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Shopify.comretail hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebel Plots and murders. To find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were. With Gone medieval It is known that in the days of the ancient Britons, there was a mighty king who ruled over all the land, who was named Herler. One day, while hunting alone in the forests, Herler was suddenly confronted by a strange figure. Standing less than half Herla's own height, he had a large head, a face that seemed to glow, a red beard that ran down to his hairy belly. At first glance, Herler thought the fairy figure rode a goat. But as the strange man drew nearer, the king could see that in fact he had the hairy legs and cloven hoo of a goat himself. The strange man spoke with clarity and confidence. To I, the king of many kings and chiefs, and of a people numerous beyond all count, come willingly sent from them to thee. And though I am to you unknown, yet I glory in the fame which has raised you high above other kings, since you are the best and the nearest to me in place and blood, and are moreover worthy of having me grace with high honour your wedding as a guest, when the king of France gives you his daughter, an arrangement concluded without your knowledge. And lo, his messengers come this very day. Let there be an abiding compact between us that I shall attend your wedding, then you mine. A year later, to the day. With this, he turned his back on Herler and with an unnatural swiftness was gone from the sight of the king. When Herler returned to his hall, he was amazed to find ambassadors from the King of the French there to propose the marriage the visitor had spoken of. Herle accepted their terms, and the wedding feast was arranged. On the appointed day, her sat in high state as the celebrations began, when all of a sudden, before the first course could be served, the figure who had spoken to him in the forest entered his hall, surrounded by a great multitude of others who shared his stature. So many arrived that the room was quickly filled to overflowing, and the guests were amazed to see that outside the door, dozens of thousands of tents had appeared, all packed with more subjects of this fairy king. From these tents, servants poured forth carrying jugs crafted from precious stones, filled with the finest drinks and golden plates piled high with the most exquisite foods. They provided so much food and drink that it seemed without end, and none of the feast provided by Herla was even touched. Servants busied themselves, their clothes brightly shining like the sun, the moon and the stars had come into the hall. The fairy king once again addressed her. O best of kings. The Lord is my witness that according to our compact I am present at your wedding. But if anything that you crave, besides what you see here can be asked of me, I shall willingly supply it. But if not, you must not put off your requital of this high honour when I shall ask for it. Without pausing to hear an answer, the fairy king turned and marched out as Herla emerged. The pavilions and all the fairy folk were gone before the cock crowed the morning in a year. Later to the day, the man appeared to Herla again and demanded that he fulfill their bargain by attending the fairy king's wedding gathering. His household knights, Herla followed where he was led. They travelled into a dark cave on a high cliff. After a spell, with no light to guide them, the party suddenly emerged into a brightly lit space. No sun or moon penetrated here, but torches burned like daylight. For three days Herler and his men enjoyed the celebrations of the fairy kings marriage, eating and drinking all that they could desire. His debt discharged with the consent of his host, Herle took his leave. He and his men were showered with gifts, including horses, dogs, hawks and all of the other trappings of the hunt. Their host led them through the darkness to the mouth of the cave. As they said their farewells, the fairy king gave Herla one final gift. It was a beautiful small bloodhound. As he handed it to Herla in his saddle, the other king forbade Herla or any of his men to dismount from their horses until the hound leapt down of its own accord. Having said their goodbyes, Herla led his men towards their home but could not find their way. When they came across a shepherd, Herla asked him for news of his queen. When he gave his wife's name, the shepherd frowned and replied. My lord, I scarce understand your language since I am a Saxon and you a Briton, but I have never heard of the name of that queen, save that men tell of one so called a queen of the very ancient Britons and wife of King Herla, who is reported in legends to have disappeared into this cliff and to have been seen never more on earth. The Saxons, having driven out the natives, have possessed this kingdom for full 200 years. In shock, some of her's men jumped down from their horses, but vanished into dust as their feet touched the earth. Herler, understanding what had happened, ordered that no other man should dismount before the hound had jumped down. But the dog would not leave Herler's lap. From that day to this, Herler and his army are forced to wander endlessly and make mad marches across the countryside, often racing as if locked into an eternal hunt. People have claimed to see them riding like a host on the moon, move with wagons and equipment and men and women amongst them. When they're seen like this, sometimes in daylight, they are always eerily silent. Many have reported seeing the Hurler Thingus, Hurler's host, riding at wild speeds across the countryside, drenched in the darkness of a starless night. What they hunt for is not known to us. Do they seek their lost home or the souls of those out wandering at night? Some will swear that they have seen amongst the wild hunt those whom they know to be dead, as if alive once more and doomed to join the unending immortal ride. So take good care if you venture out at night when you hear a sudden noise, it just might be the hunt jumping a hedgerow, that startled animal that yelps and crashes somewhere. Unse I have been disturbed by the furious passing of King Herla and his men, looking for more souls to join the eternal wild hunt. Welcome to this spooky episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. This episode is being unleashed on All Hallows Eve, better known today as Halloween. It's a time for scares, ghost stories and things that go bump in the night. For Gone Medieval, it's also a time to think about how those living in the medieval world interacted with spooky season. Did they enjoy being frightened? How connected were folklore, traditions to religion as the lines between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred on 31st October. As it happens, I know the perfect people to ask about this. Amy Boucher and Alex Chidliyotly are the hosts of the Shropshire Witches podcast, where folklore and history combine to tell surprising and scary stories. They've flown in on their broomsticks today to tell us more about the spirit spookiest of holidays. Welcome to God. Medieval Alex and Amy, it's fantastic to have you with us.
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Hello.
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Thank you so much.
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I should probably point out that I'm not insulting you by calling you the Shropshire Witches either. That's what you call yourselves?
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Certainly not.
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No, absolutely.
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So we're here to talk a bit about Halloween and spookiness and folklore and why we have this weird ghostly connection to 31st October, the date on which this episode is going out to the public. So we're gonna try and scare everybody a little bit. I wondered if, Amy, you could start off by telling us, have you got a favourite medieval spooky story?
