Local Legends #61: Dr Delyth Badder

0:00Hi, everyone. This is Karine, the voice of Simon Fairchild from the Magnus Arkies. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Some things quietly drain you, like an expensive phone bill trapping your money month after month. Here's a quick money tip. Stop paying a carry attack. When you bring your own phone and switch to Boost Mobile's $25 unlimited forever plan, you can unlock up to $600 in savings. That's money that belongs in your life, not trapped in a phone bill. Reclaim those savings for something you're actually into, an EMF meter, a thermal camera, or whatever strange corner of the universe you're currently exploring. Visit BoostMobile.com to unlock your savings and take back control. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile unlimited plan. Boost Mobile January 2026 survey comparing average annual payments of AT&T, Ryzen and T-Mobile customers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile unlimited plan. For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. You know what's wild? Most people are still overpaying for car insurance, just because it's a pain to switch. That's why there's Jerry. Jerry's the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurance in minutes,

1:03and helps you switch fast, with no spam calls or hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, do yourself a favor. Download the Jerry app or head to jerry.ai-acast. Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this car bonnet thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Be again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car's gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, car bonnet. Give it a whirl. Love ya. So good. You'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on... Car bonnet. Pick up these may apply. Car bonnet. There were three raven sets on a tree.

2:05Down, a down, hey, down, a down. Where is black cast? They might be with a down. One of them said to his mates, Where shall we our breakfast take? With a down, very, very, very, down, down. Welcome back to the three ravens podcast. I'm Eleanor Conlon. And I'm Martin Vorks. And we're doing something slightly different for these final three local legends interviews of Series 7, as we are introducing them together and are having a little bit of a chat about them at the end. While also discussing some of the big lessons we've learned across the series. And this structure for the episodes is something we'll be keeping going over upcoming weeks, including for the second part of our Lang Fairytales project, which we're performing all almost 800 fairy stories collected from countries all around the world

3:08by folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang. If you listen to Monday's episode, you'll know that I had a lovely conversation about the podcast at author and cultural historian Mark Reese, host of the ghosts and folklore of Wales podcast. You can follow Mark on social media as at review whales. And today we are speaking with folklorist pathologist and antiquarian book collector Dr. Deleth Badder, who you can follow via at folklore whales. We learned about Deleth and her work through Mark Norman, host of the folklore podcast and co-author with Deleth of the folklore of Wales Ghosts, as published in 2023. That book came out the same year, Martin and I launched three ravens. And our conversation with Mark, which focuses on the folklore of the county of Devon and Mark's career, including this book, was released back in three ravens. Series 5, if you'd like to look it up. So Mark and Deleth's folklore of Wales colon, ghosts, is really quite a different book to the book Mark Reese wrote.

4:11Ghosts of Wales accounts from the Victorian archives. For understandable reasons, the archives were Mark's focus inspired by his background as a journalist. After Mark wrote that book, he's continued to write books about spooky stuff, of course, including paranormal whales. Though that book focuses mostly on more modern examples of supernatural phenomena. Deleth's research on ghosts is a bit different. And while she and Mark Norman did also, of course, look at many of the same archives as Mark Reese, Deleth's second career has been as a folkloreist. And she has personally collected an incredible library of antique Welsh texts, meaning she had access to some things Mark Reese did not. And if you listen to my interview with Dr Jack Hunter about the history and folklore of the Welsh County of Montgomeryshire, Jack also spoke about Deleth's research into geometrically shaped ghosts and spirits, something that she will touch on during this upcoming chat.

5:12Thank you to everyone who's been sharing and liking and commenting on our stuff, or gronking, as we call it, in the three ravens community. For that is the term given to describe the bird song of the raven. I gronk you gronk he she gronks. As an independent podcast, we only grow if you help us grow. And thank you also to those people who've been reviewing us wherever they listen. Please keep it up as three ravens is our job. And we need to get our car fixed. We will be back after the interview to have a little chat. This time about this big distinction between the 13 historic counties of Wales, which we have just released 13 episodes about. And the traditional kingdoms of Wales. And do please listen to Saturday's upcoming final episode of this trilogy of chats with three living authorities on Welsh folklore and ghost lore. You really could not hope to encounter greater authorities than Mark, Deleth, and our final guest, Peter Stevenson. Yes, Peter's Welsh Folk Tales is fairly well the book on Welsh Folk Tales at the moment.

6:16It's packed with wonderful stories and Peter's stunning illustrations. He's a lovely man. He has a great conversation. But first, it's time to talk with Deleth. Hopefully you have a nice beverage, perhaps a cup of tea. If not, you should make yourself one while you listen. Treat yourself. As ever, if you'd like to support the podcast, please consider signing up to our Patreon. Membership unlocks ad-free listening to county episodes about the history and folklore of all of England's 39 historic counties. Twice over! As we did two laps. Plus, all of series seven about Wales, all these local legends, interviews, plus all our bonus series of which there are six flavours from dying arts, which covers the histories of 13 endangered traditional crafts, to something wicked, a 13 episode series filled with deep dives into folkloric true crimes. There are links in our show notes and on our website, threeravenspodcast.com, where you can also find merch, links to upcoming live shows to buy tickets and come along a meter,

7:18and our blogs filled with links to historic and folkloric sites for every county we've spoken about. For now though, here comes a chat with a wonderful person who's really into spokes. As people who are also into spokes, we thank the gods for people like Deleth, who inspire us to write the kinds of stories we do. In Monday's interview, Mark spoke over quite hogwarts in place. He recommended people going to visit in Wales. Deleth will approach the same topic from a slightly different angle during this chat, which also takes in ideas of revenants and pathology, and a certain open air museum we've already said that we must visit. Really hope you enjoy it, speak to you again afterwards, and we hope you're feeling comfortable. It is time, a chat with one of the most prominent figures of the modern day, working in the fields of Welsh folklore and ghost lore, a local legend indeed, Dr Deleth Bader.

