Tales of Northern Folk and Folklore
Welcome to issue two of fwolk, a jaunt around the north with a mixture of folklore, history, interviews, natural history, magic, megaliths, music and literature, original artwork, photography and ghost stories.
This issue we take a deep dive into the dark side – an issue devoted to the underworld, death and religion, light and dark.
We look back at the 90s underground rave scene, meet a real-life mythological merman, follow the roads of the dead – and have a psychosexual adventure in a Lake District cave.
Plus, an underground horror story from Luke Brown, we celebrate the return of the sun, and banish the dark from Penrith.
We hope you enjoy this issue’s meander around the dark side.
The history of the Lake District is more than Wordsworth, the Romantic poets and Beatrix Potter. More than 70 Neolithic sites and stone circles ring the central fells of the region. We spoke to archaeologist Steve Dickinson to find out more about the hidden history of the fells.
Other hidden things are revealed in this issue. Freediver Angus Hosking is on a mission to clear up the underwater places of the Lake District. As well as collecting submerged trash, the treasures he finds – from lost mobile phones to Victorian coins – tell the social history of the Lakes.
We celebrate the summer solstice and commune with our pagan ancestors (and some modern-day pagans) at Castlerigg Stone Circle. And we take a psychogeographic deep dive into the ebb and flow of human history with writer Gareth Rees.
Plus, screaming skulls! And we ask deep questions, like if an island doesn’t exist, can you swim around it?
Oh, and what does fwolk mean? It is Cumbrian dialect for ‘folk’. And it is pronounced ‘fwolk’.