Ep 60: Owen Staton Storyteller: Welsh Fairies and Legends

I chat with Owen Staton, host of storytelling podcast, Time Between Times and Spectre of the Sea, an atmospheric thriller series weaving Welsh legend and folklore, which he co-hosts with Bethan Briggs-Miller (pictured above). We are treated to not one but TWO fantastic stories…including my personal favourite about the Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fae folk) plus we hear Welsh legend, Gwion and the Witch .

Time Between Times Podcast

We hear about Owen’s childhood orb experience and he recounts some strange occurrences that took place during his days working as a police officer in south Wales.

Get yourselves comfortable and settle down for this tremendous treat of a storytelling session. Warning: while listening to Owen’s stories do not drive or operate machinery.

Main Image: Owen and Bethan Briggs-Miller host Spectre of the Sea.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older. This show is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

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Owen hosts ‘Spectre of the Sea’ podcast with Bethan Briggs-Miller.

Two Bonus Patreon Episodes!

⭐️The first bonus episode on Patreon is a Pixie talk by Claire Casely, fairy researcher and Host of Faery Whispering Podcast, who lives in Devon. As a further bonus, Owen will join The Curious Crew on Patreon, 22nd August for a Zoom chat, Q and A plus an exclusive story-time.⭐️

If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Ep 59: The Burgundy Kingdom – Shropshire Fairies

This episode, full of childhood encounters, holds a particularly enchanting quality. As a sick child lies in bed, he is visited by pixies. On another occasion, at the end of the Second World War, a terrifying goblin appears at the end of his bed. A member of the same family later experiences a bedtime parade of magical wonders. Her resulting dream journeys to a ‘Burgundy Kingdom’ makes her wish dearly that she could return.

Some of those experiences are beautiful and wondrous while others are quite unsettling. A further reminder that this podcast is not suitable for children or for those who are sensitive to creepy content.

⭐️On the bonus episode we hear more about the history of the house including a particularly unnerving event which took place soon after the passing of its owner. In that same bonus we will hear about our guest’s experience at the famous 800 year old oak tree, Old Knobbly in Essex.⭐️

Main Image: ‘The Sleepless Child’ by H. Stratton from ‘Songs for Little People’ (1896)

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older. This show is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Ep 56: London Goblins Pt 2 “They Live Among Us”

Following Episode 55: Terrified by Goblins in my London Flat, in this second part of our interview, my guest reveals what was going on in her life at the time of the encounter. She describes the sense of trauma that these types of experiences can sometimes leave you with.

We also discuss her childhood and how home environment, family traditions and beliefs can encourage children’s imaginations to foster a sense of limitless possibility, which can continue into adulthood.`

⭐️ In the bonus episode on Patreon, we hear some further reflections from our guest about the location where the events took place. Join us there for just £3 a month and get access to the Discord group, Zoom chats and meet each other at exclusive events ⭐️

This episode features amazing FAN ART inspired by the previous episode by artist and listener of the show, Jonathan Dodd. Thank you Jonathan for allowing me to share your creation! Our guest said that she felt the artwork will either help listeners visualise the situation or give them nightmares! She said she remembers them, “looking a bit different to this (much more evil, dirty and intense) but the green bodies, angle and the window behind is really very good and it’s a wonderful picture.”

Main image: ‘The Goblins That Watch You Poo’ by Jonathan Dodd inspired by the previous episode.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older. This show is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

Show notes

Image Reddit: https://i.redd.it/mamehuq8as141.jpg

Hypnopompia

Our guest rising in the night to use the loo provides a potential hypnopompic aspect to the event. The state when we are still heavy with sleep and not quite awake is called hypnopompia relating to the Greek words hýpnos, meaning “sleep,” and pompḗ, meaning “a sending away”.

We may gain access to the unconscious mind during these times as we’re not fully integrated in the material world but hovering at an etheric level where we can access enlightening information and visions.