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Oh, gosh, where do I start? I Love the medieval period. And certainly I'm very fond of things like the Byland Abbey narratives and things like the Wild Hunt, which I think we're gonna chat about later. But if I was to pin it down, I'd probably say a Brygja saga. I love the Icelandic sagas anyway, but this saga is absolutely jam packed with ghosts, draugrs, weird and wonderful, all amazing things like that. And in particular the kind of the story of Thorolf in there. So Thorolf is this kind of archetypal medieval warrior in life who's incredibly violent and does all kind of the warrior type things, but then in death he becomes a draugr. Now, the verdicts kind of. There's a lot of different ideas what a draugr could be like, but I probably the best way to describe it is a little bit like a zombie. So he is absolutely relentless. He haunts the area, he gets bored of haunting his old farm, so he starts haunting the whole valley. And he's incredibly malignant and kind of vengeful. And it culminates in this brilliant tale where he's buried, he's reburied, he's cremated, but nothing actually helps this ghost or this spirit from being stopped. And even the animals. So the oxen that carry his corpse to his burial site, they're supposedly driven mad by demons. And you've got every beast that goes near his burial site ends up being either mad or killed. And even, like the birds drop dead from the sky. And he's described as being this like, quite horrendous decayed figure that's tall, but actually handsome in at least some of the translations. And I just think there's so many reasons why this saga is amazing and spooky and, you know, all the things you'd expect in this period and this time. But I think also it highlights life in a very unforgiving land, still a relatively new land that was relatively new to inhabitants at this period. And it embodies, I think, a lot of the challenges that these people faced. So I'd probably go and say that.
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Yeah, it sounds like someone's just taken every little vaguely scary thing they can think of and chucked it all into one story and mixed it all up. A little bit of everything going on in there.
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Tuck it all in.
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And, Alex, have you got a favourite creepy medieval story you can share with us?
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I have, yeah. And I think this one is quite famous. The Day d' Artois, the Three Dead, which is put in lots of different kind of pictures and would have Been painted on church walls and all this kind of thing. It's the 13th century, I suppose, like, almost like a sort of poem, really, telling of three nobles, a duke, a count and a king. And then they Anglicized this. It took lots of different slants on it, but it's a sort of memento mori morality tale, basically. It's one I always love. And it says. And I'm not gonna do the French because my pronunciation will be awful, but what you are, that we were. What we are, that you will be. And it's that kind of message that stayed really through. Connected with memento mori is this sort of message of basically, behave yourselves, because what we are these sort of three dead sort of figures, skeletons, if you will, appearing to these. These men who are out hunting in the wood. They appear to them as a warning and. And the backstories sort of differ, but two of the nobles are said to sort of act with disgust and fear and be repulsed, and the third one sort of understands it. God's message, basically, that they need to sort of stop V. So driven by their status and whatnot, and be aware of what. What is waiting for them. That kind of message of the purgatory. And it doesn't sound that spooky, but when you see the picture, it's so sort of wonderfully kind of medieval with these sort of very dramatic skeletons and not kind of like, as we think of it, they're sort of. Still got bit of sort of emaciated flesh on them and everything's very vivid and I love it. I just think it's so spooky. These men on this sort of decadent hunting mission in this wood, encountering these three skeletons that in a lot of depictions look basically like them, but kind of like, you know, much, much skinnier. I just love it. I think it's really eerie. And that idea of sort of encountering something like that in a woodland is marvellous and wonderfully medieval. It's great. And the fact that it was all over church walls and things, like a constant reminder, is just delicious, I think.
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A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it does seem quite often that the medieval world felt like it had a closer connection to the afterlife. There is this idea that always remember you're going to die, always remember you're going to purgatory. And even when people are there, you can still intervene on their behalf from Earth with prayers and things like that. There's this sense of still being connected, even across those kind of voids. Amy, I wondered if you could tell us a Little bit about why 31 October in particular has become significant and why we associate it with spooky stuff.
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Yeah, certainly. So it's really interesting because as long as we have kind of records for this kind of period, 31st October through to about the 1st or 2nd of November, is seen as a time of the dead, of reflection and that kind of thing. So you've got like, for example, Samhain with the. With the Celts and stuff like that. But it was really from about the 4th century that it became associated, or kind of that period became associated with the dead in kind of the All Hollowtide festivals. So in the wider spectrum of that, you had this time being a period for prayer, for fasting, for honoring the saints and the martyrs, but also your own kind of personal dead. So you get this idea that it is for the honoured dead, so for the saints and martyrs, but then also for your family and various different cultures had various different practices. But, for example, quite a lot of people in the Celtic fringe would leave out food for the spirits around about this time. And we have probably from about 800 AD, evidence of Gaelic churches in Ireland and also places like Northumbria really starting to hone in on this date and focus on it as a time for commemorations of the dead. And one of the reasons why it's the 31st as well is because obviously the calendar was slightly different back then. We won't go into too many details. Let's. So from midnight on 31st October through to 1st November, the midday would have been the key time for the rituals. And it was known in various different times as, like, solemnity of the saints. And it's a day for kind of personal reflection, intercessions for the dead in purgatory and also visits to cemetery. So we have quite a lot of references to those kind of practices even happening during the medieval period. So I think. I don't know whether it's partially linked to the idea of this time being the changing of the seasons, the changing of kind of everything getting a bit colder. But certainly there's a medieval precedence for this being a very important religious festival that honours two different types of the dead, your own personal dead, but then also the saints, the important kind of figures in Christian church. And it was incredibly holy time. I always think it's quite funny when people think that it's satanic or something like that, because it's quite the opposite in the medieval period. Yeah. So I think certainly in classical times, but it's the early medieval period, we start to see this being formulated into a time where you think about the dead, the time where the veil is thinnest, if you want to use a popular phrase, and that the dead can access this time.
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A
Yeah. Which is fascinating. And it's easy to see how it would happen at the end of October, because, as you say, the seasons are turning, the days are getting shorter, it's dark, you've got all the crops in, you're thinking about surviving the winter, which makes you think a little bit about death a bit more, and it's kind of that sense that death is a little bit closer to you in a medieval winter. It's perhaps no coincidence that the end of October becomes the focus for this kind of celebration and thought, yeah, certainly.
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I think even things like the weather, things like harvests, whenever there's a bad harvest, you tend to see more of this kind of discourse. And I think even just something about those long winter nights would have encouraged storytelling. And even if it was more religiously based than what we would see in later centuries, this kind of storytelling tradition is very old. And even if some of the stories we now tell aren't, and they aren't medieval, I think the practice of storytelling round a fire in this time is very medieval in origin.