8:22Deleth, you are a folklorist, author, and an antiquarian book collector with an extensive library of some of the rarest folkloric texts in Wales. You also co-wrote the folklore of Wales' ghosts with our old pal Mark Norman, but take us back to the beginning. Where did you grow up, and when did you begin to be interested in folklore? Yeah, so I grew up in St Bedrug and then in Swinhidol near Pasele, just on the very border of the Thin Peninsula, Penthin. Swinhidol actually sounded like quite an apt place for a folklore to grow up in that on the face of it, you'd think it directly translates as magic, hedge, or grove, or shrub, or whatever, but actually the hiddol, which is the Welsh word for a first sort of magical, is most probably derived from shiddol, which is the Welsh for four or hidd, which is the Welsh for stag,

9:22so it's probably a little bit more gay than magical. Okay. But in any case, sort of where I grew up, surrounded by views of the peninsula of Cardigan Bay, of Rurri over there in the distance, it's one of those places where as a child, I probably didn't quite appreciate just how breathtaking it actually is until I moved away, got much, much older and arguably a little bit wiser. But from school, I mean, I trained as a medical doctor, so a completely different field to folkloreistics. I moved to the opposite end of the country after school, where I worked as a pathologist for several years in Cardigan across southwest Bristol as well as a consultant pediatric pathologist. And I still work for the NHS now for a couple of days, a week as a medical examiner, scrutinising deaths from all across the country. But I actually spend most of my working week now,

10:25working as a folkloreist and as a writer, which I feel very, very fortunate to be able to do. I mean, growing up in this area, sort of surrounded by tales of, I don't know, giants and ghosts and death omens and the occasional, matted hound, it's probably not all together, that's surprising that sort of those seeds, which was so quite early on, but it's certainly, it still feels like quite a novelty to me that I've somehow ended up making this a viable career. Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. So to pursue a career in the sciences and medicine and, you know, health and death, I suppose, as a pathologist, I mean, was that a trajectory identified early? I'm interested in death. See, I get asked this question a lot. Everybody sort of goes, oh, so it's death that draws you everywhere. But for me, I suppose if you're working as a pathologist, it's not so much focused on death.

11:26I mean, obviously, a lot of pathologists, not all pathologists, but a lot of us do all topsees as part of our role. And obviously, that tends to be quite death-heavy. But I mean, as a pediatric pathologist, when I was working that role, I used to spend maybe half of my time conducting all topsees, but the other half was diagnosing sort of tissue, so things like tumors and, you know, even things as simple as inflamed appendices. So for me, it was very much more about life and it being a very positive role rather than it all being sort of morbid and death-related, I have to say. For the folklore, very much geared towards death. Maybe all about the ghost, so yeah. So, okay then, try and describe for us if you can this journey, because presumably, school, you must have worked really hard to get the qualifications that you've gotten and you've entered into this career that seems incredibly enviable.

12:29I think there's a lot of young people who are interested in taking qualifications into which you've ended up becoming a professional, only to find that there aren't actually that many jobs in that field against what they perhaps think they're going to be when they're trainings. But nonetheless, you manage to get one, you manage to do that. Why then this transition into folklore studies? I mean, in terms of pathology, it's actually one of the sort of... Yes, it's very difficult to get to that point. But once you're trained, it's a very, very under-subscribed specialty. It is, you know, pediatric pathology in particular, the most under-subscribed specialty in the whole of the world, not just the United Kingdom. So, if you manage to get to that point where you're hired as a consultant, you're more or less guaranteed a job for life as long as you don't mess it up in some way. So, yeah, if you can put the hours in to get to that point,

13:33it's well worth the effort. And I very much miss working as a pathologist. I'm still coming to terms of the fact that I don't work that role anymore. But, you know, I suppose the transition to folklore has always been interested in folklore. I mean, I think if you'd have asked me my 20s, whether I'd have written a book about folklore and probably thought you were a little bit mad, to be honest. But I made that transition sort of not long after I'd lost one of my closest friends. That was just before we started writing ghosts. And I guess grief makes you reevaluate and make rush decisions and do silly things. And, you know, my friend was such a huge part of the reason I got into collecting regional folklore to begin with because he was also completely fascinated by all of it. So, I think looking back, that was definitely the catalyst for me to say, oh, sorry, let's give this a go.

14:33And so, I was already sort of working on some ideas surrounding Welsh Ghost Law when Mark asked whether I was interested in working together on a Welsh folklore book. So, in that respect, the timing just felt right. And so, now you're an academic, meaning you research, you study, and you publish on folklore. And your first book, which we've mentioned a couple of times, is The Folklore of Wales Ghosts. The kind of book that Eleanor and I have coveted since we were children. See the title like that and you go, yep, I want that book. Did you ever imagine writing and publishing on the kinds of topics you have? And as a result, becoming a bit of an authority on Welsh ghosts and folk tales in particular. I suppose the honest answer is no. I've already said, I mean, reality has been collecting Welsh antiquarian texts for quite a long time now. But even that, I mean, started out as a bit of a niche and quite expensive hobby rather than anything serious.

15:35The books that I collect are sort of predominantly about Welsh history and culture and language. But because of my interest, it's particularly focused on folklore and specifically regional folklore. So I have a pretty unwieldy collection of parishistries here by now. And they're predominantly written in the Welsh language. So they're very unfairly overlooked when Welsh folklore has been written about in the past, especially from an English language perspective. I guess it's probably not altogether that surprising that sort of more accessible and even maybe more palatable texts like works like British Goblins or Marie Travellian's books, as well as a sort of litany of different coffee table books tend to be used as the most common reference points. The problem, I guess, is that, you know, those texts are great.

16:35I personally adore British Goblins. But they're not necessarily that accurate. And I think it just got to that stage where I realised that there was so much misunderstanding about Welsh regional traditions that with all the information I had to hand, I was in as good a position as anyone else really to try and correct that record. I'm very proud of the book, but I'm frankly quite amazed that it didn't exist already to be honest with you. I mean, you'd think we would already have a book that sets out which types of ghosts exist in Wales and how they present themselves. There really doesn't seem to have been much. I mean, there hasn't been quite a huge dearth of information between, you know, the travel writing of the very rich English antiquarians of the 18th century up until when people like, I don't know, Peter Underwood and Co. started publishing coffee table books in the 70s.

