We have received several copies of back issues of Northern Earth dating from the last decade or so. Most of these issues sold out at the time of publication. Any readers who would be interested in specific issues or enhancing their collection of the world’s longest established and agenda-free journal of antiquarian and folklore issues, […]
Digging through old newspapers can bring some strange rewards, as Kai Roberts found in West Yorkshire Sowood House (Kai Roberts) Situated at the junction of Coley Road with the A644 between Hipperholme and Stone Chair in the dispersed settlement of Coley on the hills above Halifax (W Yorks), Sowood House is a minor but typical
The Screaming Skull Of Sowood House Read More »
All of us at Northern Earth were saddened to hear of the passing of Kai Roberts, at far too young an age. For a short while Kai was a stand-in editor of NE in 2014-15, and he wrote some finely researched and written books on Robin Hood’s Grave, Yorkshire folklore, and hauntings in and around
Kai Roberts, 1982-2022 Read More »
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, Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire unceremoniously deposited an incongruous gritstone boulder in the memorial garden of Jepson Lane
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 »