Episode 38: Dr Simon Young discusses fairy sightings research and Marjorie T. Johnson

Dr Simon Young, an academic on the supernatural, fairy sightings and related folklore meets with me to discuss: Marjorie T. Johnson, ‘The Fairy Investigation Society’, fairy sightings research, experiences running through family generations, The Fairy Census and the academic study of fairies. 

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Content warning: These are not fairytales and the content is unsuitable for children. Some episodes may contain details which some may find unsettling or frightening. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for listeners 16 years and older.

Dr Simon Young

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Simon is a British folklore historian based in Italy. He has written extensively on the nineteenth-century supernatural. His book The Boggart (from Exeter University Press) and The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends (from Mississippi University Press) are both due out in 2022. A companion volume to accompany The Boggart is available freely here.

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Simon and Ceri Houlbrook’s Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies 500 AD to the Present, was published to great acclaim in 2018. He is the editor of Seeing Fairies: From the Lost Archives of the Fairy Investigation Society, Authentic Reports of Fairies in Modern Times Marjorie T. Johnson’s, post-humously published collection of modern fairy sightings – which is a must-have for those interested in the subject. An article concerning the life of Marjorie Johnson is available here.

Continuing the work of The Fairy Investigation Society, Simon initiated a new Fairy Census in 2014, the results of which (2014 – 2017) are available for free online. The census continues, so please do take part if you have anything to report.

Simon is the editor of Exeter New Approaches to Legends, Folklore and Popular Legends and teaches history at University of Virginia’s Siena Campus (CET).


Podcast intro music: Transmutate by Snowflake (c) copyright 2020 Licensed. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Artwork: Peter Hall Studios

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