17:37They didn't really seem to be any books that linked up between those two periods or that considered any of the Welsh language accounts, which bearing in mind most of the supernatural encounters during those centuries are recorded in Welsh. It's quite a lot of information to be ignoring. So I mean, Ghost isn't a collection of Wales' most famous ghosts, and it's not a copy and paste job from the same old sources. These are sort of essentially the ghosts of the working class in Wales over a number of centuries. And even though, sort of by now, it only really feels like we scratched the surface with ghosts. I think that was something really important to achieve. I mean, from my perspective, I guess what's really special for me is seeing people like, go in stadium, who's a professional storyteller, and he runs the time between time's podcasts. He's a very good friend of mine. But seeing people of his caliber pick up these stories that were published in ghosts

18:41and then just make them their own. So breathing new life into them, seeing these stories evolve for a contemporary and for a fresh audience. I mean, that has been really, really amazing. Yeah, of course, absolutely. It's very, very exciting to have as you set the stories of the actual folk managing to make their way through and be disseminated more widely. It's been one of the most fascinating things about interviewing all the people that we've interviewed for this series about Wales, where we've gone county by county around the country and speaking to various storytellers and folklorists, some of whom themselves have published. And publishing in the Welsh language is not easily done, just on a financial basis, it seems. So you kind of need your work to appear in English to find a wider audience to make it a profitable book, especially now. Yet, the key thing that you're helping to do is to bring these stories from Welsh to a wider readership, primarily in English.

19:44Your website, of course, is in both languages. It's a bilingual website. Do you, one day, hope that you can be publishing your works in Welsh in nice book formats? Yeah, I don't think that's beyond the realms of possibility at all. I mean, my husband's an author. He has, what, I think, 20 books now to his name. And they're mainly sort of, in fact, I think they're all Welsh language. So there is quite a lot of support for Welsh language writers and, you know, for those of us who read regularly in Welsh, I suppose, publishing Welsh doesn't seem that strange of an idea. And I have written, I've contributed chapters to Welsh language books before today and it feels second nature to me as somebody who lives and breathes in Welsh. Okay, and another question I really wanted to ask you is, do you believe in ghosts and why?

20:47I see, I did a book tour when ghosts came out. I think there were 13 venues across the whole Wales and I swear I got asked this question at every single event and it was always my least favourite. It's never quite sure how to answer it. I mean, in some ways, it feels almost immaterial as to whether I believe in them or not because that's not why I do this research and genuinely have no interest in whether they actually exist or not. You know, that's the parapsychologists game, not the folklorists. I'm really only interested in recording people's lived experiences and their perceptions and what that says about particular society's beliefs and its values. But I'm fully aware that that's not the answer you're looking for. So I'm going to cautiously get off the fence for a second. So I would say that in all honesty, I probably do,

21:50in that I've grown up in an area which, I mean, while trying not to sort of over-remantaise, the supernatural felt as if it was still treated quite matter-of-factly. I certainly remember local ghosts and death omens being discussed quite sincerely along with witchcraft or at least a fear of curses and fairies. So when there are ghost stories within my own family over several generations, it feels a little callous to call it all madness. But obviously I'm from a scientific background, so I'm naturally a huge cynic and not much fun to be around. But I've certainly experienced the odd encounter of the years which I can't explain or rather don't want to explain because I am aware of the fun in that. I really enjoy a good ghost story. So the explanations nearly always feel a bit tedious to me, to be honest.

22:54I mean, we normally save the question for our annual haunting season, which is, you know, wall-to-wall spooky episodes across October, as you're here now. And of course, you know, several ghost tales do appear in your books. It feels only right to ask you. It's a curious one though, isn't it? Because I think there is a certain shyness about saying, yes, I do believe in ghosts, or yes, I've read so much about this topic that it seems pretty evident to me that if this were, by any other name, we would say, well, it seems like people definitely in the past believed, evidently people today still believe, and yet we bang up against that empirical problem of, well, why can't you demonstrate something? Why can't we prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt? I think the interesting part for me personally is that idea of analogy and metaphor and symbolism of ghosts, because, you know, as you talk about in the folklore of Wales ghosts,

23:56it's not as if they come out of nowhere. They're not just about dead people, are they? They're very much so, very much so. And that's what I was saying. I mean, it might mean just really lies in people's perceptions. You know, why do they think that that's a ghost that they've seen there? I mean, certainly in terms of contemporary accounts, there are still, there are accounts that are being reported in Wales that at all intents and purposes in this day and age, you would perhaps more appropriately sort of class them as UFO encounters. And yet, they're still being reported as ghosts, which to me is absolutely fascinating. But as somebody who grew up in a sort of, I don't know, conventionally haunted house. I suppose that's probably contributed to the interest to some degree as well. You know, our sort of, our household thing is a fascinating story. It's quite, it's quite a good little ghost story.

24:56So when I was growing up in my parents' house, you could frequently sort of follow the smell of pipe tobacco around the rooms. And my mum used to see an old man with a little white mustache walking around the house. I once saw a woman in a long black dress. Things would go missing, you'd hear footsteps walking across the floor from one of the bedrooms across the landing and then down the stairs. Objects would occasionally fly through the air. And sometimes a very, very old-fashioned red car would drive up the back of you as you were reversing out the drive and then just disappear. You'd have to admit, sort of at the time, we treated it quite like heartedly. We didn't think too much of it. We nicknamed the ghost Will anyway and joked that when things went missing, Will must have taken them again. And then one day this woman turned up on our doorstep, who's relatives at one's own house. And she described her relatives as an old man who had a funny little white mustache,

26:01called William, who she remembers was always smoking his pipe. His sister, who's a little bit strange and only ever used to wear black. And the fact that when he'd died, when this William had died, when she was very little, she remembered being very, very cross with him because he'd always promised that she would inherit his old-fashioned red car and she never did. So, I mean, they have it, probably all perfectly explainable. But then again, why would you want to? It's a great little ghost story. Yeah, well, not only that, but it sounds to me almost scientific. This whole story, right? You've got a series of phenomena. You've got a series of very clear explanations. Occam's razor would turn that. That is. You've just cracked the mystery. I've just proved the existence of ghosts. Exactly, single hand of it.

27:04Instacart understands that not all bananas are created equal. Some people want them green. Some people want them ripe. Some people want them ready right now. With Instacart's preference picker now available at most retailers, you can choose how you like certain items, like banana ripeness, deli thickness, even avocados, before your shopper even starts. So instead of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, you get groceries picked the way you would pick them. It's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. Download the app and get bananas just how you like with Instacart. I sold my car in Carbona last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So, what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have what is this table wood? I think it's limited. OK, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch.

28:04So your car today on Carbona. Pick up these may apply. All right. Well, here comes a big question or two questions, really. Wales is an entire nation. It's complicated. It's history is extremely deep as other routes of the country's cultural traditions. But if I were to ask you to try and delineate between Wales and England, these two countries that have been joined together for so long, what main things would you say the English and Welsh have in common? And what do you think sets Wales apart? Oh, so this is a really tricky question. I mean, I guess what constitutes English culture? I'm not really sure I know what that looks like without sort of resorting to unhelpful stereotypes. I mean, I guess we have a shared currency and both nations seem very fond of tea.

