January’s Wolf Moon bared its teeth, but February’s Snow Moon will firmly close its mouth, prick its ears and listen. Whether it snows tonight or not, this is the month typical for heavy snowfall – which is where the Snow Moon gets its name. This is the heart of winter, when cold feels heavy. When … Continue reading The Snow Moon…
Every winter has a presence, something beyond the cold. Something old, massive and unmistakably felt. In Scottish and Irish folklore, that presence is the Cailleach. Translated this means ‘the veiled one’, ‘the old woman’ or ‘the hag’. But who is she? She’s winter’s architect and keeper. The Cailleach is not a ghost in the traditional sense. She’s something … Continue reading The Cailleach…
Lost Delilah 6 months ago. ‘Dog camera’ is switched off. (Or so I thought). Went to bed. Woke at the usual time. Logged onto laptop. Started work. Late morning, a notification. Time stamp: 2:51am. ‘Someone arrived home.’ My quiet haunting. 🖤
January is a time of thresholds, hauntings and omens. It was once simply lumped together with February under the single banner of ‘winter’, an unnamed stretch of cold between the end and the beginning. With the year ending in December and starting in March, the unnamed ‘winter’ season must have felt like a bleak, liminal no-man’s land. No … Continue reading Winter Hauntings…
Winter is the season when the old ghosts stir. The cold settles into our bones, the nights stretch long and the past whispers. Of all my stories, Cribbins is possibly the one most tangled with whispers of buried trauma, unspoken truths and the unsettling ways the past can seep back into the present. At its core, Cribbins asks one … Continue reading Cribbins: Unravelling the Darkness…
Love it or hate it, this time of year strips everything back to its stark white bones and asks quietly: What ghosts are you carrying into the new year? Not literal ones (though those too, if you have them), but the emotional echoes we each drag behind us. All the unfinished stories and old fears and … Continue reading The Spirits of the New Year…
There’s something winter does to old buildings. It doesn’t animate them so much as reveal them. The cold sharpens edges. Silence behaves differently. History feels closer to the surface, like bone beneath thinning skin. Last weekend, during an off-roading adventure in the Lake District, I stayed in two pubs that have been standing for centuries, … Continue reading The Queen’s Head & The Mortal Man…
January’s full moon rises with its teeth bared tonight. It’s called the Wolf Moon. Once upon a time when wolves prowled the woodlands of the UK, their howls threaded through frozen air during the deep winter months. Not as omens of evil, but as signals of endurance, hunger, survival and community. The Wolf Moon comes … Continue reading The Wolf Moon…
Yes, that’s right. My husband and I just got back from camping in Northumberland. This fact alone raised eyebrows. Who chooses to camp in the dead hinge of winter, when the year is barely holding itself together and the ground feels inhospitable by design? As it turns out, plenty of people do. And why not? What … Continue reading Christmas Camping…
Christmas Eve is a night of two worlds. One is all laughter and twinkling lights, families gathering in warm kitchens, their gift-wrapped parcels waiting beneath decorated trees. The other is older and quieter, and as dark as the longest night. Once upon a time, this was the night for ghost stories. Gentle ones, that is. … Continue reading Midwinter Ghosts…
R. H. DIXON 