London Fortean Society presents: 'The Haunted Landscape' (filmed at Conway Hall on 20 November 2021).

Elizabeth Dearnley - Fearsome Fairies: Haunting Tales of the Far

There was an enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which popularised depictions of benevolent winged friends and things of fragile beauty. But in wider folklore, the creatures of the fey are of a much more unsettling and otherworldly stock. Taking inspiration from folk tales and medieval legends, writers of weird tales and ghost stories such as Arthur Machen, M R James and Charlotte Riddell proved that fairies, elves, goblins and their ilk were something to be feared and respected as our ancestors did.

Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, artist and researcher based at the University of London and the University of Wolverhampton. Her work explores fairy tales, horror and collective storytelling, and she has curated several projects including immersive 1940s Red Riding Hood retelling Big Teeth, and The Sandman for the Freud Museum, London. Her anthology Into the London Fog was published in the British Library Tales of the Weird series. Her book, 'Fearsome Fairies: Haunting Tales of the Fae', is a collection of stories which pairs strange creatures with frightening encounters to revive the fearsome past of the fairy folk.

--

To find out more about Conway Hall and its events, to become a member or to donate: https://conwayhall.org.uk • Please subscribe to our channel, too.

Conway Hall hosts a wide variety of talks, concerts, exhibitions, courses, performances, community and social events. It is also renowned as a hub for free speech and independent thought, hosting suffragettes, political radicals, scientists, philosophers, artists, performers; campaign, charities and other non- profit organisations.