The Serpent’s Pen explores folklore, fakelore, the gothic, psychogeography, myth, weird Victoriana and all aspects of ‘the dark, the strange and literary’. Come for a tour down the dimly lit back alleys of culture, along the winding byways of the quirky and obscure, and through the neglected catacombs of art and history. Presented to you by prize-winning author David Castleton. Be sure to check out David’s new book: Atlas Gothica: An Alternative Guide to the World’s Most Curious Destinations (Headline/Hachette).
Cleopatra’s Needle – London & New York’s Cursed & Haunted Egyptian Obelisks
In London and New York, stand two ancient and strikingly similar obelisks. Close to Waterloo Bridge, the London monument towers beside the Thames while in New York [...]
Kensal Green Cemetery’s Strange Ghost Story – Grave 132 Please, Operator
One of the oddest London ghost stories I’ve heard concerns Kensal Green Cemetery, a story that somehow combines the usual elements of gothic tombs and crooked headstones [...]
The Monstrous & Terrifying Wild Pigs of Hampstead’s Sewers
Today Hampstead is one of London's most exclusive districts. Home to politicians, rock stars, writers (more successful than this one), actors and TV personalities, Hampstead's houses can [...]
New York’s Towering Owl-Shaped Tomb – a Decadent Monument of the Gilded Age
Manhattan was once intended to host a most macabre monument, a monument that would dwarf the Statue of Liberty and other well-known landmarks. This monument, simply put, [...]
Mummia – How Ground Egyptian Mummy Cured All Ailments & Painted Masterpieces
One of the weirdest substances in medical history – a substance Europeans once slathered on rashes and wounds and gulped down in drinks – was known as [...]
Baroness Demidoff – the Glass-Coffined ‘Vampire Princess’ of Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest necropolis in Paris and the world's most visited graveyard. This elegant city of the departed contains over one million interments and [...]
The Real Miss Havisham? Lady Lewson’s 116 Years amidst Cobwebs & Grime
One of the most gothic – and sinister – characters in the work of Charles Dickens is the wealthy recluse Miss Havisham. A bride jilted on the [...]
The Richmond Vampire – Virginia’s Tunnel-Haunting Nosferatu
In Richmond's historic Hollywood Cemetery – in addition to the graves of presidents and Pulitzer Prize winners – is an infamous mausoleum. This tomb – incorporating Ancient [...]
The Unlucky Mummy – Curse of the British Museum & Sinker of the Titanic?
If you were to wander into the Egyptian section of London's British Museum, you might notice – among the gloomy sarcophagi, huge stone pharaohs, bandaged mummies, sombre [...]
7 Really Weird Objects in British Churchyards
We may think there's nothing that unusual about the 'typical British churchyard'. The lines of worn and lichen-spotted gravestones, the land made bumpy by centuries of [...]
Mother Damnable – the Wicked Witch of Camden Town Tube Station
Towards the end of the 1600s, in what would become the London suburb of Camden Town, the most incredible event is said to have taken place. At [...]
Joe Magarac – the Giant Superhuman Steelworker of American ‘Fakelore’
In the early 20th century, in the steel mills in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a strange folklore seems to have grown up – a folklore not of [...]
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lizzie Siddal & an Infamous Exhumation in Highgate Cemetery
Late at night on 5th October 1869, a group were gathered around a graveside in London's Highgate Cemetery. As workmen dug down into the grave, a bonfire [...]
Thomas Chatterton – Doomed Poet, Gothic Hero or Cynical Forger?
The poet Thomas Chatterton – who died in August 1770 in a London garret aged just 17 – would for decades afterwards be an icon for struggling [...]
The Devil’s Footprints – Devon’s Diabolical Hoofmarks in the Snow
On the night of 8th-9th February 1855, a long and meandering trail of mysterious marks was left in the snow across the English county of Devon. The [...]
The Vampire of Croglin Grange – a Genuine & Ancient British Bloodsucker?
Vampires tend to be associated with Central and Eastern Europe, but the tiny Cumbrian village of Croglin – around 14 miles south east of Carlisle and not [...]
5 Really Weird Christmas Folkloric Customs
Christmas is not a time we associate with weird customs. Admittedly, the idea of a chubby old man in a red suit coming down our chimney at [...]
Brompton Cemetery’s Time Machine – a Victorian Contraption Hidden in a London Tomb?
If you were to stroll through West London's Brompton Cemetery, you'd notice that – above the gothic tombs, the Celtic crosses, the ivy-strangled gravestones – there looms [...]
England’s Top 3 Dragon Slayers’ Tombs
England has – legend says – long been menaced by a range of dragons, wyverns and fiery flying serpents, terrifying creatures that through history have lurked in [...]
Piccadilly Circus’s Eros – Statue of Sin or Figure of Morality?
One of London's most curious landmarks is the statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus. At one of the capital's busiest junctions, drifting on clouds of traffic fumes, [...]
