Chasing Foxfire

We’re visiting summer camp, where we’ll write letters to home about spooky stories of cursed and haunted campgrounds (or at least one retreat in Utah with a scary reputation in both story and fact). We’ll also go on a snipe hunt for strange critters, called cryptids, and find out why these creatures fascinate us so much.

Is a “witch” a creature of fantasy flying through the midnight skies on a broomstick? A powerful woman stirring a little pot of potions (and maybe a bigger pot of political change)? Is a “witch” someone (or something) magical, something scary, something wonderful, or something else entirely?

We explore the roads to the Underworld with a medieval historian, and then examine the way that battling demons and darkness in video games can help us face our own inner hellscapes

We look at the tropes of damsels in distress and princesses in fairy tales in this episode. We speak with a folklorist whose work focuses on the language of body and gender in folktales, then talk to an author who has written a series of books about a woman reconfiguring gender as she saves people in a post-apocalyptic world. 

We look at the land of giants in both our imagination and our history. We talk to a folklorist about the mythology of giants, famed American giant Paul Bunyan (and his rather murky origins), and then hear about the infamous Cardiff Giant hoax from one of the giant's current keepers.