Archives: Digital Events

The Festive Spirit- Drawing Christmas Ghost Stories – a workshop with Sian Ellis – Zoom

The Festive Spirit- Drawing Christmas Ghost Stories

In this workshop attendees will participate in hands-on drawing activities inspired by the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. We’ll look at why ghost stories became popular during the festive seasons, and Sian will share a few tales of festive hauntings from fact and fiction to use as inspiration for our illustrations. The perfect session for getting into the festive spirit!

Suitable for all abilities, participants just need to bring along some paper and their drawing implements of choice.

Artist Bio:

Sian Ellis is an award-winning illustrator based in Sheffield and known for her playful ghost illustrations. She is the creator of the quarterly zine ‘Tell the Bees’ a catalogue of tales from folklore, fiction and history. Each zine is themed from Folklore in Film to Britain’s Weirdest ghosts. She also creates detailed maps and zines of geographical areas illustrated with local folklore, ghost stories and strange places which have been featured on the BBC and The Week Junior.

Curated & Hosted By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Last Christmas: Saint Nicholas and a Very Pagan Christmas – Eric Huang – Zoom

Last Christmas: Saint Nicholas and a Very Pagan Christmas

Father Christmas, aka Santa Claus, is the commercial and secular face of Christmas—an ancient Christian festival that sought to smother older rites. The Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year, was a perilous and liminal moment, when the forces of darkness returned to the mortal plane. Recast by Christianity as the celebration of a new-born messiah, the winter holy days nevertheless remained entangled with their pagan roots.

The legends of saints such as Nicholas and Lucy merged with those of sorcerers, demons, flying animals, and resurrected corpses to give shape to modern holiday traditions. This illustrated lecture traces the evolution of Christmas and its ringleader, Santa Claus, while exploring flying cats, the demon Krampus, Coca?Cola, and the resurrection of three butchered siblings.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Nicholas, Poland, Public Domain.

THE SAINTS SERIES

Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.

Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.

Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.

In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.

Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).

Bio:

Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.

Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.

Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.

Curated  by Marguerite Johnson

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for four weeks the next day

The Power of Christ Compels You: A Halloween History of Catholic Exorcism – Eric Huang – Zoom

The Power of Christ Compels You: A Halloween History of Catholic Exorcism

The Catholic Church is a master of spectacle. Step into a cathedral to feel how architecture itself has been harnessed to proclaim divine authority. Perhaps no Catholic rite better exemplifies this than exorcism. First developed to purge converts of the ‘evil spirits’ of non?Christian gods, the rite evolved into standing?room?only performances in the seventeenth century, carefully scripted to reclaim Protestant souls and reaffirm the Pope’s power.

The Power of Christ Compels You! traces the history of Catholic exorcism—from its origins and entanglements with the infernal to the theatrical strategies clerics deployed to inflame passions, terrorise audiences, and consolidate ecclesiastical authority … with lethal consequences.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: All Saints’ Day, Poland, Public Domain.

THE SAINTS SERIES

Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.

Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.

Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.

In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.

Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).

Bio:

Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.

Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.

Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.

Curated  by Marguerite Johnson

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for four weeks the next day

This Charming Man: Saint Sebastian and the Making of a Queer Icon – Eric Huang – Zoom

This Charming Man: Saint Sebastian and the Making of a Queer Icon

According to legend, Saint Sebastian was a citizen of ancient Rome who distinguished himself in battle and rose quickly to become the trusted right hand of the Emperor. Outwardly, he embodied imperial power, military discipline, and masculine virtue. Beneath this polished exterior lay a forbidden truth: Sebastian was a closeted Christian, devoted to an illegal cult practiced in the shadows of empire.

This illustrated talk returns to the earliest legends of this ancient martyr to explore how a middle?aged military commander—once venerated as a protector against plague and pandemics—was gradually remade, through centuries of art, devotion, and desire, into a barely legal queer icon.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Sebastian, St Joseph Church, Meenachil, Kottayam, Kerala. Image by Jinesh8100, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.