Visionaries such as Salvador Dali, Mary Shelley and Thomas Edison enlisted these states for inspiration, by holding objects in their hands while relaxing. When their hands became limp as they fell into a sleep state, the object’s falling clattering noise would arouse them. That altered state allowed them to access ideas and visions from deep within their consciousness.

Here’s a nice article on hypnogogia (altered state when going into sleep): https://lonerwolf.com/hypnagogia/

Old Maps Online

I mentioned this website https://www.oldmapsonline.org/ which can overlay historical maps with contemporary ones.

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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Ep 55: Terrified by Goblins in my London Flat!

In 2018, after months of unusual phenomena in her London flat, a woman finally came face to face with the troublesome culprits. During a night time trip to the bathroom she was horrified to see two goblins, stacked one atop the other, peering at her from the threshold of the door. 

Since that time, she has struggled to come to terms with the reality of what happened.  In our western society, people are wholly unaccepting that these experiences take place, least of all that they could ever happen in urban areas. 

We discuss the events that finally led to that night, her relationship with the flat, which had always unnerved visitors and how the decision to share her story was not taken lightly. 

Is it purely location that invokes these visitations? What other factors are involved? We discuss aspects of liminality including thresholds, stages of life and geographical landmarks. 

In the bonus episode on Patreon, I narrate several other modern encounters which bear a striking resemblance to our guest’s experience. Join us there for just £3 a month and get access to the Discord group and regular events.

Main image: Created by the guest as a close likeness of the one of the goblins she saw in her flat.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older. This show is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

Show notes

Briggs, K. (1976) An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bathing Fairies of Ilkley on Boggart and Banshee Podcast (Simon Young and Chris Woodyard)

Bord, J.  (1997) Fairies: Real Encounters with Little People. London: Michael O’Mara Books

Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti (composed in 1859 and published in 1862)

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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Ep 53: Dartmoor Gnomes and Seer Lineage

Another delve into the original interview recordings I made in early 2017 when the Modern Fairy Sightings Project first launched.  Mark Norman and I were at the time researching for the Devon chapter in Simon Young’s book Magical Folk.

One particular woman responded to a poster I’d pinned up in Dartmoor, calling for people to contact with their fairy encounters! We spoke about her family history with fairies and her own understandings of the Otherworld. 

Later on in the show, I share more reported fairy sightings on Dartmoor featured in Janet Bord’s book, Fairies: Real Encounters with Little People.

In the bonus episode on Patreon, we explore  20th century Dartmoor folklore by Theo Brown, which mentions a few stories of sightings in Postbridge, not far from Bovey Tracey, where our guest had lived.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older. This show is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

Shownotes

Janet Bord’s Fairies: Real Encounters with Little People (1997)

Theo Brown’s Tales of a Dartmoor Village: Some Preliminary Notes of the Folklore of Postbridge (1973)

Susan Chittenden’s A Romance of Two Worlds (2021) (pls email me for Susan’s contact)

J. R. W. Coxhead – Devon Traditions and Fairytales (1959)

Edward L. Gardner: Fairies: A Book of Real Fairies (1974)

Marjorie T. Johnson’s (Simon Young ed) Seeing Fairies: From the Lost Archives of the Fairy Investigation Society, Authentic Reports of Fairies in Modern Times (2019)

Dermot MacManus Middle Kingdom: The Faerie World of Ireland (1980)

Simon Young’s Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies: 500AD to the Present (2020)


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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Episode 42: Into the Wilderness

Originally from New Zealand but living in Vancouver, our guest tells us of her Otherworldly experiences whilst on a vision quest in the Rocky Mountains. She also describes a number of UFO sightings and offers some insight into her husband’s upbringing in a First Nations community.

We end with a good ol’ chat about energies of place and reflect on the journey of transition that the world is currently going through.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older.This episode is particularly unsettling and is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

Show notes

Our guest described her experience of “the little people” as clearly heard children’s laughter, though at the top of a mountain in potentially dangerous conditions, there were no children in the vicinity. Sounds of unusual strange laughter are sometimes reported in conjunction with Otherworldly experiences. People do occasionally describe hearing children giggling with no apparent source.