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A
Yeah. It's very atmospheric as well.
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Yes.
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A
Alex, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the role that folklore plays alongside religion. So we've talked a bit about the religious impact and the. The need or the. The desire to feel closer to. To those who have passed and to saints and things like that. But what role does folklore play around this time of the year as well?
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B
Well, I think the two. I don't think either nullifies the other. I think they sort of coexist. And in fact, I think actually as religion changed and Christianity, of course, took hold, I think that they sort of took on a lot of the folkloric practice and probably maybe in some efforts as a recruitment drive as well, like, oh, so you guys love this? Sure thing. Well, the Christians do that. Join us. You know, they make people sort of feel like this is the kind of. The tempting. The tempting thing. But I think the other thing as well is the sort of social aspect of folklore, which is, of course, you know, you look at the church, it was for centuries, and arguably in some communities, still is central to village life and all the rest of it. But communal living in an agricultural sense was far different from nowadays now. We think of hubs of being the cities and the towns, but of course, this is something that's. That's changed and come with time. So a lot more people were living in the countryside. That agrarian life was completely different. And these were practices that were kind of handed down that I think have taken maybe as spooky a slant as we've taken that sort of Irish diaspora concept of Halloween. But I think the medieval and the folkloric, they were looking at ways of, as Amy sort of touched on, of explaining away the seasonal change and things like that. So you get lots of different practices. So like I said, with the three living, that idea of going hunting in the forest and things like that was so familiar to people because woodlands were very different in terms of what people were doing. And so your affinity with things like trees and all the rest of it and animals was much more familiar. So if you were looking at the idea of, you know, somewhere like Cherbury as a church, you know, you had that at the center of life. But also you would have superstitions that were readily there. Like they'd say on a certain date, if you circled it a certain amount of times, you would see X, Y and Z, or someone might appear to you and things like this. So you see a lot of history of people taking religious aspects or folkloric and combining the two. So people would do things like in Scotland, carrying rowan, lighting small fires and things to kind of stave away evil spirits. Church bells, Big one for that. And maybe sort of later on I can go more into like the death knell. But you would see these kind of traditional practices existing alongside church religious practices as well, and soul cakes, things like this. And in fact, even the idea of guising, which is sort of a very early trick or treating of sort of turning up in people's houses in costumes and things like that, was a way of kind of adding, I suppose, some humility to what must have been quite a scary time. It was so dark and using kind of like, you know, the original sort of tanips as kind of what would have been sort of Jack o' Lantern's. Lots of these things were old folkloric practices and old kind of wives tales, old village routines that really kind of started to take on a more religious line as the church really kind of started to hammer down a bit. I think the other thing, of course, as well, is our attitude to ghosts and woodlands change post Reformation, because as we said before, you know, it sounds a bit tenuous, but Robin Hood kind of worshiping the Virgin Mary in a woodland pre Reformation made sense afterwards. Just seems a Little bit odd. You wanted to sort of dissuade people from that. So I think folklore had to start a modern slant to stay relevant, I think.
- [24:39]
A
Yeah. I was struck by the way that folklore sometimes feels like it's meant to connect you with the woodland and the countryside that's around you and sort of root you in it. But then it's also quite often scary. It's almost like it's meant to scare you away from the countryside as well. It's a weird kind of mix of things, I'm always struck. So we live out in the countryside a little bit, and we quite often watch a program on the telly or a horror film or something. You know, someone's walking through the woods and there's sudden animal noises everywhere. And my kids are always like, that's not scary. That's just going outside. So it's weird how sometimes it feels like this stuff is meant to connect you to what's around you, but also slightly make you afraid of what's around you. Because I suppose you're so used to it. How do you make it scary? I don't know. It's like folklore is doing these two different things at the same time.
- [25:25]
B
I think that's a really good point, because the church, of course, would do things like tell you X, Y and Z was bad. And with fear, they can manage situations better. And I think with nature, you're explaining away things probably from a practical point of view of stopping your kids from running off down into the wood or falling into a well, whatever it might be, but also explaining away things that maybe, you know, the human proclivity for habit and for explaining things is not new. That's entrenched in us since whenever. But the idea of, like, you know, taking a horse, things like that, was much more commonplace. If a horse shied on a certain spot and you couldn't see inexplicable reason, well, people would start to reach for things like maybe something else had happened, maybe a past trauma, maybe the horse senses something. You know, the way we salute magpies. All these practices. We start to create a narrative, like we do nowadays, where someone's got a cat and, you know, they give him this whole character, oh, he's got a job, he does this, he does that. He's a cat. And we love cats. But, I mean, we did the same in folklore. We started to say an owl appearing at a certain time of year was a sign of, you know, a changeling child. If a pregnant woman heard an owl, that's a really old one or seeing, you know, an owl or a raven. I mean the birds are relatively interchangeable at a churchyard by a lychgate, things like this, they were thought to be soul carriers. So things start to take on a practical slant, but also a creepy slant. The more that I think humans proclivity for having a good old scare and telling haunted stories at that time of year. Perfect. It's going to be a lot spookier than telling it the height of summer. The summer folklore tends to be a lot more sort of beauty remedies and fertility tips and things like that. But the winter is much more, you know, focused on really putting the fear up people.
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- [29:35]
A
Foreign. We, we heard a little bit of a reading from a story called the Wild Hunt in our introduction and you mentioned it a little bit earlier. So could you tell us a bit more about what the Wild Hunt story is? What do we know about where it comes from and then what does it tell us? How does it scare us?