THE SAINTS SERIES

Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.

Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.

Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.

In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.

Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).

Bio:

Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.

Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.

Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.

Curated  by Marguerite Johnson

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for four weeks the next day

Love Will Tear Us Apart: The Loveless Legend of Saint Valentine – Eric Huang – Zoom

Love Will Tear Us Apart: The Loveless Legend of Saint Valentine

Saint Valentine is said to preside over romantic love. His feast day marks a night and day when couples around the world exchange flowers, chocolates, and ritualised displays of affection. Yet beneath these candlelit performances, falls a dark shadow. The two weeks immediately before and after Valentine’s Day see the sharpest shift in socialmedia relationship statuses from ‘dating’ to ‘single.’

This irony collapses when we return to the original hagiography of the ancient Roman martyr, which has nothing whatsoever to do with romance. Saint Valentine is, in fact, entirely loveless. This talk explores how an obscure patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague was posthumously transformed into the patron of love, even as his feast day is still to this day overtaken by pagan figures beyond the reach of Christendom.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Relic of St. Valentine in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, Italy. Image by Dnalor_01, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.

THE SAINTS SERIES

Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.

Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.

Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.

In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.

Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).

Bio:

Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.

Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.

Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.

Curated  by Marguerite Johnson

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for four weeks the next day

The Saint Series – Series 1 of 4 parts – Eric Huang – Zoom

THE SAINTS SERIES

Join Eric Huang – writer and producer of the Saint Podcast – for a 4-part series that explores Saint Valentine, Saint Sebastian, the tradition of All Saints Day – or Halloween, and Saint Nicholas.

Each talk is scheduled for the feast day or the seasonal time of year when a particular saint or saintly ritual is celebrated or memorialized.

Saint Valentine joins us on February 14; Saint Sebastian is with us for Pride Month in June; All Saints Day aka All Hallow’s Eve, takes centre stage in late October as we take a look at a Halloween-themed Catholic rite: exorcism; and, finally, Saint Nicholas and his demon-helper Krampus join us in December.

In each talk, Eric takes a deep dive into obscure and sometimes controversial details of the saints and the traditions surrounding them. From the origins of Saint Valentine as the patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague to the transformation of middle-aged, patrician Saint Sebastian into a barely legal queer icon, our journey promises to be full of surprises. And, of course, along the way, there is Halloween and Christmas! What do these last two celebrations have to do with saints? Eric will reveal all.

Each lecture is available as a one-time purchase, or join Eric for all four talks at a discount price (you know you want to).

Valentine’s Day, Thurs 11 Feb – Love Will Tear Us Apart: The Loveless Legend of Saint Valentine

Saint Valentine is said to preside over romantic love. His feast day marks a night and day when couples around the world exchange flowers, chocolates, and ritualised displays of affection. Yet beneath these candlelit performances, falls a dark shadow. The two weeks immediately before and after Valentine’s Day see the sharpest shift in socialmedia relationship statuses from ‘dating’ to ‘single.’

This irony collapses when we return to the original hagiography of the ancient Roman martyr, which has nothing whatsoever to do with romance. Saint Valentine is, in fact, entirely loveless. This talk explores how an obscure patron saint of epilepsy, beekeeping, and the plague was posthumously transformed into the patron of love, even as his feast day is still to this day overtaken by pagan figures beyond the reach of Christendom.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Relic of St. Valentine in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, Italy. Image by Dnalor_01, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pride, Thurs 3 June – This Charming Man: Saint Sebastian and the Making of a Queer Icon

According to legend, Saint Sebastian was a citizen of ancient Rome who distinguished himself in battle and rose quickly to become the trusted right hand of the Emperor. Outwardly, he embodied imperial power, military discipline, and masculine virtue. Beneath this polished exterior lay a forbidden truth: Sebastian was a closeted Christian, devoted to an illegal cult practiced in the shadows of empire.

