Local Legends #32: Dr Terrie "Red Phoenix" Howie

For this week's episode of Local Legends, Martin is joined by academic, storyteller, author, and bona fide expert in Buckinghamshire’s folklore, Dr Terrie “Red Phoenix” Howie.

Terrie, who performs as “Red Phoenix” when she’s leading workshops or telling stories, would be an absolutely worthwhile guest for this episode just from a storytelling perspective. She has performed all over the country as well as internationally, and has been a professional storyteller for over 25 years.

However, as you will hear during our conversation, Terrie has made two additional, really important contributions to the modern folklore landscape. The two are interrelated, and both are very interesting.

The first is her PhD research, which set out to prove the impacts storytelling has on people. Because, as we can all probably say, and many of the people we’ve interviewed for Local Legends have attested to this, there’s no doubt that storytelling has power – for adult audiences, not just for children – and Terrie has gone out of her way, at personal cost, to prove as much.

The second, which, as she explains, came sort of hand in glove with the PhD, was that she set about collecting, for the first time ever, a proper corpus of folklore and folktales from Buckinghamshire, and her book, Buckinghamshire Folk Tales, is just one of the products of all of that work.

As such, settle in for a deep and fascinating conversation which ranges from dragons to demon summonings, bull riding Anglo Saxons to vampires, and engages with really big ideas - not least how each of us creates an identity through telling our stories of ourselves.

We really hope that you enjoy it, and will be back on Monday with our brand new County Episode, in which we will be lolloping through the history and folklore of Leicestershire!

Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.

Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...

Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.

With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?

Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast

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