A collection of wintery and festive tales for the season: Why the Sea is Salt, The Christmas Bear and Twelve Brothers.
In which we discover that strange food stealing horses don't always have your best intentions at heart, that you should always be kind to cats and that kale has its very own folklore.
The slightly scary stories in this episode are: Golden Hair, The Lass & her Good Stout Blackthorn Stick and The Tailor in the Church adapted from Sorche nic Leodhas and Ruth Manning Sanders
In which I explore a completely different direction, have fun with food symbolism and folklore at this interesting time of year and make a realisation about how I really feel about good food.
In this episode I interviewed the wonderful Sarah Robinson about the fabulous book she has created with Lucy H Pearce. The Kitchen Witch Companion: Recipes, Rituals & Reflections is the companion to Kitchen Witch: Food, Folklore & fairytale and includes many of the traditional and seasonal recipes referenced in that book.
In which we discover that everything is not always as it seems, that you should take advice from helpful travellers, that bees can be excellent as a home protection system and that the taste of honey can make you cross worlds.
The American South is well known for its traditions and rituals around food and funerals and funerary practices so I interviewed Ashley-Anne Masters, a Presbyterian Pastor from North Carolina and we discussed how food can bring us together in grief just as it does during times of great joy.
I met with Zuza Zak and we talked about her wonderful new book Slavic Kitchen Alchemy: Nourishing Herbal Remedies, Magical Recipes & Folk Wisdom. Zuza is also the author of ‘Polska: New Polish Cooking’, ‘Amber & Rye: A Baltic Food Journey Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania’ and ‘Pierogi: Over 50 Recipes to Create Perfect Polish Dumplings’
This week I’m talking to Icy Sedgwick from Fabulous Folklore about her brand new book Rebel Folklore: Empowering Tales of Spirits, Witches and other Misfits from Anansi to Baba Yaga
In which we find out that certain tropes aren't always true, that a heart of gold sometimes needs assistance and that brownies in the house are invaluable. We also venture into peat bogs and cheese riots in pursuit of food and folklore.