This illustrated talk returns to the earliest legends of this ancient martyr to explore how a middleaged military commander—once venerated as a protector against plague and pandemics—was gradually remade, through centuries of art, devotion, and desire, into a barely legal queer icon.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Sebastian, St Joseph Church, Meenachil, Kottayam, Kerala. Image by Jinesh8100, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween, Thurs 28 Oct – The Power of Christ Compels You: A Halloween History of Catholic Exorcism

The Catholic Church is a master of spectacle. Step into a cathedral to feel how architecture itself has been harnessed to proclaim divine authority. Perhaps no Catholic rite better exemplifies this than exorcism. First developed to purge converts of the ‘evil spirits’ of nonChristian gods, the rite evolved into standingroomonly performances in the seventeenth century, carefully scripted to reclaim Protestant souls and reaffirm the Pope’s power.

The Power of Christ Compels You! traces the history of Catholic exorcism—from its origins and entanglements with the infernal to the theatrical strategies clerics deployed to inflame passions, terrorise audiences, and consolidate ecclesiastical authority … with lethal consequences.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: All Saints’ Day, Poland, Public Domain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas, Thurs 16 Dec – Last Christmas: Saint Nicholas and a Very Pagan Christmas

Father Christmas, aka Santa Claus, is the commercial and secular face of Christmas—an ancient Christian festival that sought to smother older rites. The Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year, was a perilous and liminal moment, when the forces of darkness returned to the mortal plane. Recast by Christianity as the celebration of a new-born messiah, the winter holy days nevertheless remained entangled with their pagan roots.

The legends of saints such as Nicholas and Lucy merged with those of sorcerers, demons, flying animals, and resurrected corpses to give shape to modern holiday traditions. This illustrated lecture traces the evolution of Christmas and its ringleader, Santa Claus, while exploring flying cats, the demon Krampus, CocaCola, and the resurrection of three butchered siblings.

CAPTION FOR IMAGE: Saint Nicholas, Poland, Public Domain.

Bio:

Eric Huang studied palaeontology. Unfortunately, field work didn’t live up to his Jurassic Park dreams, so he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios until landing a job as secretary to the Creative Director of Disney Publishing, inadvertently launching a career in books.

Today, Eric is the creator of the Saint Podcast, an exploration of saints’ stories. He’s the author of the children’s fantasy series, Guardians of the New Moon, that reimagines East Asian legends. And he teaches at City, University of London’ Masters in Publishing course.

Eric lives in London with his boyfriend Brian and their cat McNulty.

Curated  by Marguerite Johnson

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for four weeks the next day

The Christmas Witches – Sarah Clegg – Zoom

The Christmas Witches

Europe boasts an astonishing collection of Christmas witches who emerge from the winter shadows, beings like the Alpine witch Perchta, who goes house-to-house over the Christmas season and will slit open the bellies of any badly behaved children she encounters, pulling out their guts, stuffing them with straw and sewing them back up again with a ploughshare as a needle and a chain as thread. This talk will examine the history of these creatures – how they blended with the strangeness and darkness that was characteristic of the Christmas season until the Victorians sanitised it; how they were originally ambiguous figures – dangerous but thought to bring luck and good fortune to the houses they visited; how they were part monster, part Fate and part fairy, full of dreams of female freedom and power; and how they were turned into something utterly horrific, and used as a template for the witch trials of early modernity.

Speaker Bio:

Sarah Clegg is a Sunday Times bestselling author on the history of folklore. Her most recent book, The Dead of Winter, traced the origins and changing lore of the dark side of Christmas. Sarah has a PhD in ancient history from the University of Cambridge and works in publishing.