29:04But on a more serious note, I mean, obviously we have a very closely linked history, which is mainly one of sort of subjugation and colonisation. But actually, sort of from a folklorists perspective, some of our greatest cultural movements have come from those Welsh people who've moved across the border and made London their home, for instance, after the Acts of Union in the 16th century. London itself at one point was very much viewed as the sort of cultural hub, if you like, for the Welsh mainly because of the influence of things like the matric Britain and the writing of Geoffrey Monmouth, for example. But it's thanks to people like the London Welsh that a lot of our earlier folklore has actually been preserved. And it's from the London Welsh that we ended up establishing. Learned societies, which led to things like the reestablishment of the Estevevod Festival. I mean, the National Estevevod today is the largest and one of the oldest cultural festivals

30:07in the whole of Europe. And of course, you've got the entire neodiridic movement and the invention of the godset, the Bards, which all came hand in hand with these societies and these communities of scholars and Bards and writers, which is another very neat interest of mine. But not just London. I mean, in Shrewsbury at one point, Shrewsbury was regarded as the centre for Welsh language publishing, believe it or not, mainly because of a very interesting chap called Thomas Jones, who was an astrologer, he was an Almanacca, he was a journalist and author, he was a translator, a very, very prolific chap who set up his printing press there at the end of the 17th century. And there's still a lot of thriving Welsh language communities all across England today. I mean, Liverpool and London are probably the most obvious locations. I mean, there's even a Welsh language bookshop in Oswistry called Shop Column. So we do end up getting everywhere. But on the same token, I mean Wales, as you say, is a separate country to England.

31:11So I guess the question is probably more what makes Wales unique. And I suppose an obvious answer might be that we have our own language. And while that might seem obvious, I'm not sure people outside of Wales always grasp that speaking Welsh isn't some sort of performative gesture. And what it means for me as a Welsh person living in Wales is that I can go entire days where I only talk, read, think and even dream in Welsh. I mean, I only speak Welsh in my husband. We only speak Welsh with our son. If I go down to the shops, I speak Welsh in 99% of the time here. The reply back is Welsh too. I mean, my work is predominantly undertaken through the medium of English, as I've already said. But in terms of my day-to-day living, I rarely ever need to turn to English. So there's a lot that's said about Welsh being a sort of, I don't know, a dying language

32:15or a bit of a waste of time because everybody speaks English anyway. But those sentiments feel very far removed from my everyday reality. And that's not us making a conscious decision or a great effort to live in Welsh out of, I don't know, protest on nationalist pride. That is just our reality. Welsh is dominant where I live and I'm not sure that's always appreciated. In terms of what else makes Wales unique, I mean, as with any country, we've got our own cultures, plural, our own belief systems, our own politics. As with any other country, I mean Wales is extremely varied. There's nothing much in us about it, as I'm sure you've seen three. The podcast episodes, comparing somewhere like Pemkin, where I am, and the valley is down in South Wales, it's a bit like trying to distinguish between Cornwall and Newcastle.

33:16And I'm not sure that's always appreciated when discussing Welsh in inverted commas, folklore, or even culture as a whole. Yeah, I would suggest that you start by saying what is English culture. And obviously that is a big old can of worms to open. But having spent two years solidly going county by county around the English counties and looking at regional folklore in this nation, I feel like there is a whole load of subcultures, regional cultures that don't get to look in either, if you know what I mean. Yeah. So in England, the South West is a country that has a, I say a country, but it's like a part of the nation that has its own kind of Celtic cultural roots that's, you know, the strongest in Cornwall, but nonetheless they do continue up towards, well, up the river seven, almost. So there's that sort of relationship across that patch of river leading out to the sea.

34:18Likewise, if you start to compare the west of England and the east of England and the north of England and the south of England, suddenly you start to identify that there are a series of different cultural trends. I think that having done for this experience, one of the key distinctions with Wales in my mind, and it's something that's been quite sad to learn about, because I didn't really know a great deal about Welsh history. It's not something that we're taught in English schools as standards, right? It is the sense in which Wales, particularly during the Industrial Revolution, was providing a lot of raw material that was, you know, roofing the world or coal that was enabling revolutions in energy and some of the infrastructure projects and so on and so forth, railway lines, things like that, were entirely future facing links to Ireland, I think, are under played as well. Back and forth between Irish culture and Welsh culture across centuries and centuries

35:19and centuries, prehistoric ones as well as historic ones. But then there seems to have been an economic depression that struck Wales as means of primary production became less profitable, combined with what appears to me, and I'm not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination, an attempt to do away with the Welsh language in Wales. You're perfectly right, there was a concerted effort to completely destroy the Welsh language. That's it, and so the Welsh cultural resurgence that has taken place since that London group in those societies really got the ball rolling has seen us end up in a place now where there are more Welsh speakers than there have ever been in measurable history. It seems like an astonishing achievement that's happened and quite quickly, because things were in a relatively dire situation, certainly at the beginning of the 20th century, in some regions things had not improved by the 1990s,

36:21they'd actually got worse in many areas. So I think it's very interesting also to hear about what you're doing in terms of doing your best to collect as much of this grassroots material as possible, because what other record is there going to be? It's almost as if it was such a squished down and minimised nation that now there needs to be a kind of renaissance. I think it's happening, I think, you know, things like the Marythwood spreading all over the UK, it's cool, it's, I mean, the hobby horses exist and we've got other versions of it as well, but I think it's making people more curious, and I think it's laying a breadcrumb trail that people are sometimes following to learn more about Wales, and it's identifiably distinct culture. Yeah, I think that's very true, and it's, you know, it's great to see some of these sort of traditions being reinvented or reinvigorated, and it also comes with its own set of problems, but on the whole, I think it's a very positive thing.