- [29:54]
C
Of course. So I love the Wild Hunt. It's such a. I'd probably say, even hasten to say, it's almost cross cultural because certainly within medieval Europe and beyond places like Germany, England, it really holds precedence other parts of the uk. And it is, in short, a terrifying spectacle of does what it says on the tin, a hunt that thunders across the skies at night. It's linked to various different figures who lead the hunt. So, for example, some of the stories it's Odin, some of it, it's the kind of the queen of the witches or the devil. You've got King Herla or in Wales, Gwyn ap Nudd. And we have reference to the Wild Hunt from around the 12th century. I think part of the reason why it's linked to, and this is only my kind of speculation, why you can be found in so many different areas in medieval Europe is because of the monastic community. The monastic community in a lot of ways would have been truly international. You would have had German monks in monasteries in Britain and people from all over in these hubs, these cultural hubs. So certainly if someone migrates and moves to another area area, the story comes with them. So I think that's how it would have gained precedence in different areas. Some very, very early versions of the story we have are the Peterborough Chronicle, and that one is from 1127. And the wild Hunt was said to have been seen after a very, very unpopular abbot was installed as the abbot of Peterborough Abbey. And that's very interesting because quite often the Wild Hunt is used as a vehicle for public opinion opinion. It's used as an omen of misfortune, of disease, of death. It brings forth with it all of the most negative aspects of human existence. And often the people who ride in the Black Hunt are either sinners or they're kind of in some way monstrous. You get whole stories where there's imps and little gobliny things. You've got a rather. I think it is the Peterborough Chronicle, where there's actually A whole horde of black horses and there's a black goat as well, which obviously links to the devil in itself. Audrey Vitalis also wrote a version of the story in 1130, or at least he wrote it down, and he links the Wild Hunt more to kind of the idea of sinners. So there's sinners, there's adulterous women, there's fallen monks and anyone who's gone against good Christian morality. And I think that also is another thread within a lot of these stories. Regardless of whether it's the devil leading it or Gwenh Apnod or whoever, it's the idea that. That these bring forth an omen of some sort of bad times. But then equally, it is the fate of those who do not follow a good Christian life. And so many medieval ghost stories are linked to this idea that if you are not a good Christian, you will end up in this place, in purgatory, or in some sort of negative situation. So I love it because I love the idea of this dark kind of winter's night and you hear the thundering of hooves and horses kind of, and all of those really, really pertinent, powerful images and it being a sign of plague or death or destruction. So, yeah, big up the Wild Hunt. It's amazing.
- [33:05]
A
And I guess it could be a way to explain a distant storm or, you know, you hear funny noises in the night and always the wild hunt coming because someone's been up to no good. I quite like the idea of using it as an art, a version of an opinion poll, you know.
- [33:19]
C
Yeah.
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A
If someone comes around your house and you, you know, you're not enjoying the company, you just be like, oh, wild hunt's coming.
- [33:25]
C
Yeah, sorry, I don't. Didn't like that person. It's definitely the wild hunts coming for them. And so much of folklore is that is an opinion poll. A lot of medieval or stories that are rooted in the medieval period, which are like phantom monks, are a criticism of the clergy and folklore. So much of folklore is going, aha, we don't like this fella. So obviously, you know, King Hurl is coming for him and his soul. He's going to take his soul through it. I think it's a really powerful. Regardless of which version of the story you read or you see, it's a really powerful metaphor for either social change or death, plague, all that kind of thing.
- [33:59]
A
And I guess with the Wild Hunt as well, because so many medieval kind of ghost stories and revenant zombie stories, things like that, there's a way to resolve it to drive them away. So you can put the ghost to rest by dealing with whatever had seen it in Purgatory. Or you can burn the body of a corpse that keeps coming back at night. But the Wild Hunt, one of those things, how do you solve it? Because it's just passing by and it's just, you know, you got to hope they don't stop for you. But it's one of those things, a problem that you can't solve, a scary thing that you can't confront and fix, which makes it more scary, I guess.
- [34:30]
C
Yeah. So it's the inevitable, isn't it? It's that it's similar to what Alex was saying about the three deaths. It's the idea that you can't change it. It's the force of nature that will take and will take you. And that could be linked to religion or it could be linked to something far are more natural. It's the force that can punish those that deserve to be punished. Like that awful abbot. Yeah.
- [34:54]
A
And does the Wild Hunt connect at all to Wild Edric? He's a character who crops up sometimes.
- [34:59]
C
Yes. Yes. So I liked seeing how excited Alex got then as well. We're both big fan of Wild Edric. So Wild Edric is kind of quasi folkloric. He was a person, we know he was a person in post Conquest Britain. But he's also linked, certainly from kind of the 12th century, and people like Walter Ma with folklore and folkloric ideas. So Walter Mapp was the first person to link him to having a fairy bride. And you've got this wonderful Arthurian kind of narrative where he's got this fairy bride and he captures her away and all these kind of motifs you see in a lot of Arthurian legends. But in Shropshire folklore, he said to Hawkins, haunt the lead mines, because through punishment and whenever England is in peril, he said to ride out again over the hills. And it. It's really interesting. I'm sure Alex will have some other things to add to this as well. But it's. It's interesting because it. It shows how people in the local community or in these. These local communities were interacting with a wider corpus of folk narratives. So it doesn't matter whether it is Wild Edric at the front of the hunt or Gwen at night, it's people linking their narrative to their local community.
- [36:12]
A
Wild Edric there sounds a little bit like almost a King Arthur figure. You know, when England's in peril, he'll come. But is he like a scary version of King Arthur? Alex how does he fit into Shropshire folklore?
- [36:22]
B
I think, to be honest, like, it's a very similar scenario and I think they tie into this kind of. Whether it's sort of Britishness or whatever. It is a lot of these old stories that mostly kind of start in a kind of French idea and then kind of take shape with a British character. Although Edric existed, I think the sort of the scary bit, really, I suppose you've got this idea that he's championing for people against the monarch and things like that, which is sort of most of us kind of get behind that sort of hero. And also the Welsh border influence, all the rest of it. So, you know, we're far away from London, so we're thinking this guy is kind of championing whatever it might be. But also he takes on a very sort of spooky folkloric aspect when you throw in a Gothic landscape, I. E. The Stiper stones, the Devil's chair, which I encourage people to Google Google if they're not familiar with it, because I would argue there is probably, apart from maybe going up to like, Cumbria or somewhere, you're going to struggle to find somewhere more Gothic y and eerie. And the idea of him and his retinue riding across this sort of landscape and the idea of that kind of fairy wife in her sort of Lanon Shea type role being sort of a downfall, but also a good thing. I think it's this sort of phantom thing that they were driven into a wood where they'd driven into a cave. And, you know, lots of different stories differ about whether they were slaughtered, trapped, their souls. They come out in times of need, times of war, times of fear. And it's this thought of. And if you'd be not there, it's hugely impractical. You wouldn't be able to gallop a horse across there. I'm just going to say it, but I think the thought of that sort of phantom appearing in times when the country's already living in what is a tangible, palpable fear, I think then you make way for a supernatural fear and that's when Edric's like, hold my pipe, I'm here. Like, he sort of comes forward and says, you know, fear is so multifaceted. You've got things that you can explain away and tangible fears, but you've got to add that supernatural, that folkloric fear to make it really spooky. Spooky. I think fear and spooky are different things, aren't they? And Edric sort of embodies both In a sort of strange way.
