Upcoming Project Announcement: Black Dog Traditions of England

Black Dog Traditions of England 
Ian Humberstone and David Chatton Barker

Folklore is a kingdom unto itself, a world in which the past and the present, fact and fiction merge as one. The creatures that inhabit this wild and unkempt land are legion, the workings of many imaginations, with forms and powers cut roughly by the fireside and alehouse gossips of ages past. Our forthcoming series ‘Occultural Creatures’ presents these preternatural pests in the style of a radio ballad, with interviews, stories, acousmatic music and geographically informed sound-divination. Each edition will be housed in a presentation box containing an LP, book, map and short experimental film. We begin with ‘Black Dog Traditions of England.’

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring,

And its wild bark thill’d around—

Its eyes had the glow of the fires below—

‘Twas the form of the Spectre Hound!

Many and varied are the tales told of the black dog. To some it is a lane-haunting spectre whose appearance precedes a death, to others, the spirit guardian of thresholds or hidden treasures. Elsewhere still, it is none but a devil loosed of its chain, working evil in the realm of men. Yet wherever we catch a glimpse of this hound’s shadowy form, it is described in similar terms - as a dark entity in the shape of a great dog, with shaggy mane and tea-saucer eyes burning bright as hellfire.

Shuck, Shock, Skriker, Padfoot, Trash, Gytrash, Barguest, Hooter: there are many regional variations on the motif, each with their own traditions and stories. These four-footed beasts of the witching hour have kennelled themselves in the dimmer corners of our imaginations for centuries; how long, exactly, is a matter of debate.

Folklore Tapes’ Ian Humberstone has been researching these legends for more years than he cares to remember. Joined by David Chatton Barker, this study is being translated into an audio-visual format for Folklore Tapes. The pair are now wending their way about the country, collecting stories and field recordings from those places the hound has poked its fiery maw.

Work in progress. Expected autumn, 2015.

Wizard's Will Promotional Copy at The Wizard's Well

Hidden behind the Wizard's Well can be found a promo copy of the Wizard's Will Flexi Audio Book

OS Grid Reference - SJ 858 778

Burial of Pendle, 1612 cassette and memorial on Pendle Hill (January 2015)

Lancashire Folklore Tapes Volume IV - Memories Of Hurstwood

Cheshire Folklore Tapes Volume One - The Wizard's Will (Alderley Edge - Magic & Topography)

Devon Folklore Tapes Volume One - Two Witches (Archival Reissue Series)

Folklore Tapes Archival Reissue Series:

Ian Humberstone / David Chatton Barker
Devon Folklore Tapes Vol.I
Two Witches
Twin Ten-Inch Gatefold Edition
Contains 2x 10" Records & 12page Research Booklet & Download Code
Housed in manilla hand stamped & numbered paper sleeve
Ltd Edition: 500

‘Two Witches’ is where it all began. This inaugural volume resulted from a postal correspondence between David Chatton Barker and Ian Humberstone in 2011, and was released as a split cassette housed in a hollowed-out hardback book later that year. Long out-of-print and highly sought after, the original recordings have been completely remastered for this lavish reissue, which is presented as a double ten-inch vinyl sited in a gatefold sleeve, complete with expanded research notes and artwork. This release is the definitive edition and marks the beginning of a wider reissue series for Folklore Tapes’ back catalogue, further editions of which will arrive throughout 2015.

The release itself provides a sonic impression of two long-forgotten figures from Devon lore: Hannah Henley and Mariann Voaden. Though they never met, both women lived in rural Devon during the nineteenth century and fostered highly idiosyncratic careers in the provision of charms and curses, at a time when belief in the reality of witchcraft was in decline. Hannah and Mariann were thus engaged in an age-old profession experiencing its death throes, the last in a long line of wizened crones to provide their neighbours with folk-remedies and blessings, to threaten them with hue and cry.

Building upon the scanty historical record, these recordings recreate the world of Hannah and Mariann as a living soundscape, giving flesh to the bare bones of their stories. Through acousmatic sound and composed music, Hannah’s curses recover their voice in the night. With rumbling thunder and detuned harmonium, the wind blows once more through the walls of Mariann’s crumbling cottage. And in the gathering dark, through the whirls and rattles, the creaks and drones, the tales of the long since departed might live and breath again.

Folklore Tapes Calendar Customs Vol.I - Fore Hallowe'en

Featuring:
Eva Bowan
Bokins
Mary Stark
D.Orphan
Children Of Alice
Ian Humberstone
Snail Hunter
Magpahi
Carl Turney & Brian Campbell
Rob St John

Whatever names they take today, many of our most venerable calendar dates have their origins in pre-Christian observances, often marking key points in the agricultural year when planting began or harvesting was completed. Mayday, with its dances, games and fertility ceremonies, is a fine example, reflecting the gratitude of an agrarian society for the sun’s rebirth and the bounty of the soil. Songs, games and rites often form an essential part of these occasions, and their echoes reach us today though the din of the ages, with hidden meanings and garbled messages. Our new Calendar Customs series attempts to explore this world of symbolism and ritual sonically, through research and artistic reinterpretation. We begin the series with fright night. Halloween.

If we cast our gaze back far enough, we can see the origins of today’s Halloween in the Celtic festival Samhain or Samuin (pronounced ‘sow-an’ or ‘sow-in’). This ancient, pre-Christian observance marked summer’s end and heralded the dark, winter nights to come with feasting, fire and sacrificial offerings. As a borderline festival between seasons Samhain was a time of supernatural intensity, when the boundaries between worlds were at their most porous and the souls of the dead might mingle with those of the living. Though much is lost to the murk of time, it also seems that at Samhain great bonfires were lit to both honour and guide the dead, as well as ward off such spirits and sprites as might be abroad that night.

Although the festival was Christianized in the fourth century, it never lost its predecessor’s supernatural flavour. Now linked to the holy days of All Souls’ and All Saints’, Hallowtide - as it became known in England - was a feasting day marked by prayers for lost souls in purgatory, but one which retained dark associations. Church bells were rung and bonfires lit to ward off demonic agency, while requiem masses were held to prevent the dead from returning to rectify wrongs committed against them while alive. From the Middle Ages, these solemn rites were joined by the carnivalesque, and Hallowtide became a season of masking and misrule, when ribboned mummers, guisers and Hobby horses could upturn the social norms. While the games and rituals of Hallowtide were attacked by the Protestant Reformation, many popular customs such as ‘Souling’ and ‘Lating’ continued, especially in the more Catholic northern areas.

By the time we arrive at the name Halloween in the eighteenth century, many of these traditions have subsided, though the night retains its reputation as a time when ghosts, spirits and witches might be abroad. At Dorstone in Herefordshire, one brave enough to stay the night in the local church would be greeted by the spectral forms of all those in the parish fated to die in the next twelve months. In Lancashire, burning candles were carried during the hour before midnight and if kept aflame throughout the witching-hour, the bearer would earn one year’s immunity from witchcraft.

While the customs may change, they retain at their core an unyielding association with the supernatural, with death and the departed: the hidden otherworld beyond our senses. So many of these traditions are lost in the fog of today’s heavily marketed and Americanized Halloween. This tape will pick out a few vestiges from the festival’s past, rekindling the fires that burned Fore Hallowe’en