37:23I mean, in terms of my own interest in sort of regional, specific folklore, there is that danger that the regionality of these traditions gets lost when these things happen. And I think the Maryleud is a very good example of that, but on the whole, I mean, I don't think there's much of anything negative to be said about these cultures being sort of picked up by the next generation is something quite nice about walking through Pontebreath high streets in January and seeing the skull of a horse sort of coming to watch you. Yeah, of course. And now we come to the meat of the matter, really, that of Eleanor and I, through three Ravens, that now toured around the 13 historic counties of Wales, digging into each historic county's history, folklore, and hotels through English, I must say, right? So we haven't had access to first-hand Welsh sources in the same way that you have, but we are now asking this question

38:25of all our local legends guests for these final three interviews about Wales to cap off our series. From your perspective, what are your three favourite folk tales or ghost stories from Wales, and why do you like them? It should really have favourite ghosts, should I? It's a bit like choosing between your children, but I have to say, my absolute favourite ghost in Wales is one that first appears in Pembrokeshire in 1813. And one, I think, in an excellent little book by William Howell's called Cambrian Superstitions, it's a very cynical little book, it's wonderful. And it's of a ghost that appears at a certain occasion on a certain night and Wales for a particular individual. And the whale goes, here, you're dead, here, you're lost, here, you're aros, which is long as the day and long as the night and long as the wait for, you know, whoever they're waiting for.

39:27So it's very, very poetic. And the person they're waiting for is usually a chap called, I don't know, Noah or Owen or somebody like that. But anyway, as I said, this ghost first appears in 1831. And then we see it appearing across the country for the next century or so. And then this specific type of ghost just disappears altogether. People just stop reporting it, which in itself is fascinating. But my favourite example of this ghost is a tale that was penned by an author and an electricographer called Daniel Sylvan Evans. In my absolute favourite Welsh folklore book in the world called Aston Seanhead, which was written in 1892. And here, the ghost haunts a farmhouse, just on the borders of Ceredigion somewhere. And at night, it calls out from a particular room in the house that it's waiting for Aron, who, for those who don't know,

40:31is the king of Anon, the Welsh other world, from the map in Okie. So there's a whole other sort of dynamic to this tale. In any case, it's extremely eerie. And it's an extremely multifaceted story as well. And it's one that I absolutely adore. And it's translated in ghosts if anyone fancy to reading it. My second favourite, I guess, type of ghost rather than ghost story. Actually, my current obsession at the moment is that, well, there's a lot of factors that set us apart from other countries in the UK in terms of our ghost lore. But one of the strangest is sort of our proclivity, if you want, for reporting what I would term as fantasma oddities. So forms that are distorted, shapeshifting, humanoid, they appear as material objects or even as sort of abstract geometric forms.

41:34You know, it's certainly not unique to whales, but it's unusually prevalent and persistent here in our ghost lore. So historically, and even into the present day, there's loads of reports of ghosts appearing as sort of rolling balls, as posts and pillars, as humanoid figures with sort of missing appendages, not just, you know, the usual headless variety, ghosts of unnatural proportions or even contortions, floating pyramids and cylindrical objects, at wheels and balls of fire, extremely common here, and even sort of into contemporary accounts. And with lots of these motifs, it is actually possible to trace them back to medieval ghost stories from across Europe in some form. But the whales still have a strange sort of proclivity for sighting them here, which in itself is fascinating, but that's sort of what I'm researching at the minute anyway.

42:36And my third choice, probably my favourite Welsh monster, the Avanc. It's a supernatural entity that's first mentioned in the 14th century in the Welsh Romance Peretil Vavevraug, where we actually don't get a description of its physical appearance only to say that it lives in a cave, it can be invisible in it through spears at anyone who's foolish, enough to sort of visit its layer. And as with, you know, every true romance, the hero peretted winds up decapitating the monster and saving the kingdom. But today, in contrast, the Avanc is described as this sort of part, be the part crocodile chimera, that dwells in several bodies of water across whales, the most famous, probably being a sinoravanc, in Betasagoid and Conway. The Avanc here is associated with a tale that was the dates back from 1693.

43:39It was first written by Edward Lloyd, the naturalist, where the Avanc's lured out of a lake by this beautiful local woman. And while it falls asleep, the pernitioners come down and bind it in chains, and then eventually two corn docks and drag it out and re-home it and come from and last down the road. So there's a huge leap here in just over two centuries between this sort of cave dwelling, spear throwing entity, and then this beaver-like lake dwelling monster. And it's actually a very, very complex leap. But it really boils down to it being huge, misunderstanding over the name. So the Welsh term for beaver is Avanc. So you might reasonably think that this is why the monster is described as looking like a beaver. The problem is that Avanc wasn't the Welsh term for beavers when the supernatural Avanc first appeared in the 14th century.

44:40So the beaver then was very, very termed as Loddan, which is a reference to its white tale, or as castorine from the French, but definitely not Avanc. In fact, the term Avanc doesn't appear to be used for beaver until the end of the 15th century. And of course, there were no beavers in Wales at that point. You know, they've been extinct here for almost two centuries. By then, it's actually early modern scholars and naturalists that basically assumed incorrectly that the beaver and the monster had always been the same thing. It had always been sort of one and the same. And then to further muddy the waters, in 1740, there was a second edition of a very, very popular book printed called The Prevoiso by a chap called Theophilus Evans. And he writes that he actually doesn't think the Avanc was a beaver at all, but was probably more likely to be an alligator or a crocodile,

45:40none of which have ever existed in Wales. But from then on, the monsters then increasingly portrayed as this sort of half beaver, half crocodile like monster. So it's a fascinating history of a very old monster, which has then been sort of continuously reimagined. And it's very rare to be able to sort of pinpoint those exact moments in history when a folkloric belief evolves quite so dramatically as this. So the Avanc, as you probably tell, is one of my absolute favorites. Yeah, understandably so. It's delightfully bizarre when you encounter it for the first time. You know, what is going on here then? But also ties into a much, much broader sweep of certainly northern European water dwelling, fae beings, other world beings, dragons,

46:42and not that far away when we look at what they're supposed to be in a lot of medieval texts and stories of escaped crocodiles brought back from crusades and then the king let it loose and then it ended up in Essex or whatever it might have been. These stories are bound, I would say, across the landmass that we live in, irrespective of where people draw borders between our countries. I find that fascinating, but I also find it very interesting talking about this idea of the spreading of ghost stories. So you're talking about this, you know, this particular wailing ghost with the particular thing that it says that's, you know, dearer girth for a time and then it sort of passes on as perhaps it stops serving the purpose that it originally did. I'd like to hear your view on this because I wonder what the consequences of the touring nature of Ice-Dith Fuddai around the Welsh regions