Simon Young’s Fairy Investigation Society Fairy Census (2014 – 2017) is a collection of reported encounters. The census is ongoing and you can report your own experiences at The Fairy Investigation Society. The following entry, no. 306 was reported by a male from Michigan, took place in the 1990’s when the witness was in their 20’s. They were by themselves in woodland between the hours of 6pm to 9pm. They report feeling a ‘profound silence’ before the experience:

‘While out walking after having eaten dinner, on a moonless night, taking a ‘short-cut’ through the woods behind the library in *** (a small stretch of land that runs east-west between ***and ***) I heard the sound of small indistinct voices talking, whispering and laughing from trees around me. I could see nothing, but caught glimpses of small black shadows moving in the branches. The night was pitch black and impossible to see, and though I had walked the path through the woods many times and houses with lights could not have been more than a hundred yards away, I felt quite lost and confused of my way. On a whim, I reached into a pocket of the backpack I was carrying with and found a small metal bell that I had found someplace and had kept as an oddment. I tinkled it for a few minutes and said aloud, ‘Here, you can have this,’ and hooked in on the nearest branch I could reach in the darkness. The woods seemed a little less dark and the path, though not visible, was suddenly discernible underfoot, as a flat clear space to walk. I quickly found myself out of the woods and on the sidewalk and made my way straight home without looking back. I went back to look for the bell the next day. But it was nowhere in sight.’

Simon Young’s Fairy Census (2014 – 2017) The Fairy Investigation Society

During the episode I read from Ron Quinn’s book, The Little People (2010). The book contains reported encounters from New York State, in particular the Catskill Mountains region.

This week’s bonus ‘Lost Time’

Our guest describes a playful prank between First Nation shamens which resulted in an extraordinary ‘lost time’ event. Released 11pm, 26th September.

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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Episode 41: Finding Fairies – From This World to the Next

A gentle story in this episode. A man from Maryland describes meeting an Otherworldly being, backstage at a music festival and tells of his son’s childhood fairy friend. We look at stories of encounters with tall other-than-human folk, who appear and disappear and we explore memories of childhood experiences.

Main image: Holly Fairy by Cicely Mary Barker

NB: This episode has a trigger warning for themes of death and dying.

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Warning: These are not fairytales. The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast is designed for viewers and listeners 16 years and older.This episode is particularly unsettling and is unsuitable for children or anyone who might be sensitive to creepy content.

Show notes

The episode features excerpts from Seeing Fairies by Marjorie T. Johnson (2014) (ed. Simon Young) and the Fairy Investigation Society’s Fairy Census which you can still take part in here.

“Naked Fiddler with an old fool from Basel” (Nackte Fiedlerin mit einem alten Basler Narren). Urs Graf, 1523.

Bonus Episode

This week’s bonus on Patreon is a recording of Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral. We arrived there just in time to be admitted to this choral service after walking the ley line from Chartham.

The book I was inspired by, The Ley Hunter’s Companion by Paul Devereux and Ian Thomson, suggests that the alignment of the cathedral possibly stands on a previous ancient megalith site.

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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

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

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is the-boggart-696x1024.jpg

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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If you enjoy the show, please consider sharing your favourite episodes with friends. Don't forget to rate and subscribe wherever you listen, and if you can, please support by joining The Curious Crew on Patreon

Want to report a sighting?

Contact me at: scarlettofthefae@gmail.com
If you love the show and want support it and join our loving community you can find us at Patreon 

Episode 34: Chat with Lucy Brydon of the ‘One Scot One Not’ Podcast

Lucy and Karen Campbell present Celtic myth, legends and folklore in their informative yet humorous show, which is always uplifting.  They’re on Instagram if you’d like to follow them.

In our chat, Lucy shares a number of her own extraordinary experiences including a visitation from a female being, while in the early stages of pregnancy and a strange case of a call to a fairy ring which was narrowly avoided.  