Hosted by:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

Image: Wikimedia Commons, Holger Uwe Schmitt.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Liminal Time: The Spirits of the 12 Days of Christmas – Benjamin Stimpson – Zoom

Liminal Time: The Spirits of the 12 Days of Christmas

In Dickens’ a Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. To our modern eye, this classic of literature may seem weird and an oddity with contrast to the joyful image of Santa Clause… but in centuries past this idea of ghosts visiting was not an uncommon fear. Traditionally, the Christmas period began on Christmas Day and ran for twelve days ending on Twelth Night (or Epiphany). During this period, the world locked down, feasting and merriment was encouraged, and much like in the present time often had no meaning. While we think Christmas is all about celebrations, sometimes darker forces were at work behind the scenes, and this liminal period of the year was filled with all manner of ghosts, demons, angels, and saints. In this presentation we go through each of the Twelve Days and look at some of the the unique traditions of Britain, and meet some of the interesting characters believed to roam around.(Image: Mari Llwyd)

Speaker Bio:

Benjamin Stimpson is an award-winning Welsh based writer, independent researcher, podcaster, and public speaker on folk practice, occultism, medieval history, and British folklore. Benjamin holds a BA (Hons) minoring in Classical, Medieval and Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo as well as a Diploma in Spiritual Psychotherapy. His research focusses on medieval and early modern folk practice, the folklore and history of magic and witchcraft, and applied modern spiritual practice. He is the author of the award-winning Ancestral Whispers: A Guide to Developing Ancestral Veneration Practices (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2023), and his most recent: Of Toads and Hares: The Witches and Wisewomen of England (History Press, 2026), his work has been endorsed by such experts in the field as Professor Ronald Hutton, Dr Owen Davies, Dr Tabitha Stanmore, and Dr Christina Oakley Harrington. To find out more, please visit www.benstimpson.com

Hosted & Curated By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Ridin’ The Hurdle: The Folklore of the Witches of England – Benjamin Stimpson – Zoom

Ridin’ The Hurdle: The Folklore of the Witches of England

The lore of the witches of England is heavily influenced by the common narrative as found in witch trial records, but after the period of the witch trials (17th – early 18th centuries) new folklore about witches began to come through and by the 19th and early 20th centuries, many different elements and motifs about witches and cunningwomen existed across the country. In this presentation, we explore the common motifs and narratives about witches found throughout England and their possible origins, from wearing red to ridin’ hurdles, to stopping carts in theiur tracks, to turning into hares and running around the countryside, this class is a primer on witch folklore.(Image: Manuscript witches riding brooms)

Speaker Bio:

Benjamin Stimpson is an award-winning Welsh based writer, independent researcher, podcaster, and public speaker on folk practice, occultism, medieval history, and British folklore. Benjamin holds a BA (Hons) minoring in Classical, Medieval and Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo as well as a Diploma in Spiritual Psychotherapy. His research focusses on medieval and early modern folk practice, the folklore and history of magic and witchcraft, and applied modern spiritual practice. He is the author of the award-winning Ancestral Whispers: A Guide to Developing Ancestral Veneration Practices (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2023), and his most recent: Of Toads and Hares: The Witches and Wisewomen of England (History Press, 2026), his work has been endorsed by such experts in the field as Professor Ronald Hutton, Dr Owen Davies, Dr Tabitha Stanmore, and Dr Christina Oakley Harrington. To find out more, please visit www.benstimpson.com

Hosted & Curated By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Making masks and the history of halloween costumes – a hands on workshop with Sian Ellis – Zoom

Making masks and the history of halloween costumes- a hands on workshop

In this session we’ll be looking at the history of halloween costumes and designing our own paper masks to wear or display this halloween.

The session will begin with a short talk about the history of halloween costumes and its origins in traditions such as souling and mumming and Sian will share some halloween ghost stories while we work on our masks.

Suitable for all abilities, participants just need to bring along some paper and their drawing implements of choice.

Artist Bio:

Sian Ellis is an award-winning illustrator based in Sheffield and known for her playful ghost illustrations. She is the creator of the quarterly zine ‘Tell the Bees’ a catalogue of tales from folklore, fiction and history. Each zine is themed from Folklore in Film to Britain’s Weirdest ghosts. She also creates detailed maps and zines of geographical areas illustrated with local folklore, ghost stories and strange places which have been featured on the BBC and The Week Junior.

Curated & Hosted By:

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day