Podcast Episodes

Murdered Sweetheart Songs

Season 1 Episode 42

As a special Valentine’s episode, we present collection of folk songs known as “sweetheart murder ballads.”  We begin with two newer songs dating to …

6 years ago

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Beasts of the Bestiaries

Episode 41

The bestiaries of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were books describing animals (some recognizable and others fantastic) in terms borrowed from class…

6 years, 1 month ago

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Walled Up Alive

Episode 40

Walling up a living victim, or immurement, has been used both as a punishment and for darker, magical purposes. In this episode, we detangle the hist…

6 years, 1 month ago

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The Gobins and the Gravedigger

Episode 39

Bone and Sickle continues its holiday tradition of Christmas ghost stories, or a goblin story, in this case. Our tale about an encounter between a gr…

6 years, 2 months ago

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Frau Perchta, the Belly-Slitter

Episode 38

Frau Perchta, sometimes known as “the Belly-Slitter” for the trademark punishment she’s said to inflict on disobedient or lazy children, is figure of…

6 years, 3 months ago

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Drowned in Blood: Butcher Lore

Episode 37

Our seasonal look at butcher lore begins with the slaughter of an immense ram as related in the centuries-old English song, “The Derby Ram” (AKA “The…

6 years, 3 months ago

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All of Them Witches

Episode 36

This Halloween we have five stories of witches from all the way back to around 1125AD to the 1960s. Some of them are actual historic personage, some …

6 years, 4 months ago

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Vintage Halloween

Episode 35

Here’s a short bonus show celebrating Halloween. It’s a bit different format. Whereas most of our shows look at folklore and incidents happening cent…

6 years, 4 months ago

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The Goblins Will Get You!

Episode 34

Goblin lore from old folk tales, literature, ancient and modern legends is our topic this time around.

We begin with the poem from which we take our …

6 years, 4 months ago

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Ghosts from Purgatory

Episode 33

Hear how notions of Purgatory influenced medieval ghost stories, the tradition of All Souls’ Day, and a Neapolitan “cult of skulls.”

We set the scene…

6 years, 5 months ago

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