Norfolk Folklore Society

We were delighted to welcome the wonderful Alice Crick as our next speaker on July 26 at Arboretum on St Benedict’s Street.

Alice’s talk was called Faunus: Landscape, Memory, and Folk Practice. Here, she explains what she spoke about:
“The great god Faunus has haunted the wildwoods of Norfolk for aeons, leaping across heathlands and fens into other counties whilst also keeping his fluid limbs ready to change names and forms. This will be an exploration of his titles, found in the great Thetford Hoard, as well as musing upon his associations with Silvanus, Bacchus and beyond into the realms of Bigfoot - that ever present and elusive spirit of the wood. For those who would like inspiration and magic, a glimmer of folk practise will be revealed…”

We’ve got a very special podcast for you today: we travelled across the border to Bungay to speak to two eye witnesses who have seen – or heard – everyone’s favourite cryptid canine, Black Shuck. Another eye witness account from Bacton is also shared.

This episode's cover image is by the very talented Matt Willis and taken from Shuck Zine.

TheFolkLoreBox - Etsy UK

We were honoured to interview the legendary Black Shuck at our June 2023 at Arboretum and what an evening it was! Black Shuck was absoultly charming, James Mayhew performed and illustrated a wonderful poem and Stephanie Timberlake shared detail of what we have to look forward to at the festival in August.

Just a little warning that this is a live recording so has some background noise. Also, it probably isn't safe for listening to at work or around young ears. Black Shuck is a demon dog from hell, so doesn't hold anything back!


Festival website - blackshuckfestival.com
Black Shuck Cabaret tickets - The Fisher Theatre | WhatsOn

Today’s podcast is all about the slightly unusual story of time travelling…in an abandoned Norwich underground toilet which has now been demolished. So this isn’t one you can try at home…

This curious tale is courtesy of Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe.

Last week Stacia and I shared some of our favourite stones in Norfolk with the Norfolk Folklore Society. We told tales of stones said to increase fertility, stones with curses attached to them, stones where offerings are left, stones that induce orgies, haunted stones and even a mysterious Druid’s stone in the centre of Norwich. 

Thanks as always to Arboretum for being such lovely hosts.

Today’s podcast is a classic bit of Norfolk folklore that takes us along the country roads near Cantley, past dykes and low-lying marshland, fields and hedgerows, ancient villages and hidden treasure. We are talking about Callow Pit, a tree-shrouded pond at a crossroads said to have been a hiding place for outlaws, smugglers…and the Devil.

In April we looked outside of our magical county to virtually visit the ancient ritualistic landscape of the South Dorset Ridgeway with Alex aka Stone Wizard. 

Today’s podcast is a brand-new story (for us!) about a well-documented haunting close to Fakenham in the 1970s in two flats built on the site of a village lost to time many centuries earlier. Ghosts seen included a figure wearing white, a teenage girl and a man: residents reported feeling “a terrible sense of evil” and dreadful things have happened to these buildings over the decades.