The Hare #1 [March 2025]
Witch trials, phallic stones, fortune-telling spoons…
News from Northern Earth
New editor Andrew Chapman’s first issue of NE is just back from the printers! If you’re not on the list yet, you can still subscribe for a year (4 issues) for only £12 including postage (£20 overseas). Copies are going out in the first week of this month.
Read Simon Crook’s new article at our website: ‘The foal seeks the pasture’: A hexagonal Roman shrine in Hampshire
Read John Palmer’s new article at our website: A Saxon alignment and pagan cult site in Twente, the Netherlands
Season’s gleanings: 10 recent news stories
Historic book of Bury St Edmunds’ witch trials to be displayed [BBC]
‘You dream about such things’: Brit who discovered missing pharaoh’s tomb may have unearthed another [Guardian]
Archaeologists in Denmark unearth ‘exceptionally rare’ Roman helmet buried in strange ritual [Independent]
Translated runes from Galloway Hoard shed new light on who owned it [The National]
2,000 year-old bronze spoon used for ‘telling the future’ discovered in Isle of Man [ITV]
People have been dumping corpses into the Thames since at least the Bronze Age, study finds [Live Science]
11,000-year-old Indigenous village uncovered near Sturgeon Lake, Canada [University of Saskatchewan]
Stonehenge-like circle unearthed in Denmark may have links to UK [Guardian]
Was Stonehenge a phallic temple? [Independent]
Archaeologists uncover 7th-century pagan cult site with ritual offerings in the Netherlands [Archaeology News Online]
Events on in March
March 10 Satan’s Places: In search of Baphomet and the Black Mass – Andy Sharp Live. Viktor Wynd Museum, London.
March 12 The Old Stones, with Andy Burnham of Megalithic.co.uk. Waterstones, Canterbury.
March 15 Elizabeth Hopkinson: Legends from Lindisfarne. The Folklore Centre, Todmorden.
March 18 Elias Ashmole and the Cottingley Fairies (online talk 7pm). The Folklore Society.
March 22 How Britain became an island: the Storegga Slide tsunami and Mesolithic catastrophe. Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society, Woodhouse, Leeds.
March 26 Night of the Demon: folk horror film night with Norfolk Folklore Society. Cinema City, Norwich.
March 29 Exploring Archaeological Landscapes: Celebrating the legacy of Derrick Riley and William Arnold Baker. Day conference on aerial photography. Creative Lounge, Sheffield.
March 29 Lecture on Boles Barrow, Salisbury Plain. Wiltshire Museum, Devizes.
Selected exhibitions
Until March 8 Un/Common People: Folk Culture in Wessex. Museum & Art Swindon. Moves to Wiltshire Museum, Devizes on 5 April.
Until March 20 Scientific Rambles. Collection of work by four artist-antiquarians inspired by archaeology, cartography and storytelling. Silk Museum, Park Lane, Macclesfield.
Until April 27 Oracles, Omens and Answers – how people have sought answers to life’s big questions throughout history. Weston Library, Oxford.
Until May 5 Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds. Tate St Ives, Cornwall.
Until May 30 Boggles, Ghosts and Ragwells – rural folklore in East Yorkshire. Berverley Guildhall
Until Sep 7 Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage – exhibition of three photographers. Stonehenge Visitor Centre, Wiltshire.
(See our printed issue for more events later in the year)
5 things to read, watch, listen to…
[Article] What really happened in Calvine? The mystery behind the best UFO picture ever seen
[Video/podcast] Brother Richard: Peace Between the Kingdoms – a Wiccan interviews a Franciscan friar about his experience of unseen worlds
[Podcast] Broken Veil – ‘A psychogeographic journey into the strangeness close at hand’
[Video] Dumnonia – a short film about ritual, science, faith and farming set in Dartmoor, companion to a book by Joe Charrington
[Newsletter] Make sure you sign up to the newsletter of our friends at Stone Club:
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… and if you have news, events or recommendations to share, please reply to this email or contact us via the NE website.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, thanks - I am really looking forward to reading my copy of the journal, too!
P.S. The (Standing) Stones of Stenness, though only just down the road, are locally referred to as different to the Ring of Brodgar, which is what is pictured above. The Stenness Standing Stones don't tend to get as much press, being a tad less dramatic!
I'm delighted that not only is Northern Earth continuing under new editorship, but it's being improved and extended! More power to your elbow 💪