Peter Naldrett is the author of a new book called Spooky Britain and here, for the first time, he tells the story of his own experience that inspired his nationwide hunt for the eerie and mysterious. Everybody loves a good ghost story, right? I certainly did and at university read Edgar Allan Poe and Charles […]
Strange phenomena on the Pendle witches’ path Read More »
This article was first published in NE175, March 2024. Is the daisy wheel always a protective sign? Anthea Hawdon suggests another interpretation In 1686 the antiquarian and Fellow of the Royal Society, Robert Plot, described a carved perpetual calendar in his Natural History of Staffordshire.1 This wooden almanac marked each saint’s day with a symbol
Say it with rosettes: the daisy wheel as a love symbol Read More »
By Ian A Ingram Terms used: Sunrise and sunset positions: MSSR: Mid-summer sunrise. EQSR: Equinox sunrise MWSR: Mid-winter sunrise MWSS: Mid-winter sunset EQSS: Equinox sunset MSSS: Mid-summer sunset Equinox: Throughout the year, the Sun appears to travel northward and southward because of the Earth’s tilt of 23.3°. The Sun sits at Due East and
Near and far horizons: megalithic networks across the Irish Sea Read More »
Do rooks have an ancestral awareness and maps of significant places? John Billingsley is transported A familiar sight as the light thickens at the end of day are streams of corvids – rooks and jackdaws – skeining overhead as they head towards their night’s roost. It is a flight full of direction and purpose, and
Between a rook and a thin place: spirit paths of the corvids Read More »
Rosemary Pardoe’s article ‘The wolf that wasn’t’ in NE181 sparked some interesting correspondence, published in NE182. Below is the full text from Vita sancti Edmundi (Life of St Edmund) by Abbo of Fleury, translated into Old English by Ælfric around the year 1000. It describes the miraculous story of St Edmund’s head being guarded by
St Edmund and the Wolf Read More »
This is an updated version of John Billingsley’s article in Northern Earth 181. A memory popped into mind some months ago as I was driving along a stretch of road near my home in West Yorkshire. It was an image of that stretch at some point in the early to mid/late 1990s when the roadside
Getting it down on tape Read More »
Rob Stepney’s republication of a classic historical novel was accompanied by some remarkable coincidences Shakespeare, in Henry IV part I, has the Welsh rebel chieftain Owain Glyndŵr describe himself as ‘not in the roll of common men’. ‘At my nativity, the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,’ he claims. His supernatural powers seemed
A coincidence of comets Read More »
By Eric Fitch This article is a companion to Eric Fitch’s article ‘H.G. Wells and the megaliths’ in Northern Earth 180 (Summer 2025). Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was best known for his seminal science fiction, but he was a polymath – as novelist, prophet and popular educator – who spanned the Victorian and the atomic
H.G. Wells and King Arthur Read More »
The interpretation of prehistoric features as ritual sites and practices may distract attention from the ancient need for functional infrastructure. Roger B. Hutchins argues for one such case. Most NE readers, if few others, will be familiar with prehistoric stone rows. I became a guide for the Dartmoor National Park about 35 years ago, and
Stone rows: a practical solution Read More »
March 2025 sees the launch of The Hare, a free monthly newsletter associated with Northern Earth. This provides an opportunity to share news items, details of events, recommendations etc that the quarterly print cycle can’t keep up with. Sign up now here. (The Hare will replace the ‘What’s New’ section of this site, but do
Northern Earth now has a monthly newsletter! Read More »