Did those feet in ancient time belong to the Devil – or to giants? Kai Roberts calls the question in relation to a Yorkshire legend Unlike many regions in the S Pennines, including neighbouring districts such as Longdendale, Saddleworth and the Calder Valley, there is a dearth of landscape legends associated with the upland […]
Old Nick and the Child o’th’Edge: Some Pennine giant lore Read More »
Kai Roberts reports on a stone and a borrowed story of boggart behaviour in West Yorkshire Ellen Royd, Elland, and its ‘boggart chair’ in 2001 (John Billingsley) In June last year, an incongruous gritstone boulder was deposited in the memorial garden of Jepson Lane in Elland. Doubtless many casual
Don’t Boggart That Joint: Elland’s Boggart Chair Read More »
John Billingsley shares a site that once offered – and may yet – a unique but vulnerable glimpse into the prehistory of North Africa, and local serpent worship The ancient site of Slonta,1 in NE Libya, is one unlikely to be seen by western tourists for some time to come, if ever. I was
Riddles in the Land of Medusa: Slonta and the serpent Read More »
The new issue, NE170, is now being put into envelopes and delivered to shops! Look for it on your doormat or in your local retailer in the next week or so! Among its contents are these articles by leading authors: Getting Wise about the Royal Mile The recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II and
new! Northern Earth 170 Read More »
A small stone circle sits on a low hill in Okayama, Japan, at the hub of a remarkable sacred landscape featuring alignments, stone groupings and megalithic architecture, and narrativised by local legends. This article was prepared by John Billingsley in 1991 for a book on international landscape mysteries that to the best of our knowledge
Tatetsuki, a stone circle in Japan Read More »
A curious feature of a number of Japanese artefacts and funerary sites of the Kofun period (c.250-600 CE), particularly the 4th century, is a fragmented design based on spiral geometry, known as the chokkomon. John Billingsley introduced this design and its deployment in liminal contexts to aficionadoes of mazes and labyrinths in the 1980s (hence
Chokkomon: Japan’s fragmented spirals Read More »
The full sequence of Essex Landscape Mysteries, one of the best of the crop of regional earth mysteries magazines of the 1970-80s, is now available on our website, courtesy of Alby Stone and the late Jim Kimmis. Also included in the new upload is Jim’s introduction to the Ongar Zodiac – a terrestrial zodiac which
Vintage Earth Mysteries for Essex readers! Read More »
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Server update information Read More »
The first place to look for announcements of upcoming events, recent changes or additions to the web site and all things to do with Northern Earth.
What’s New category added Read More »
In the 1990s, a new magazine of forteana, mysteries and related subjects, Beyond, was launched, ran for three issues, and ceased… NE’s editor John Billingsley supplied an earth mysteries column for this short-lived venture, and we reprint those three columns here. 1. Associations with places I don’t know what it is that attracts people
Earth Mysteries: a belief-free zone Read More »