This instalment of Fabulous Folklore begins with a reading of the Poltergeist entry from my new book, Ghostlore. Then we explore the problem with poltergeists—how do you define one?! From deciding what phenomena to include to picking a name, the poltergeist proves to be a flexible yet elusive figure in historical accounts. Is that spontaneous […]
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White Ladies, Ghost Nuns & Spectral Children in Haunted Madrid
People have lived in the Madrid area since prehistoric times. Occupied by Romans, Moors, and then the Spanish, it has quite the history (World Population Review 2025). Over 6.8 million people live in Madrid. That’s less than Paris and London but more than Berlin. Of course, a capital city will boast a few ghost stories. […]
The Venetian Legend of the Carvings of Castello
If you head away from the hustle and bustle of the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), you’ll head into the stranger, more magical part of Venice. It’s in the tangle of narrow streets and courts that you enter the realm of Venetian legend. It’s difficult to know how many of them have any basis […]
Dublin Ghost Stories of Phantom Dogs and Mysterious Figures
Dublin is a beautiful city that straddles the River Liffey, famous as the home of Guinness and the National Leprechaun Museum. What you might not expect from the Irish capital is a series of Dublin ghost stories. Though why not? The city enjoys a millennium of history, including Viking settlement, economic hardship caused by the […]
Folk Traditions and Strange Sights in Florence
Florence was founded in the 1st century BCE as a Roman military outpost, although it came to prominence as a centre of commerce and the arts in the 14th to 16th centuries CE. The Florentine method of speech even became the Italian language (Silver et al, 2025). Some of the city’s most famous exports are […]
Finding the Lort Burn, One of Newcastle’s Buried Rivers
Much is often made of London’s lost rivers, like the Tyburn, Fleet, and Walbrook. Yet Newcastle upon Tyne also has rivers we cannot see. Ours are not lost, rather, they’re simply buried. The Skinnerburn, Erick Burn, Pandon Burn, Lam Burn, and Lort Burn all continue to flow beneath the city, down to the mighty Tyne. […]
