The Hare #9 [December 2025]
Bronze Age/Neolithic complex find, Indian menhirs… and the original rock music
News from Northern Earth
Issue 182 (Winter 2025) of Northern Earth is about to come back from the printers. If you don’t have a subscription (from only £12) do get one now! Inside, we encounter a Neolithic polishing stone, explore intriguing geoglyphs and alignments, meet author Peter Ross, and more.
Our Traditional Year Calendar (2026) sold out but 12 final copies have been exclusively reserved for readers of The Hare! Accompanied by striking woodcuts by Eric Ravilious, this is full of events, customs and lore relating to the British calendar year down the ages.
Last chance to buy!Now definitely sold out – back updated for 2027 in due course!
And now on with the regulars…
Season’s gleanings: recent news stories
(Other recent news can be found in the printed magazine.)
Sycamore Gap tree saplings to be planted across UK [Guardian]
Giant Mesoamerican monument Aguada Fénix was a cosmogram and represented the order of the universe [Ancient Pages]
Archaeologists discover ‘ancient monument’ on farm near Wigan [BBC – see picture below]
Gas works unearth ancient Penzance marker stone under road [BBC]
Archaeologists say they have proof humans carved huge pits near Stonehenge [Guardian]
13,000-year-old prehistoric tomb unearthed in China [Greek Reporter]
We can finally hear the long-hidden music of the Stone Age [NewScientist]
Archaeologists discover decapitated head the Romans used as a warning to the Celts [LiveScience]
12,000-year-old figurine of goose mating with naked woman discovered in Israel [LiveScience]
‘City of seven ravines’: Bronze age metropolis unearthed in Kazakhstan [Phys.org]
Two menhirs believed to be of late megalithic period found in India [The Hindu]
Lots of Neanderthal news: The world’s oldest known cave art wasn’t made by our species [ScienceAlert]; Neanderthals may never have truly gone extinct [ScienceAlert]; 80,000-year-old Neanderthal footprints discovered on the Algarve coast [Ancient Pages]
And finally… The mysterious ape-like creature spotted in Cambridge [Cambridge News]
Events on in December
December 1 On Social Life and Stories: Traditional Tale-Telling in 1970s Rural Iceland. Online talk from The Folklore Society.
December 2 What went wrong in Rapa Nui (Mike Pitts). Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, London and online at YouTube.
December 3 Queer Plant-lore: Signs and Symbols. Online talk, The Folklore Centre.
December 6 Chalk Children: The Folkton and Burton Agnes drum burials in their Neolithic world. Yorkshire Archaeological & Historical Society Christmas Meeting, St George’s Centre, Leeds.
December 6 Swedenborg Film Festival. Curzon Soho, London.
December 9 Working Stone and Making Places in Neolithic Wales: An Investigation into the Production of Group VII Axes. Hunter Archaeological Society, Showroom, Sheffield.
December 10 Patches of the Endless Forest: Landscape, monuments and remote perception in the early Neolithic of Southern England. Royal Archaeological Institute, Burlington House, London.
December 12 Scenting the Lost Folk, with Simon Constantine, Lally Macbeth & Matthew Shaw. Careys Secret Garden, Wareham.
December 16 The Hooden Horse of Kent. Online talk from The Folklore Society.
December 18 A Yorkshire Year. 365 Days of Folklore, Customs and Traditions. Olicana Historical Society, Clarke-Foley Centre, Ilkley.
December 19 The Ash Tree & The Wailing Well by M. R. James – A Reading. Moyse’s Hall, Bury St Edmunds.
Selected exhibitions
Until Jan 24 2026 Downland: art and the archaeological imagination in Wiltshire. Wiltshire Museum, Devizes.
Until Feb 9 Every Step of the Way – artists respond to the South Downs Way. Weald and Downland Museum, Singleton, Chichester.
Until February 22 The Shelter of Stories: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling. Compton Verney, Warwickshire.
Until February 27 Elective Affinities: 100 years at Swedenborg House, London.
Until February 28 Starr Carr: Life after the ice. Yorkshire Museum, York.
Until Mar 1 2026 Secrets of the Thames: Mudlarking London’s lost treasures. London Museum Docklands.
November 14 until 19 April ‘Don’t Let’s Ask for the Moon...’: Nocturnes and Atkinson Grimshaw. Leeds Art Gallery.
Until 2027 Viking North, showcase of best collection of finds outside London. Yorkshire Museum, York.
December in the traditional calendar
A small selection of dates in the month for carolling and wassailing.
December 4 Old St Clement’s Day – a feast day for blacksmiths in the Julian calendar.
December 6 St Nicholas’ Day – boy-bishop customs take place in many cathedral cities.
December 16 St Tibba’s Day – a rare saint from Rutland, patron of falconers.
December 20 St Thomas’s Eve – a traditional day for idleness!
December 21 Winter solstice/Yule – let festivities begin.
For much more, last chance to get the 2026 Traditional Year Calendar!
7 things to read, watch, listen to…
[Article] Neolithic Trackway Mats Theory: A Novel Addition to Megalith Transport Proposals [Sarsen.org]
[Article] Scholars say most of what we believe about Vikings is wrong [ScienceDaily]
[Video] The mystery of the Arabian Desert Kites [BBC]
[Open access book – free PDF] Ancient Identities in Britain: Exploring heritage in the making [UCL Press]
[Video] ‘Stones’ (a 1976 episode of Playhouse: The Mind Beyond, co-written by Malcolm Bradbury): is Stonehenge cursed? [BBC/YouTube]
[Comic] Welsh folklore explored in The Dark Chronicles of Cymru [Afterlight Comics]
[Website] New digital atlas of ancient roads [Itiner-e]
Thanks to various readers for the tipoffs! Do reply to this newsletter or email Northern Earth if you have useful links to share. (If your suggestion hasn’t appeared yet, it may well next time!)