Eleanor Morton returns, with the remarkable tale of an Edinburgh haunting - and a school trip to the site of the nightmare! These are the legends of Mary King's Close, an underground street with more supernatural activity than you can shake a disembodied arm at. Eleanor has a new book out on August 15th, and an upcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe sh…

Alasdair takes James to Gallipoli (with layovers in Glasgow and the North East of England) for a brace of chilling First World War ghost stories. (Which are slightly undermined by James's bizarre donkey conspiracy theories.) Our source is Raymond Lamont Brown's 1975 Casebook of Military Mystery. So hop aboard Loremen Airways and enjoy the authentic…

Get ready to cream your teas, because the boys are going to Cornwall. Join us, and meet West Country witches, the long-fingered ghost of Looe Island and a gritty reboot of Rumpelstiltskin. As James will tell you, Cornwall is such a mysterious county that no one really knows where it is. These Cornish Terrors spring from the pages of The Folklore of…

James lures Alasdair to a bad mannered manor house in Dorset*. We're in Sandford Orcas - which is a village, not pod of Free Willies - and the place is simply brimming with ghosts! From Ghosts in the South West by James Turner, Shakey tells a tale of troublesome monks, lunar assassins and one very macabre way of not getting blamed for farts. And yo…

The Loremen have been transported back to the Midnight Library, and Miranda has a selection of bonecurdling bedtime stories to horrify and delight you. These are original tales from the shelves of the Midnight Library, and they get rather grisly. Younger listeners and the timid-of-ear be warned! Content Warning: body horror and sound effects LoreBo…

If you manage to guess the nature of this episode's cryptid then please write in and claim your prize! Inspired by Steve Cliffe's Moor Mysteries, James and Alasdair return to Derbyshire's Peak District. The Loremen are on the hunt for stones adorned with strange carvings. We're on the hunt for the truth about Parma Violets. And we are on the hunt f…

The Loremen return to the good old U S of America. Inspired by a gift from a listener, the boys head to Monterey Bay, CA, and tangle with a whole bunch of sea beasts. (Or should that be school? Pod? Flock? What is the collective noun for aquatic cryptids?) We meet the monkey-faced Old Man of Monterey (AKA Bobo) and some real-life red-haired sea ser…

The Loremen lived again - again! This is the second installment of the live show recorded in Oxford (famed birthplace of the comma) as part of the Saint Audio Podcast Festival. James guides our live audience around the spooky environs of Oxford, this time courtesy of John Richardson's Oxford & County Ghost Stories. In Part 2, the boys encounter a p…

The Loremen lived again! This episode was recorded in Oxford (the Cambridge of Oxfordshire) as part of the Saint Audio Podcast Festival. James takes Alasdair and a live lorefolk audience on a tour of the county, courtesy of Mike White's book The Ox-Files. In Part 1, the boys encounter an apparition in Burford, a haunted cellar and a teeny-tiny croc…

Welcome to Bamburgh Castle! Make yourself at home, especially if you're name's Lancelot du Lac. Don't mind the enormous venom-spitting toad. There's a funny story behind that, actually. It's the Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh... The boys visit Bamburgh, possibly England's most dramatic castle, rising up from the waves on a volcanic dolerite outcr…

Richard Herring, a comedian who straddles England's North/South divide like a podcasting colossus, joins the boys for a deep dive into one of Somerset's deepest dives. It's Cheddar Gorge! Somerset's answer to the question, "Which Somerset attraction is almost as good as Wookey Hole?" Prepare to meet the Witches of Pocklington, the Devil (himself), …

The Loreboys meet the audacious Scottish con man "Sir" Gregor MacGregor. Calling himself the Cazique of Poyais, this charismatic ex-soldier is the mastermind behind a debacle that will make Fyre Island look like Centre Parcs. He's selling land and government bonds belonging to the Central American kingdom of Poyais. The big problem being: Poyais do…

Where wolves? James attempts to answer that question with a midnight excursion to Cannock Chase. This Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is home to a range of distinctly unnatural creatures. We're talking lycanthropes, black eyed children, numerous UFOs and at least one pigman. In fact, there are many reports of uncanny incidents in Cannock Chase, …

Thersa Matsuura of Uncanny Japan joins the Loreboys for a tale with more human faces than you've had hot dinners with human faces*. We look at a bunch of Yōkai that can take a look right back at us. From fish with a face to a blister with a kisser, these jinmen will give you the jitters. Especially the fish, because they're real. (No seriously... t…

James lures Alasdair back down to the water's edge for an Important Mermaid Update! The Hayfield Mermaid first appeared in Series 2 (get up to speed here). Somehow, the Loreboys managed to overlook yet another freshwater mermaid in a nearby bottomless pool. And the grasping creature that dwells in the waters of Blakemere has a heck of a backstory. …

This year's live show at the Leicester Comedy festival was a delight. The lorefolk were in fine form and James rustled up a folkloric feast, including 'facts' from Geoffrey Hodson's 1925 book Fairies at Work and at Play. Sadly, fairy mischief meant that our recorder batteries died towards the end of the show, so the final portion of this episode ha…

April is the time for fooling, especially in Scotland where the first of the month is Huntigowk Day: a day for tartan paint, long stands and other bootless errands. James and Alasdair (a pair of anti-prank killjoys) spent this April Fool's investigating Loch Ness, a body of water which has seen more than its share of hoaxes. But one monster prank f…