re exploring its role in some of our favourite works of fiction, its associations with megaliths and ancient pagan cults in popular culture, its power in magical thinking, and some possible archaeological evidence for it.