47:44has been for creating a sense of ubiquity in some legends and stories. We have found stories recurring again and again and again and again around Wales, not all of them, of course, each different part of the country has its own unique and special threads of folklore. But there are some things that seem to happen everywhere according to folkloric writers particularly during the 20th century effectively. This is after everyone's been in the mix and telling stories in each other's territories. I mean, what's your view on this one? Well, I mean, a space that's bound to happen, isn't it? I mean, there was such a huge movement of people during the Industrial Revolution which you mentioned earlier and it wasn't just people coming from outside of Wales into Wales. You also had a huge influx of people from sort of rural Wales moving to the sort of more industrialised areas, especially, you know,

48:46people moving from the north down south. And of course, when you've got those sort of large-scale movements of people, then their traditions move with them. So it's not altogether surprising. I mean, the point about the Estebod spreading sort of folklore around the country is a very interesting one. There is certainly, if you read the Estebod books that were published after each festival, a lot of the prize-winning essays are regional folkloric studies. So that would have made those traditions certainly more accessible to people with the means of buying those books. But again, I mean, we've got entities like, I mean, as I mentioned before, wheels of fire and balls of fire. Those occur across the entirety of the country and they haven't stopped occurring and we're still reporting them today. And it feels like quite an old-fashioned ghost for one to be better word

49:46to still be seeing in Wales today and yet here we have it. And it's those sorts of apparitions, I guess, are probably more strongly tied to things like various religious revivals. You know, that's when they become at their most popular. But I mean, there's no reason to be reporting those today, is there? No, no. And yet, they're still here. Yeah, and I think that the boggot, particularly the northern English boggot, where you get a lot of similar phenomenon. I do wonder if there's a kind of henna, gleb, old, north, Wales, old Britons, sort of kind of smear of culture that heads around the north because boggots don't exist in the same way as quite in the south. They tend to be a little bit more different, or at least have been for the longest time. Obviously Simon Young is the guy who's done the ultimate work on this one.

50:59Studies show that 100% of everybody in the world wants to curl up indoors and do nothing because it's so darn cold out there. That's why many people are turning to boppas, who's pillowy plush slippers and warm arena wool socks have been said to be the most comfortable in the history of feet. Bombas products have been found to boost coziness by up to 1 million percent. Okay, enough fake statistics, but could bomba socks and slippers really be the cure? Go to bombas.com slash audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com and use code audio. Performance comes down to controlling what you can. For Jessica Pagula, it starts with the air around her. A blue air user for over five years, she trusts blue signature air purifiers, engineered to perform and designed to impress. Shop blueair dot com and use code signature 30. Okay, well, I mean, we could definitely talk for hours on end about well-stroke tales and ghost tales and folk long general, but time is limited. So I have three final questions for you.

52:00The first of which is if someone was planning to visit Wales, which place or places would you say they absolutely have to visit and why? Again, tricky question. Because I can probably, I don't know, pick a dozen places within my square mile, but you know, that I'm currently sat in here. But to be fair, two Wales as a whole, it's probably best to pick one from the north one from the middle one from the south, isn't it? Yeah. So north, I have to say visit Irradi National Park, go up the mountains and see Wales from its highest peaks, visit its lakes and its towns and its villages, and it's, I don't know, burial chambers and its waterfalls and learn about its folklore and its history. It's a vast area, which is incredibly beautiful, but also incredibly varied as well. There's plenty to see and do there. And it's the perfect excuse if ever one was needed

53:02to buy observations on the Snowden Mountains by William Williams-Lander Guy from 1802, which is also one of my all-time favourites. It was the first sort of deliberate regional folkloric study written by a Welsh person. And I'm actually very fortunate to own a first edition with a short manuscript written by Williamson-Self about travels in South Wales, which he was very, very cross-with, because he basically spent the whole manuscript bemoaning the lack of Welsh there, which is quite amusing. For midwiles then, I would choose Aberystwyth. So I lived there for a couple of years, it's a fantastic place to visit, but that is where the National Library of Wales is. So if you want to learn any sort of minutiae, there is to learn about Wales, then you'd be hard-pushed to find anywhere better, really. And I guess for those same reasons down south, I would thoroughly encourage everyone and anyone to visit

54:04St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff. It is one of my favourite places in the world, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a research fellow there. It was the first National Open Air Museum in Britain, and when it opened in, I think it was 1948, where they basically, they've moved buildings of, you know, particular architectural historic importance in Wales, literally brick by brick, and then rebuilt them at the museum. So it's basically reflecting the lives of everyday people in Wales across centuries, and, you know, as well as safeguarding a vast collection of archival material. It's got farmhouses, little whitewashed cottages, a working mill, it's got corner shops, it's got roundhouses, and there's even a pub, so, you know, what's not to like, it's also haunted, so that's also the reason to visit, but it's just a fantastic place, and I really think we're very lucky to have it in Wales.

55:06I think the importance of it being haunted can't be understated. We here have the Wild and Downland Museum, which does a very similar thing, and of course, moving brick by brick, all of those haunted bricks, so just moving ghosts from one place to another place and then you're concentrating them in one area, and encouraging tourists to go in, is it responsible then? I guess, I mean, there's always been a question, isn't there, of whether ghosts haunt people or whether they haunt a location, and places like Samfak can kind of answer that question, and that these buildings have literally been moved, and the ghosts have moved with the building, so there's something quite interesting in there, isn't there? Oh, absolutely, yeah. Okay, second to last question. What's one thing about Wales, a piece of law, perhaps a tradition or misconception, or something you just think is important, to do with the country's legacy or culture,

56:06that you would like people to take away from our conversation? So I guess from my perspective, as someone whose main area of research is Welsh Ghost Law, one of the biggest misconceptions I see is our belief system, sort of lumped in with the wider British, or even heaven forbid Celtic experience, and then in those circumstances, you know, British actually just means English, and Celtic invariably means Irish. So the problem then becomes too fold in the fact that, writers outside of Wales are lumping these accounts, which are often mistranslated in with another country's cultural together, and so the Welsh experience gets largely overlooked. But then we also have writers within Wales erasing sort of regional variations for, you know, a multitude of different reasons, and also historically over-emanticising

57:07and over-embellishing the original narratives. So what we end up within the end is some sort of weird, I don't know, homogenised overview that doesn't really serve anyone's purpose. And I guess there's so much nuance in the Welsh language actually, it's genuinely, it's really difficult to accurately translate a lot of these traditions, especially when it comes to ghosts. And the word for ghost in Welsh is the same as for spirit or soul, specter, emotion, liveliness, and even breath. And so in terms of folklore specifically, it encompasses a wide range of supernatural entities beyond just ghost. So a number of ghost stories in Wales aren't actually ghost stories at all. You just never know that if you didn't have some sort of grasp of the language beforehand. So I guess those, I think, are probably the main misconceptions. But also if we could also stop calling everything in Wales ancient, that'd be wonderful as well, thank you.

