by David Southwell “When my daughter introduces me to people as a folklorist – she feels the occupation author is too disreputable – they often ask why I bother. I sigh and tell them I do it because research into living folklore is one of the few jobs better done in pub than the library. […]

by David Southwell   Today was full of that sunshine you think only existed in childhood. Pavement hot to touch before noon, heat blurring end of road. I wanted to be by sea. Maybe it was nostalgia for trips with Mum, maybe primal need for cool water. Mad decision to take bus along coast road. […]

by David Southwell “In words as secret and as rare as the promises exchanged by lovers, he called into the darkness for the King of Tangled Ways. He called out: “I am brother to fox and badger. I am song of the night. I am the lost traveller. In the hours when our shadows wake […]

by David Southwell “Sir, Your latest article on us was full of clichés and easy lies AS usual. The image of WITCH as crone is as incomplete as Goya’s depiction of her as Beauty. She is all in one. I’ve no need to ‘whitewash the black arts’. There are no black arts. There’s no need […]

by David Southwell “You ask whether I take Mr. Collins tawdry, self-publicising remarks about the murder being UFO related seriously. The answer is no, I bloody well don’t. I’ll tell you why. The memorial to Stanley the lion is the only thing actually sleeping in Ashcourt necropolis if Mr. Collins is to be believed. Let […]

  About Hookland: Hookland is in part a response to the weird, the paranormal content in culture when I was growing up in 1970s. In many ways I look at Hookland as an act of re-enchantment, a putting back all the weirdness edited out by the modern world. I grew up caught between space-age dreams and […]

by David Southwell – C.L. Nolan, The Sleeping King, published by Bourne & Periman, 1901   About Hookland: Hookland is in part a response to the weird, the paranormal content in culture when I was growing up in 1970s. In many ways I look at Hookland as an act of re-enchantment, a putting back all the […]