Beautiful and practical! A journal from Lucy’s collection available on Etsy

Lucy also creates beautiful art, check out her personal Instagram! She has an Etsy shop and teaches online art classes.

Lucy Brydon’s vibrant artwork available on her Etsy shop


If you’d like to hear more of the conversation you can head to Patreon where there is a bonus episode treat just waiting for you! 

As with many of my chats with other researchers, I will release a video version of our interview in the coming months. Enjoy!

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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.

Shownotes

Pregnancy is a liminal state of being, along with other transitional life experiences such as birth, puberty and death. In the Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast Episode 11: Make Haste for Midsummer, our guest was pregnant at the time of the fairy encounter and the time of year – being the summer solstice at the threshold between the light and darkness – is also a liminal space.

Mother Nature by Urban Threads



Here is another example of an extraordinary experience whilst pregnant. Similarly to Lucy, the person was only a few weeks into her pregnancy at the time:

§358) US (Oregon). Female; 2000s; 21-30; ‘It was around 10 or 11 am in the early summer of 2002, and I was in the bathroom, just starting my bath. It was so warm and bright that I had the small window open, and the breeze was coming right in from the backyard. (There was never a screen on that window because it was a little high up, and too small for a person). I shrugged off my robe, and sat down on the tub edge, waiting for the tub to fill. Quite suddenly, a flickering cloud of little lights came right in through the window and, as though attracted to me, flew close, almost touching, around my head and shoulders. I was so shocked that my brain just froze! There was a tickle in my nose, and something in my understanding just clicked. I said out loud, and I mean, LOUD, (though as a twenty-nine-year-old woman such a thing had never occurred to me as being within the realms of possibility or even reality) ‘Hey! Faeries! Go away!’ And I tossed my head and flicked my wrist. The cloud of little lights zoomed off a little bit away from me, then gathered close together, for just a second, and I almost heard a sound, but it wasn’t quite a sound, really, more of an impression that there was communication between them that I could very nearly hear, like a buzz or a high frequency whine or bells shimmering like when they bless the Host in Mass – and then they flew as one, right out the window again! I was so surprised that I jumped up, naked as a jaybird, shut the window, and yelled out to my husband to come to the bathroom. My knees were too wobbly to support me just then. Whew! Never thought I’d get a chance to tell that to someone who didn’t think I was NUTS!!! Hmm… Let’s see. I don’t think there is anything else. This was nearly fifteen years ago. Oh, and I was a few weeks pregnant at the time, just about to find out, in fact. My backyard at the time was overgrown with blackberry thickets, dandelions and bluebells, and our part of Portland is in the Southwest portion, in a place called *, which we are very privileged to still keep very green and lush. There is a lot of ivy, oak and holly here, and the Wildwood and *, one of the largest urban parks in America, are just a few miles away. The Wildwood Trail is beautiful and over thirty miles long, and * covers five thousand one hundred and fifty seven acres.’

Simon Young’s ‘Fairy Census 2014 – 2017’ The Fairy Investigation Society

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

Episode 29: A Maelstrom of Fairies

In this episode we hear the second part of an interview with a British woman, who has had many extraordinary experiences in her life.

Having previously described communing with an intelligent blue light in Episode 28, we now hear of a fascinating encounter which took place two years later. This time our guest came face-to-face with what we describe as tall Guardian folk in an ancient wood. A transformative fairy experience took place that very night.

Main Image: ‘Sleeping Beauty’ by Brian Froud

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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.

Tall Hooded Guardians

Tall Dark Hooded Guardian

The tall beings described sound very similar to the ‘Guardian’ type beings in Episode 9: The Tall Folk and the Little People. We don’t know what their function truly is but they seem to guard certain landscapes and ward people away or at the very least come and take a good look at them. A soon-to-be-released episode will also feature these Otherworldly beings.

Have you seen one? Get in touch at scarlettofthefae@gmail.com.

Please do subscribe, rate and share this episode and support the podcast by joining Patreon if you can. Thank you ❤️

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


Modern Fairy Sightings Green Man Artwork: Peter Hall Studios