58:09Yep, with you there. It's been really, really interesting doing all the reading and speaking to people and learning about it all, because you're absolutely right. There is a tendency to flatten things and sort of go, well that took place in myth time in the past. And nothing has changed. And also not recognising that although things might echo with some Celtic mythology or some English mythology or however else it might go, the pleasure is in the differences. Looking at why they're different. Yeah, with you, with you. Last question. If listeners want to learn more about the history and folklore of Wales, where would you recommend they look? I mean, obviously, buy my book. I have a chest feed. It's available through my website, focalwales.com. But in all seriousness, I mean, if you do buy that book,

59:10there is an extensive bibliography at the back that has all of the main folklore titles as well as hundreds of equally important texts if any listener fancies brushing up on their 18th and 19th century Welsh process. There's a beautiful book containing a wealth of Welsh folk tales that's just been released by Flame Tree Publishing in January that I was fortunate enough to write the introduction for called Welsh Folk and Fairytales. So if you're completely new to Welsh folklore, that is a very aesthetically pleasing book for you to start. If you're interested in Welsh history, I have a book coming out next year with Thames and Hudson, which is all very exciting. And I'll be plugging that on social media channels at some point and they're not so distant future. If you're close to Cardiff or thinking of visiting, I would, again, strongly advise going to some Fagans Museum. It's genuinely one of my favourite places on the planet.

1:00:11There's not many other places you can visit that sort of gives you a glimpse of Welsh history and culture in such a tangible form. And I guess if you don't want something that is sort of, you know, if you don't want to travel, then I listen to, oh, and Satan, on time between times, at each episode is a different folk tale. Usually from Wales, I genuinely enjoy to listen to. And he's a walking psychopathic Welsh folklore. So you're bound to pick up sort of knowledge of a folklore as well. And there are lots of very, very good writers about Welsh folklore at the minute, so there's a wealth of information out there. And it's just trying to sort of pick that out of the rest of it, really. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Delif, this has been absolutely lovely and I really, really appreciate you making the time to chat with me today. Well, thank you very much for having me.

1:01:14Well, there you go. Dr Delif Bada, who in addition to her job and her studies also has an 18-month-old son, so it was extremely kind of her to have carved out the time to have that conversation with me. And one of the things Delif touched on there, which I think is really interesting, is the sense of Welsh pride with hints at some of the tensions that exist between the English and the Welsh. Yeah, as we mentioned, back in Episode 0 of Series 7, a brief history of Wales, and thank you to the thousands of people who've listened to that episode. I'm so sorry about my pronunciation of place names and the whole chaelion mix up in that one. But anyway, back then, we talked about the country's name in English, which is Wales, obviously, versus the country's name in Welsh, which is Cymru. As we said back then, the term Wales comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word, Wales, meaning strangers. Yeah. And the Anglo-Saxons did penetrate into and assimilated quite extensively

1:02:15within Wales. We know this from material culture, as well as genetic studies. But it is an important cultural feature of Wales, that during the Anglo-Saxon period, as we call it in England, the early Middle Ages, as it's called in Wales, was said to have been this time of four major kingdoms in Wales, Gwyneth in the Northwest, Powys in the Eastern Centre, Daybuff in the Southwest, and Morgano in the South East. Yes, these were the kingdoms that existed. It's said roughly in the 11th century when the Normans arrived. And they have quite an interesting status as these almost mythical places, though, as we know, there were actually seven to ten different areas earlier. And let's see how badly I pronounce all of these. Additional ones include Diffid in the Southwest, Keradigion in the Midwest, Morganaag in the South East, Gwent also in the South East, Brakeniog in the modern Brecken area, plus other smaller kingdoms, including Irking,

1:03:15Wilff, Ross, Maryanith and Dunarding. Plus, there were terms when Welsh tribal kings and princes during the Middle Ages, especially also had power over the current English border, the Harifiture and Shropshire, parts of the Saxon lands of the Mercians in the middle portion of England and in Wessex, as well as to the South, were all places where borders blurred culturally, as well as in terms of who held power. So flexible and changeable were these borders, that we've both found it absolutely fascinating to see how, firstly, after the Statute of Rutherland in 1284 under Edward Longshanks, and then through the laws in Wales acts, especially of 1542, Welsh borders actually became stable for longer periods than they ever had before. It is, I think, probably an unpopular thing to voice. Yeah. The renaming of Welsh places in Welsh or Comraic, we should rightly say, since 1974 has definitely transformed the country.

1:04:18Martin and I are big fans of localism, as you might expect from people who spend their days hovering up local history and folklore, but it is very interesting to consider. Even for a moment, the stability offered by the now-collapsed traditional county structures of Great Britain and Ireland. Yes, we know, obviously, that the English were the oppressors here. We also know that lots and lots of dreadful things happened, especially, I would say, the work undertaken by the English to more or less eliminate the Welsh language. These things were awful, and as a person who identifies as English, I think that all that stuff sucks, I wish it hadn't happened. But without a shadow of a doubt, the 13 historic counties of Wales lasted longer as administrative areas than almost any kingdom of Wales otherwise had done or ever did afterwards. Yeah, imperialism is bad, oppressing people not something we are into at all. No. But it has been really interesting to have seen several kinds of shift

1:05:18in terms of how, for example, Britain as a whole and Wales within that have been defined in terms of traditions. Yeah. Because, let the records show, in terms of folklore studies, in Wales before the advent of Welsh nationalism, what's there is largely recorded in terms of the 13 counties for around 500 years? Yeah, in some cases, 800, honestly. Because on the whole, the people paying for the compilations and creations of these histories tended to be from the Norman ruling class. We both wish all the time that Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries had not systematically set about destroying almost every pre-tudo record of anything ever, including so much art and so many books, because who knows how different our conception of Welsh story would be. But even that's really curious, because where are the tutors from? Yeah. Their Welsh, their royal lineage and their arguments become kings of England and Wales

