Episode 95 - Jeremy Harte - The Devil in the English Landscape

My guest for this episode is folklorist and author Jeremy Harte, who joined me to talk about his new book Cloven Country: The Devil in the English Landscape.

Jeremy has written extensively on local history, folklore and the supernatural and is the curator of the Bourne Hall Museum at Epson and Ewell as well as secretary of the Romany and Traveller Family History Society.

In Cloven Country, he explores the background of those stories where the Devil played a part both in creating the English landscape, as well as his relationships with the people who populated it – which could range from being hoodwinked by cunning cobblers, to punishing wealthy merchants and landowners for their greed and avarice.

In the interview I begin by talking with Jeremy about what inspired the idea for the book and then look at the history of the Devil's appearances in English folklore, and some of the themes and motifs that are most common there. We also talk about the relationship between this kind of folklore and peoples personal experience of the supernatural, and how the latter has become much more prevalent in modern times, to the extent that presence of the 'landscape devil' in recent storytelling is hard to discern.

Cloven Country: The Devil in the English Landscape is published by Reaktion Books - more details can be found at https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/cloven-country and the book can be purchased from your local bookshop.

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