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The Keeper of Unwalked Roads

A journal account of the Lantern Man, the Dartmoor light said to lead travellers off finished roads and onto ones that never were, at a cost few agree on.

Nian and the Red Door

A record of Nian, the beast of Chinese New Year folklore, and the customs of red paper, fire and noise still said to keep it from the door.

The Century Walk of the Green Man

An account of the Green Man, Britain's foliate-headed spirit of the greenwood, and the local legend of his once-a-century Greenwalk through orchard, field and oak.

The Woman Who Turns Away

A journal account of the Huldra, the hidden forest woman of Norwegian and Swedish tradition, and the herders and hunters who claimed to have loved her.

The Hare Who Answers the Moon

An account of the old Chinese belief that the wild hare conceives by gazing at the moon, and its uneasy kinship with the tame Jade Rabbit of legend.

The Boy Who Brings the Rain

A journal entry on Amefurikozō, the straw-cloaked yōkai said to walk the roads of Japan on rainy nights, and the uncertain business of blaming a child-sized spirit for the weather.

The Taniwha's Long Watch

An account of the taniwha, the guardian and hazard spirits of Aotearoa's rivers, lakes and coasts, and what their old warnings still protect.

The Herds That Answer to No One

A look at Flidais, the Irish goddess who is said to herd and protect the wild deer of the forest, and at the old tale of the cattle raid that carries her name.

The Night the Black Horse Comes

A look at the púca, the shapeshifting night spirit of Irish and wider Celtic folklore, and the blackberry and harvest lore still tied to its name.

What the Wolf Was Promised

A visit to the Gosforth Cross in Cumbria prompts a retelling of Fenrir's binding and the fate the Norse sources give him at Ragnarök.

At the Well of Urd

An account of the Norns, the three women who set the fates of gods and mortals alike at the foot of the world tree, and of how uncertain their thread-work really is in the old sources.

The Silence of the Stillhart

A record of hill-country testimony concerning the Stillhart, a stag so still that trees root in its antlers, and of the silence it lays upon those who see it.
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