Talks & Workshops
Dark waters - The Archeology & Folklore of River, Lakes March & Stream
October 2025
This workshop was facilitated by a collaborative collective inspired by the landscape and folklore of the British Isles. The collective aims to bring together strands of prehistory and later folktales to show how landscape can influence later traditions and storytelling.
Face in the Trees includes founding members Hannah Willow (artist) and myself, Richard Osgood (archaeologist, Time Team, Operation Nightingale, Digging for Britain) and Phil the Tree, storyteller and wood turner.
Dark Waters was inspired by the secrets and stories locked with the watery places. The workshop was held in Itton, a little village near the River Wye in Monmouthshire, Wales. It included recent updates on the excavations at Lynn Cerrig Bach in Anglesey, the site of an ancient lake containing votive offering for the Iron Age.
We examined how centuries old connections between humans and water are woven together in tradition and tale including shapeshifters, water maidens, otherworldly portals and Welsh myths.
Women on the Edge: Wise Women, Witches & Booley Girls
23 August 2025, 20 September 2025
This workshop was inspired by women living close to the edge of society: the ploughwoman who did a ‘mans job’ until she was ‘let go’ when the men returned from the Great War; the medieval swineherd hanged for stealing a pig who miraculously revived in a little chapel next to the River Wye in Hereford; the midwife high in the Clee Hills who delivered single mothers outside the parish and the Booley girls in Ireland who looked after the cattle up high on in the hills during summer. Also the witches, the servant girls, the wise women, the warriors. We sang songs and told their stories keeping them alive in history and memory. The workshop was repeated in September at Kinnersely Castle, Hertfordshire to raise funds for the castle.
Arthur's Stone, Herefordshire, 2022 - ?
Years ago I wanted to train as an archeologist but I had to pay the rent and London was expensive so I remained in the NHS. Now times have changed and archaeology is more accessible. In recent years I have worked on several digs including in Lancashire, South Gloucestershire and locally in Shropshire with Matt Williams (Time Team).
Since 2022 I have been a guide for English heritage for the ongoing excavations at Arthur’s Stone in Herefordshire, a Neolithic chamber tomb high on a hill with spectacular views toward the Black Mountain in Wales and the Skirrid. The dig is part of wider excavations in the area which are suggesting the tomb is part of a Neolithic landscape including a stone circle, a cursus and halls of the dead.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows...
September 2024
A one day workshop in the beautiful Clee Hills of Shropshire with singer/ environmentalist Polly Bolton. Myself and Polly are continually inspired by the landscape where we live and this summer the flowers had been so lovely we wanted to celebrate them, not just for their beauty but for their ability to transform whether through healing, through folktales or folk tradition. Flowers are sensual, beautiful, clever, potent, healing and deadly. Sometimes they are liminal, visible above, rooted to the invisible below. They bridge the seen and the unseen worlds their legacy often preserved by folklore and tradition. The day was warm and sunny. Oak barn was filled with fresh flowers and cake where we sat and listens to songs of woodbine and roses, midsummer’s eve garlands and well dressing in spring.
August 2023
Sanctity & Sanctuary: The Enduring Tale of St Melangell
I use to live in St Albans so it was a real pleasure to return and present a paper at the 2023 Folklore Society Conference at St Albans Abbey, Saints & Mystic in Legend & tradition.
My paper explored the legacy of the early Welsh saint, St Melangell, & the enduring nature of her appeal which has survived for 1500 years of social change and reform.
It also explored her relevance today at a time of climate change and great environmental shifts. Melangell is a saint whose legacy includes the care & concern for the natural world. The nunnery she founded once offered sanctuary and spirituality continues to inspire today and the little church in the ancient valley of Pennant Melangell survives in a landscape peppered with folklore and landmarks attached to her story. Ironically it is also home to a large shooting company but despite this people still visit to find healing and inspiration beyond the brutality and confines of the modern world.
Workshops
For several years I have been involved in a series of collaborative workshops alongside an artist, Hannah Willow, & storyteller ,Phil the Tree called Face in the Trees.
Each workshop has a specific theme connected to British folklore. For example, the folklore of the horse, hare or covids. Also we have run elemental workshops connected to earth, air, fire and water.
There is also a creative element to each event for participants to enjoy and guest speakers. These have included the poet Jackie Juno (horse), John & Sue Exton (Mari Lwyd), Sam Lee (Ballad), Tamsin Abbott (Ballad) & Richard Osgood (Archaeology).
September 2023
A Walk Through The Folklore of Trees. Queenswood Arboretum, Herefordshire Arts Week
This was a woodland walk and introduction to the folklore of trees as part of hArt week and the Wyldwood Exhibition at Queenswood Country Park and Arboretum on 5 / 6 September 2023, of Herefordshire.
We took a gentle walk through the trees on a warm autumn morning with stops in various glades to hear tales of local folklore and history concerning trees. and beyond. Tree lore can be very generic, similar themes found throughout the country but it can also be very localised. For example, in the 14th century oak trees were once known as the ‘weeds of Herefordshire” because they were thought so plentiful at the time.
Amongst many tales we imagined Herne the Hunter bemoaning his fate under the great oaks of Windsor Forest with his ‘great ragg’d horns’ and heard how the good people of rural Herefordshire would apply old magic using ash and withy to cure the sick.
An Acre of Land
April 2024
An unusually dry April Sunday saw the first performance of An Acre of Land at Clee St Margaret Village Hall on Brown Clee Hill by myself and singer, choir leader, environmentalist/ecologist, Polly Bolton. This project is informed by my own work on the environs and traditions concerning this area and by Polly, a commoner who has lived and worked here for over thirty years.
Brown Clee is one of the Blue Forgotten Hills of South Shropshire and the inspiration for this piece of work. The hill and its commons have been eroded and changed by people for centuries. Mining, overgrazing and enclosure has impacted upon this most ancient of environments yet it retains its own liminal beauty and, at times a strangeness and, at times, dark history.
We wanted this to be a a celebration, of the area’s history, folklore & landscape. An often forgotten part of Shropshire, it was home to the folk singer Fred Jordan as well as the odd giant & many a blacksmith.
We are continuing to offer performances of ‘An Acre’, privately and at local venues.
Easter Traditions,Countryfile, 2020
April 2022
I didn’t know what to expect when I drove down to Sellack in Herefordshire to film an episode of Countryfile. Times were uncertain as covid was still prevalent and we had just come out of lockdown.
I was due to meet John Craven and the team at St Tysilio’s church to be filmed talking about Easter traditions. My friend Tamsin Abbott, stained glass artist, met us there. She was also on the program. It was a lovely sunny day and the church was very peaceful. I ‘dressed’ a grave with primroses while John read from Kilverts diary a recollection of grave dressing at Easter in the 19th century.
St Tysilio’s is one of three churches in Herefordshire who continue the tradition of Pax cakes, round shortbread-like biscuits given out by the vicar after the Sunday service. They are stamped with the image of a lamb and a blessing of “Peace and Good Neighbourhood” is spoken with each gift (hence the name of Pax Cakes as “pax” is the Latin for “peace”). It was originally a charity dole going back to the fifteenth century.