- [38:13]
A
And that sounds like another example of where people are willing to blur the lines between the living and the dead. So Halloween is a specific time of year, but there are also moments, you know, a moment of national crisis could be a time when as we say, you know, that veil gets a little bit thinner and, and there is increased danger. So there is either help or hindrance that might come from the other side and it may be, you know, people are encouraged to see things and hear things and, and think that they're scary or, or they mean something much bigger than they are.
- [38:42]
B
Yeah, I think so. And I think the Irish very loud things like that, they're good examples of this. You've got somebody beautiful that appears to men, perhaps men that want to fall in love, but also usually those men then tend to die young. So I think it's. A lot of these things are double edged swords. I think if something is something of a hero and quite exciting and appearing in times of need, there's also got to be another edge to that which is something that keeps that distance. Because if you have something that is solely good, people are going to sort of feel attached to it. I think stories like that, you've got to have the fear for separation, but also for longevity as well. Because I do think it's just a British thing that if somebody's a jolly good chap and is famous like Robin Hood, you've got to start adding some dodgy stuff. And medieval Robin Hood was way spookier than, you know, Errol Flynn in tights. Depends if you find that spooky or not. But you know, he was a lot more like lopping off heads and things that much more their cup of tea. And I think people like wild Edric take on this sort of heroic slant. The second people are sort of, you know, want this kind very British figure of, you know, coming out when we're at war and you know, it's, it's encompassing old folkloric, Welsh, borderland, marcher sort of stories with a sort of slightly more modern take of needing this sort of hero. I think it's fascinating.
- [39:53]
A
Yeah, yeah, it is. Alex, you're on Instagram fairly regularly talking about bits of folklore and all of your little videos are really, really interesting. I encourage people to go and find you there and watch some of the, there's a couple of things that you talk about that I, I'm really interested to explore with you. So Corpse Roads is something that I think you're interested in. I wonder if you could Tell us a bit about the medieval origins of corpse roads. What are they?
- [40:16]
B
Yes, I can. And I think Amy must have seen my face light up so many times when we say corpse roads. This is, you know, this is. This is my thing. I'm fascinated. Corpse roads are a practical thing as well as fate. Laura state very kind of quickly, basically, in short terms, they're an ancient. They of. Particularly when communities were much more rural than they are now, and roads were even worse, if you can imagine, with the potholes, but were trying to go from a place of death, which was far more common to die at home, to a place of burial, which was then consecrated, hallowed ground. With that. That is a practical thing that had to happen. And they traversed the landscape within that. You then find historically, especially in medieval times, rules taking place like a corpse road would have to cross a body of water. And because it was thought that the soul wouldn't be able to. Spirit wouldn't be able to kind of find its. Basically cross the water, find its way back, you'd leave the house feet first, so it disorientated the spirit. You would add lots of different things. They would sort of travel straight, but also have to add maybe a bend or somewhere to confuse them. A lot of the time they would start traveling through woodlands. So, of course, because it was a rural landscape, but woodlands loom large. And then you would have this association of certain trees that were said to hold. Hold the souls, like oak trees and things like this. Then you would have lich stones. So lich, which is sort of, I suppose, loosely, the Anglo Saxon corpse, basically. And these would be stones that had been sort of blessed and where you could rest the coffin, whatever you were carrying the body in. Because you'd need to, if you can imagine, but you'd have to have spots where you could do this. Otherwise, if you just put them on the ground, that person was then tied to that part of the ground that they would haunt that spot. It's very. It's quite eerie when you think about it. It also became almost like people did with holy wells and things. It became quite a thing. There's quite a retinue of people that would follow in various sort of guises and things like this. It became a whole sort of thing. It wasn't just a couple of blokes carrying a body, you know, to the church. It started off practical and then, as with all things, it sort of got rather large and unceremonial. And then you had sort of lychgates and things. These idea of Leaving, practically you had to leave a body you couldn't pull up in the, in a, in a hearse, so you had to leave the body there overnight. Well, usually someone would stay with it, but the weather, you'd have to have something that covered it, that protect that also separated you from the layman's turf to hallowed ground. And then in the medieval times, you start having this idea that the soul of the last person buried was watching over the churchyard and you'd have the next person taking over. So all these sort of sentinel duties, these things started to kind of appear and get embellished alongside corpse rays, which were basically, you know, the practical way of taking like the Necropolis railway in the 19th century, you know, it was a predecessor to that thing. You were transporting somebody who died at home and taking them there. But all the practices like sin eating, opening a window to let the soul out, all these things that started to be sort of all part and parcel got attached to corpse roads. And what I think is so fascinating about corpse roads just quickly is culturally where places like Wales, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Devon, lots of counties that kind of keep lots of tradition in those sort of parts of the world still have marked corpse roads. And you can go and see them. There's quite a few in Shropshire and I would say to anyone, if you're out on a look for that kind of thing, places like the Longmont generally, a lot of them now, sheep paths and things. But if you're looking, if you're in a wooded area that seems to be quite a. Almost like a drover's route, and if it crosses water and things like that, there's a very good chance that it at some point would have been used as a corpse road, especially if it goes to a church. And a lot of them did, you know, cross paths with drovers routes as well, like the Kerry Ridgeway and the Counting Stone and things like that. So they were practical, but surrounded by folklore and superstition. And in some communities, communities, people added their own slant on things as well. It wasn't always a sort of a strict how to guide. You could always add your own slant on it, but they're wonderfully spooky. And the one on the Longmont, if you're walking down to Ratchet or rattling oak, whatever your preference, very spooky, very eerie. And then came a sort of 18th century ghoster about the ratchet funeral procession. So if you've got a stretch of road known for carrying the dead, even though that story falls by the wayside, is your ancestors and things die off. There are still ghost stories that are attached to it and usually there they they outlive the corpse road by a long way. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this fall. Take care of the little ones in the family with Baby Club Savings now through November 4th. Spend $25 on select Baby Club products and save $5. Shop for items like Pediasure bottles, Pedialyte powder packs, Huggies baby wipes, Huggies diapers, Gerber puffs and Gerber pouches. And save $5 when you buy $25.