Britain’s Black Dog Legends – 7 Spooky Canines & Hellhounds
A terrifying creature haunts the British psyche, an apparition our ancestors have long feared to meet late at night on quiet lanes, in city alleys or on [...]
Devil’s Chairs – 7 Cemetery Seats that Acquired Macabre Legends
If you were to wander through a number of older American graveyards, you might be surprised to come across some strange ornaments. These ornaments resemble stone chairs [...]
The Tower of London’s Raven Legend – Victorian Myth or Ancient Folklore?
One of England's most famous legends concerns the Tower of London and certain black-feathered inhabitants of that ancient fortress. The legend says that if the Tower's resident [...]
London Underground’s 7 Most Haunted Stations
It might surprise you to discover that the London Underground boasts one of the world's highest concentrations of ghost stories, alleged hauntings and supernatural goings-on. This subterranean [...]
The Hand of Glory – a Macabre & Magical Criminal Implement
Late one moonless, starless evening, probably sometime during the 1500s, an isolated inn high on a bleak moor had just shut up for the night. A cautious [...]
The Witch’s Ladder – a Creepy Discovery in an Old Somerset Attic
When an old house in Wellington, Somerset, was being demolished in 1878, a somewhat sinister discovery was made in the attic. The attic – inaccessible from the [...]
Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata – Soul Selling, a Violin Genius & a Diabolical Dream
One night in 1713, the Italian violin maestro Giuseppe Tartini had the strangest dream. He dreamt the Devil appeared and offered to be both his servant and [...]
Dickens, Poe & the Pet Raven that Inspired their Darkest Works
If you were to wander into the rare books section of the Free Library of Philadelphia, you might see an unusual exhibit. In a glass case, rustically [...]
Cornwall’s Dozmary Pool – King Arthur’s Sword, Damned Souls, Witches & Hellhounds
A sword linked to King Arthur has been pulled from this lake. A damned soul is said to howl across its waters and its depths are rumoured [...]
Wuthering Heights: 3 Spooky Real-life Houses That Inspired Emily Brontë
In Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, one of the most important characters is the house of Wuthering Heights itself. Yes, we have the strong-willed Cathy, the [...]
The Strange Cauldron of Frensham Church, a White Witch & the Devil
In St Mary’s Church, in the village of Frensham, Surrey, the strangest object can be found. Propped up on a tripod, near the pews, beneath the arched [...]
England’s Top 10 Gibbets, Gallows & Places of Execution
You’re walking across a moor, high in Northumberland’s Cheviot Hills, on a summer day. Bees hum in the heather; clouds move drowsily across the sky; a pleasant [...]
Was Lord Byron England’s 1st Vampire? John Polidori & the Birth of the Literary Bloodsucker
In the Summer of 1816, a group of young Britons were gathered in a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. But this was no ordinary [...]
England’s Top 10 Pyramid Tombs – the Strangest Mausoleums
Imagine you’re walking through an ordinary English churchyard, perhaps on a frosty winter day, plodding through the mist, stepping over clumps of white-glazed grass. Sheep huddle in [...]
Spring-heeled Jack – Did a Fire-breathing Phantom Haunt Victorian London?
On the night of Tuesday 20th February 1838, a young woman called Jane Alsop was startled by a violent clanging of the bell on the gate of [...]
The Highgate Vampire – Did a 1970s Nosferatu Stalk a London Cemetery?
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a series of bizarre events occurred in and around Highgate Cemetery in London. A number of ‘sightings’ of phantoms and [...]
The Manchester Mummy – How a Respectable English Woman Got Embalmed Egyptian Style
In 1828, a mummified body was put on display in the entrance hall of the Museum of the Manchester Natural History Society. An obsession with mummies and [...]
The Cardiff Giant – Was a Colossal Corpse Unearthed in Victorian New York?
In 1869, workers digging a well behind a barn in Cardiff, New York State, made a bizarre discovery. They found what seemed to be the corpse of [...]
The Gorbals Vampire – Did a 1950s Nosferatu Prowl Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis?
On the evening of 23rd September 1954, Glasgow police received a call summoning them to the Southern Necropolis, a vast cemetery in the Gorbals, one of the [...]
Who Was Old Father Christmas & Did Coca-Cola Invent Santa Claus?
One of the best-known aspects of the British, American and – increasingly – global Christmas is the figure of Father Christmas or Santa Claus. Millions of children [...]
Halloween’s Weird History, Spooky Origins & Strange Soothing of the Psyche
Halloween is a time of pumpkins, fancy dress, ghost stories and horror films. It evokes the taste of apples and turnips, the annoyance of trick-or-treating kids banging [...]
Six Really Strange Facts about Christmas
Many of us feel we’re familiar with Christmas, but the more you peer into the history of the festival, the stranger it can seem. Do you know [...]