1:06:18come about because they trace their lineages all the way back to the ancient kings of Wales, right the way back to the Romans and the foundation myths of Britain. What this means is that English Renaissance, as it's known, was really a Welsh Renaissance. The 13 historic counties of Wales, as cemented during the Laws in Wales Act, were a Welsh invention. If we take the surviving histories to be true, as wrapped up in the Arthurian mythology of the tutors, which they so appealed to during their time on one of the most powerful courts of Europe. The ones in future king, as we've discussed before, was meant to be embodied or reborn in Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII's older brother. Our legends today are the same legends used by Henry VII to end the Wars of the Roses and stop the people of England and Wales from constantly being one another's throat. It's perhaps not surprising that it's hard to trace the maps back and the boundaries of kingdoms before then. This is the same story in England. One people were going at things hammer and tongs

1:07:19until this period of consolidation. Yes, the end of a hundred years of warring famously served. Yes. And as we know, regional cultures, local cultures differed beforehand and they continued to differ afterwards. But the Henald Gleth, for example, the Old North, which existed from around 500 to 800 AD, that whole stretch of Britain was also evidently part of the wider set of kingdoms that were traditionally intermarrying with and trading with and fighting with, in some cases, the Welsh, such as they were, in that period. It's been amazing to try and peel apart which name people used for these places and why, at the time, drilling down into it appeared. But perhaps there's an argument to say, speaking of the 13 historic counties of Wales or not to be considered sacrilegious or something, because Powys, for example, existed for, at the outside, 700 years, after which it was split into counties including Montgomeryshire, Radnesshire, Bracknowshire, four, five hundred years,

1:08:20when Powys was reformed, covering a different area to Powys as it was. Yes, it is not straightforward and it is obviously very important that the people of Wales feel that their county names and things like that reflect their culture. But it is interesting to me that the modern names of things are what people tend to use when discussing folklore and ghost lore. And I do think there's something to be said about the spreading of Welsh legends via the Ice Death Fodd as well during the 20th century that's had impacts on local ideas or ideas of locality in Wales. No doubt there's an academic out there who's done this research, hopefully. But if not, it would be really cool if they would. Any academics listening? How'd you fancy it? To all the good folk of Wales. We hope any conceptions of you being viewed as strangers as way less is a thing of the deep, deep past. Agreed. If it ever existed. All matter is one, dear friends. All matter is one. All matter is one. Well, English. All the same. Now, we have now recorded our film club episode for March all about Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy adventure film Legends.

1:09:23That will be out exclusively on Patreon once I've had the time to edit it. Quarter's issue one is coming and now just waiting on a couple of things from the lovely artist Ben Edge, who's quite famous. It's worth waiting for. Otherwise, though, we will speak to you again on Saturday for the final part of our trilogy of interviews to cap off three Ravens Series 7. This one with Peter Stevenson. Tonight we're recording the last bits of Monday's episode of Forgotten Melodies as well, our series about the history of folk song types with new recordings of traditional tunes by us. It is drinking songs this time. So we will meet you at the three Ravens Tavern then. Yes, thanks again to Dr. Deleth Bader for such a lovely conversation. Learn more about her and her work at folklorewales.com and we will speak to you again soon. Though while our local legends gone that way, we'll go this way. And remember, don't whistle till you're out of the woods. Our theme song is the traditional folk ballad's three Ravens

1:10:27performed by Eleanor Conlon, Ben Harbour and Katie Summers. And our logo is by Ollie James Dare. The three Ravens podcast is a rust and stardust production written and produced by us. Eleanor Conlon and Martin Forks. Thanks for listening. Gods and every gentleman, such sounds, such hoax and such. With a down, dairy, dairy, dairy, down, down. With a down, dairy, dairy, dairy, down, down. And when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers millions of products and fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly.

1:11:29Call 1-800-GRanger, click ranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Over 90 of the top 100 US accounting firms trust Bill to simplify and secure Bill Pay. That's proven financial infrastructure built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments. Visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer. Did your day move faster than you can keep up with new gatorade lower sugar? My family and I can stay at the top of our game. No artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors, 75% less sugar, and all the electrolytes of regular gatorade. Now available nationwide. Right, we're back to talk a bit more about the tales of Southern England tour. And as a reminder, bookings are open right now. The link is in our show notes at the bottom of this episode. And Tanya and Mike, who run travel pro consulting, are awesome people.

1:12:30When you register, it's them you're talking with. Tanya and Mike initially got in touch with us because they're long time listeners to the podcast. And they also run a travel company. And they decided, hey, why don't we combine our love of travel with our love of the three Ravens podcast. And low, the tales of Southern England tour was born. And so Tanya and Mike, working their magic, have curated this eight day tour around Southern England. If you come, places that the trip stops off include proper visits to iconic places in seven of England's 39 historic counties. And if this tour works, as in, enough people come, Tanya and Mike have been chatting with us about possibilities for tours around other groups of historic English counties, as well as possibilities for international three Ravens tours of this kind. But this one has to work first, however, and spaces are limited. So, dear listener, you can book double or solo rooms. Absolutely everything to do with the tales of Southern England tour itself will be taken care of by Tanya and Mike.

1:13:34Their company is called Travel Pro because guess what, they do this stuff professionally and have been travel pros for several years. Then let's meet up, talk about cool stuff together and visit some genuinely incredible places. Of course, there are episodes to go with the places on the tour, two laps around each of these historic counties, Middlesex, Parkshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Kent. Learn before you go or listen on the trip. But how awesome is the idea of going on an eight-day holiday with the kinds of people who listen to three Ravens? Think of the friends you could make, a whole bunch of witches, all rampaging round castles asking questions. It's gonna be awesome. And that's the thing, the ambition is to transform the traditional sightseeing tour into a journey of historical investigation. This small group experience has been curated by us and features live storytelling and analysis from us at sites directly related to past episodes. Just one example, The Queen of Bones.

1:14:36Ellen is story from our first lab Kent episode, series one, episode nine. The story also features in our book Three Ravens, Folk Tales. Well, the tales of Southern England tour takes you to Canterbury, where you'll be able to look at the tomb of the woman herself, Joan of Navar, and then visit Leeds Castle, where she said to haunt in the form of the Leeds Castle Spectre. Also in Canterbury Cathedral, you can see the tomb referred to in Martin's tale about iconic English ghost story writer, E.F. Benson, from our second lab Kent episode story, The Stain of Vice, proper creepy. Yeah, so we'll have so much to talk about when we meet up, so much stuff for you to see if you can find as you go from place to place, and you can book yourself on the Three Ravens tales of Southern England tour right now. Just select a room type, double or single occupancy, register your information, and Tanya and Mike will contact you directly.

1:15:36The link is in the show notes and we'll hope to see you on the tour, which departs September 19th, 2026.