- [45:00]
A
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B
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C
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- [45:39]
A
Download TikTok now and claim your voucher today. It's fascinating. It says something about us people that we take something as practical as getting someone from the place that they've died to the place that they're going to be buried, and we bolt onto it. All of these superstitions and the need to, to prevent the spirit from coming back and you sort of cross water and go around a bend to confuse it and be put on a special stone so it doesn't become connected to the earth. It's so strange that we feel the need to build all of this stuff around something just so practical and mundane.
- [46:30]
B
Yeah, we still do it today, I think in a, in a more, you know, we look at things like, we say, like robins. So people see robins and things now and think of them as, you know, souls or representatives of, you know, animals have got a big tie with that. So I think we do that emotionally and maybe we put more of an emotional aspect depending on what your concept of fear is. Now, now we tend to have a very Victorian idea of fear, like the haunted houses, things like that. So the folklore with animals and death and things is much more comforting to us now than spooky. But in medieval times, they weren't into the haunted house so much as they were. The natural world is much more of a, of a Warning to us.
- [47:03]
A
Yeah. And Alex, you also talk about death omens a fair bit. You know, just as you do every day. I wonder if you could give us a bit of an insight into medieval ideas of death omens and things that would. Because that would obviously scare somebody if you see something that you believe is. Is a harbinger of death.
- [47:18]
B
Oh, yeah, fully. And I mean, I sound. Don't I sound like an absolute joy corpse rose and death omens. Come on, sit by me. But yeah, you had all sorts looks so owls again, long standing one and just hearing even, you know, you hear the word hoot and it just sounds hilarious. But the idea of an owl making noise and things outside of your bedroom was that they were coming ready to fetch the soul. It was, you know, particularly on farms and things, it was a warning and often it was a warning of witchcraft as well. In slightly later medieval times, when that took more of a hold and the relationship with witchcraft changed. But this idea of even birds like magpies and things like that long had a history to do with biblical stories. Not crying at the crucifixion or the rest of it for magpie, was it to appear or act strangely in any way and tap at your window? Very often they were thought to be giving you a warning that somebody in the house was going to die, something was going to happen to the farmland and also it was thought that. That they'd come to fetch your soul as well. So if somebody was dying in the house, which in a multi generational household, which then they were, sounds strange to us because usually the parents, probably the oldest in the house, but it was far more common to live with, you know, grandparents all the rest of. Wasn't that unusual for somebody to die at home? Not at all. So if an animal started to behave strangely, like there's lots, especially in medieval times when there wasn't the enclosure, say farmland animals are roaming around and things like that. If cattle started to behave strangely or horses and things like this, and you could explain away something like, or whatever, you'd start to think they were predicting the death of somebody and that it was causing them distress. And we still do, we still associate dogs with sensing something. If someone says, oh my dog barks in my house and we don't know why and, you know, we still have that. But in medieval times, the countryside and kind of seeing unexplained things like, you know, lights and things like this, you know, somewhere that could have even been kind of candlelight, people would start to explain things as warnings, as preempting of death as preempting of danger. And that's when you start going into things, especially later medieval times, of Aphrodite marks and witchcraft and things like this. But nature, like oak trees, things like this, and in later times, beech trees were considered sort of sentinel, but also to be places where, you know, there were spots of fear but also of goodness. But oak trees, you were said to be able to do things like if you circled an oak tree or if you tied something to an oak tree, there were things you could do to protect yourself in a wood. But equally, if you walked into part of the wood and it all fell silent, it was said to be an omen of sight, something. And you were to say sort of turn around and go back the way you'd came and never speak your name aloud because then it was thought the spirits of the wood would have your name. There was a lot of that in things like medieval times. But the main death omens in a big way were definitely animals, particularly wooden animals. And then in later years when things like, you know, the devil, the attitude of the devil changed, you get the black dog and goats and things like this, that kind of gave that ecclesiastical fear. But folkloric birds are big ones. They, they definitely. And I, I would think people still do. If you see, I mean, magpies, look, they're sedentary, they do spend a lot of time on the ground, but people do still think, oh, don't upset a magpie or that crows, ravens, you know, corvus in general, they think, communicate, you know, they, they sense things, they know things. And I think even these days, and I know that from doing on tick tock, people still don't find that stuff, shouldn't call it stuff, but far fetch. And horses are a big one. There's a lot of time they said horses would act strangely in the stable or in the barn or whatever. They thought they could sense everything from death to the weather.
- [50:37]
A
I mean, I, I know someone who salutes magpies and I don't know how medieval the practice of actually saluting magpies is, but presumably that's a connection to this idea that they are potentially harbingers of something. You ought to respect them because they, they have knowledge or connections that we don't know and we don't understand.
- [50:56]
B
Yeah, I think anything that's kind of liminal, isn't it? And that's like, like we do with Halloween. We fear it and enjoy it. And I think, I think animals likewise. And the thing is, you know, I think the Belief in ghosts and all this sort of thing it bears. And we wear it on our sleeve in a way that we never used to. It used to be, in a non secular society, much more acceptable. But I think animals and things like that. I would say even now people have an affinity with certain animals when someone passes. I think that's very common. I certainly do. And I think animals that display an intelligence that we can't perhaps explain away, like magpies, like crows, like ravens, you know, the traditional thing of the ravens in the tower will fall. If they left the tower. All these things, we start to anthropomorphize them. We put a responsibility on them that they may or may not have. But we do think of them as, you know, they're carrying the soul or they're warning us. So we better keep them happy because, you know, I certainly want to be upsetting somebody that's taking my soul somewhere. You know, you want to keep them sweet. It's like tipping the driver, you know. I think you want to. I think with fear and respect. They are bedfellows, I would say.
- [51:56]
A
Yeah, yeah. And just one last one from you, Alex, as well. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about the significance of yew trees in graveyards. Because there's an important connection there, isn't there?
