the recorder
Sep 23, 2026
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.
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Sep 13, 2026
The Guardian Cat of Bubastis
A visit to the ruined temple town of Bubastis, seat of the cat goddess Bastet, and a look at how a working household animal became a ward against unseen harm.
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Sep 2, 2026
The Thing in the Reeds
A journal entry on the bunyip, the water-dwelling being of Aboriginal folklore from the Murray-Darling basin, and how a warning about dangerous water became, in colonial hands, both a cryptid and an insult.
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Aug 31, 2026
Pukwudgie Country
An account of the pukwudgie, the small and sharp-tempered woodland spirits of Wampanoag and Algonquian tradition, and the wary respect they still command in the pine barrens of southeastern Massachusetts.
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Aug 24, 2026
The Grammar of Birds
On the old Roman and Etruscan art of augury, in which the flight of birds, the fall of lightning, and the appetite of sacred chickens were read as the language of fate.
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Aug 21, 2026
The Island That Breathed
A journal entry on the Kraken, the vast sea-creature of Norwegian and Greenlandic maritime lore, and the fishermen who mistook its rising back for land.
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Aug 9, 2026
The Rearing Cobra of the Delta
A journal entry on Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt, whose rearing form once guarded the brow of every pharaoh and still guards the doorways of the dead.
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Aug 8, 2026
The Scribe Who Counted the Moon
A visit to the ibis catacombs of ancient Hermopolis, where the moon god Thoth was worshipped as scribe, mathematician, and keeper of the balance between truth and chaos.
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