- [52:06]
B
Yeah. So yews. And I'll make this one quick, sorry, because I know I chat a bit, but yews are very often they're found in churchyards and they're associated with Halloween. Yews are said to be sort of the original tree of holding the souls of the dead. They're in churchyards often. They're actually a pagan thing. They're long lived, so some of them live for thousands of years. And there's a good few in Shropshire that are. And in Perthshire as well is a very famous one that's said to be. Be. Most people say 3,000, some say up to five, but they predate the church. But they did have a significance with the religion Pontius Pilate was said to be born under. One said they very quickly gained a sort of folkloric spooky idea. And this idea that they're evergreen as well, so unlike the deciduous trees, so they kept their color in the depths of winter. And their association with churchyards because they were sacred very quickly made them take on an idea of being spooky. And the fact that they look beautiful but their berries are toxic and things like this. And they thrive well in the soils of graveyards for obvious reasons. But they are that tree that holds the dead. And they're thought to be planted on liminal spaces because like a lot of trees they're knowing and they're so long lived that I think generations of people will have seen the same yew tree. So there's one in Norbury that was over a thousand years old when the Norman conquest happened, which is extraordinary. So the generations of people that saw this old tree, I think it is no coincidence that they start to take on this affinity and start to be spooky and say, well, you know, they hold the soul of the dead. You know that spirits appear and if you cut down a you it brings madness and bad luck to the house and the church will fall because it predates the church. So it isn't a stretch to think that, that you, you know, for a lot of people in a non secular society, it was part of the reason that the church was sort of surviving. So their association with Halloween is almost certainly solely down to the fact that they're always found in churchyards. And from a practical point of view of actually they're toxic to livestock. So it was a way of keeping livestock out. But they're always found on liminal spaces. They can survive all sorts of ways, weather. And so they really are this sort of old gnarly tree. They just look spooky. I love them, I think they're beautiful. But from a very young age they look gnarled and spooky. So with that folklore and ghost was always going to attach itself to them.
- [54:13]
A
Yeah, yeah. Amy, I wondered if you ever get any sense from the. The sources that you've looked at of the purpose of medieval ghost stories and scary tales, particularly around. Around Halloween. Did medieval people just like to be frightened or are they looking for some kind of moral to take away from these stories?
- [54:34]
C
So I think it would be wrong to say that medieval people didn't like to be frightened because I think everyone, as long as there has been humans, we have probably been telling these types of stories. So I think there's an element of that, but I think it's far more nuanced when it comes to the medieval period. And I think a lot of our understanding of the ghosts is very much 19th century, it's Victorian, it's the penny dreadfuls and things like that. When in reality that wasn't really what they were like in the medieval period. The medieval ghost has several purposes and almost all of them are linked very, very intrinsically to religion and religious ideas at the time. They symbolized moral lessons. So the Consequence of sin, for example, that's a massive one. Within Wild Hunt narratives and also narratives in different ghost stories is that actually your sins will not be forgiven if you die unrepentant and you will end up in either purgatory or your soul will be wandering. Sometimes they represent unfinished business. So there's some sort of physical barrier that's stopping the soul from passing on to the place that it's supposed to go next. And that's certainly a thing that we do see carrying on into the early modern period and beyond. Even now, you know, with things like Most Haunted and Erica Cora, it was always, oh, well, they've got unfinished business here. And I'm not going to do the accent, but certainly the unfinished business is a really big one in the medieval period. And sometimes that can be linked to things that. So, for example, someone might not have fulfilled their duty to the person. Someone might not have finished and sorted out certain wrongs. There's all this strong moralistic idea that you have to honor the dead in a particular way as well. Well, I think as well, something that is probably often left out of kind of more modern ideas is the link to purgatory. So many ghost stories and medieval ghost stories are messages from purgatory. They are people who are coming to request masses and intercessions from the living and imploring the living to not forget them being. Because in that kind of medieval idea of Christianity, if you're forgotten, you're never going to be able to leave purgatory. So, so much of medieval understandings of the ghost is tied into tangible fears of death, tangible fears of disease, the fate of the soul. These weren't uncommon things for people to ponder in the medieval period. So it's not now, you know, but certainly in a society that was so underpinned by its religious identity ideas, you would wonder what would happen after you passed and. And whether there would be people there to remember you. And I think in a lot of ways, the ghost stories of the medieval period are there to frighten you, but they're there to frighten you into submission rather than frighten you into kind of in the same way we would have now with, like the Victorian idea onwards into the 21st century. It's to make sure you show proper behavior, you act in a way that's in accordance to your relig religion, and you do what you can for the dead who may have passed on to ensure that they are able to leave purgatory and go to where they're supposed to be. So Really, I don't think you can understand the true meaning of the medieval ghost story without looking at its religious importance. And even things like the Wild Hunt. It's certainly something that was more kind of natural based and it invoked a lot of natural imagery, but it was still underpinned by religion in, you know, order. It. Vitalis is saying. Saying it's the sinners, it's the. The fallen women, it's the monks that have probably enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh a little bit too much. They are all inhabitants of the Wild Hunt. They're people that are part of it. So it really is linked to religion. And again, I do. I think the. Probably the best way to put it is it's to frighten those people into submission rather than frighten them for, you know, entertainment. But certainly they would have still been told for entertainment. But there is that strong religious identity idea that underpins it.
- [58:43]
A
Yeah, because there's so many of the ghost stories. I mean, I think amongst the Byland ghost stories, there's one about a guy who is doomed to. To haunt people as a ghost because he'd stolen some spoons and not returned them in life. And there's, you know, you shouldn't die owing people money. And it's. I guess it's that sense of the church trying to say that all of these things will stop you getting into heaven and you can never really know when you're going to die, so you should just always live a good life and, you know, don't think that you can sin all of your life and then correct it at the end, because what if you die unexpectedly? So the scary element is less about probably the spookiness that we would think of. Of ghost stories and the. And the actual live terror of not getting into heaven because, you know, you didn't give someone their spoons back that you borrowed.
- [59:29]
C
Yeah, yeah, certainly. And I think things that might seem mundane to us, like spoons. I lose spoons every time I leave my lunchbox at work. That is something that's so tangible, you know, particularly in more agrarian classes or people that would have had kind of. I hate using the word peasant, but, you know, you're more peasant classes. You didn't have much that. That story from the Byland Abbey narrative. If you only had one set of spoons and you've been wronged. It's. It's more than just what that object is about. It is about the sin itself. And so many of the stories are actually quite mundane things. Like there's certain stories where it's it's over land dispute whose boundary is whether the field is on the right part of the field or that kind of thing and boundaries, material possessions, and then all the way up to things like blood feuds and stuff like that, which you tend to see more in the Norse and the Icelandic sagas. But certainly I think the fear of death, particularly when you get to times kind of post plague outbreaks, it's a very tangible fear and it's something that I think is very hard for someone who lives in period of the NHS and things like that to fully get their head around how tangible death and the fear of death would have actually been.
- [60:48]
A
Yeah. And Amy as well. How important is it that we kind of retain our connection to those kind of local. Local stories and folklore traditions? Why is it important that we don't kind of abandon those regional differences in. In belief and understanding?
- [61:05]
C
So I think it's absolutely tantamount. My kind of whole body of research has been local folklore, local heritage. But I think you can enjoy stories from wider. You can understand, like the wider narrative of British folklore or British history through. Through certain stories, but by looking at your locality, you were able to gain an intimate insight into its history. So I've always said a ghost is never just a ghost. It's never just a haunting, it's never just anything like that. There's always something far more pertinent to that story. Because if you think about all the long centuries that it has passed, there's a reason why it was remembered, there's a reason why that narrative has continued. And I see. See ghosts very much so. Ghosts as a conduit for the concerns of a wider community. If someone has died in the local community and they shouldn't have died, they are going to endure as a ghost. If there has been a plague, you might hear the Wild Hunt bringing it forth. And I think by looking at localized narratives, we are able to understand our areas, or certainly other areas in a very intimate way way. And it reminds us, I think, of the humanity of the past. Because when you boil it all down, when you look at all this, these stories are an incredibly human thing. So I think local stories are fascinating, intriguing, interesting and really are valid.
- [62:33]
A
Yeah, yeah, wonderful. But this has been absolutely fascinating. I feel like we could do this all day. And if anybody does want to do this all day, of course they can go and listen to your Shropshire Witches podcast. But, Alex, I wondered if we could end with. With if you had to spend Halloween somewhere really spooky to tell a really good story. Where would you go? Where's the creepiest place, you know?
- [62:53]
B
Oh, okay, good. The two honorable mentions are Tanners on Wildcock. That is the most beautiful old building. It's extraordinary. So I just think if you want something atmospheric that's been preserved in time, that's an amazing place. Powers Castle's great as well, but I. I think it's got to be. What I'm going to say is. Is the prettiest castle in England is Ludlow. It's got to be because of stories like Marion de le Bruyere and things like that, like. Which probably isn't even true, but the spooky ghost stories. I think if ever there was a ruin that is just absolutely beautiful and simultaneously spooky. Doing a lap around there at night as well. You're perfectly safe because it's Ludlow. So don't worry, there won't be a mugging. But I think if you wanted to just have a look at the history and some. That's eerie and beautiful, I would say go to Ludlow. Go out for supper. It's beautiful. And then just do the footpath around Ludlow Castle and stop and look up at the towers, read up on some of the ghost stories and things in the atmosphere. And I would say there's gotta be no finer place for beauty. And also very, very spooky. Ludlow Castle trumps it for me, definitely.
- [63:57]
A
I'm always here to champion Ludlow, so I think that it's the creepiest place as well. Ludlow is my favorite castle. So to add that it's the creepiest castle as well. I definitely take that award for Ludlow. Thank you. And, Amy, how about you? If you had to scare someone, where would you take them for Halloween?
- [64:14]
C
So this one is relatively easy for me, Lilleshall Abbey. So I write a lot about local ghosts. I have never been anywhere that I have been convinced is definitely haunted, except for Lilleshall Abbey. The whole atmosphere in the building is just really creepy. You feel like you're being watched. You feel like you are being followed. There's a real sense of the weight of the history of the building as well. And certainly since I've been researching the Lushal Abbey, people have come to me and told me all sorts of stories from kind of pagan gatherings in the 90s where they saw hooded monks and there's a monk that said to haunt there, that comes up to you and says, do you know the secret? And then disappears. But if I was to put money on anywhere to be haunted, it would be Lilleshall Abbey. And. And it. Yeah, it's just really creepy. And every time I've been there, it's just given me such a strange vibe, which I've not had from other places in the county that I've visited and written about. It's just really creepy. So, you little abbey.
- [65:15]
A
It sounds like a dare from Gone Medieval there for people to go to Lily Shalabi. I've never been and I'm not sure I want to go now. I'm not overly fond of being creeped out in all places, but there's a bit of a dare for from Gone Medieval to go and give it a go. Well, thank you so much, Alex and Amy for joining us to talk about medieval spookiness and creepiness and folklore and ghosts and all of those kinds of things. I hope everyone is having a fantastic Halloween look for the Shropshire Witches Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. To hear more from Alex and Amy. But thank you very much for joining us.
- [65:44]
B
Thank you so much.
- [65:45]
C
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [65:48]
A
Okay, you can come out from behind the sofa now. You can find the Shropshire Witches wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also find episodes in our Background catalogue about the medieval origins of other celebrations such as Christmas and Easter. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentary countries with a new release every week. And all of History hits podcasts ad free. Head over to historyhit.com forward/subscribe to avoid a horrible fright. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history.
- [67:01]
B
Big news. Boost Mobile is now sending experts nationwide to deliver and set up customers new phones at home or work.
- [67:06]
A
Wait, we're going on tour?
- [67:07]
B
Not a tour. We're delivering and setting up customers phones.
- [67:10]
C
So it's easier to upgrade.
- [67:11]
A
Let's get in the tour bus and hit the road.
- [67:13]
B
No, not at all. Tour bus.
- [67:14]
C
It's a regular car we use to.
- [67:16]
B
Deliver and set up customers phones at home or work.
- [67:18]
A
Are you a groupie on this tour?
- [67:19]
C
We deliver and set up phones. It's not a tour.
- [67:22]
B
Oh, you're definitely a groupie. Introducing store to door switch and get a new device with expert setup and delivery wherever you're at. Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com Calling.
- [67:31]
C
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A
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C
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