The Haunted Landscape 2026: Magic, Fairies and Old Gods

This year, The Haunted Landscape entertains the Great God Pan with Professor Ronald Hutton and Sara Hannant, meets fairies new and old with Francis Young and Jo Hickey-Hall, witnesses witch trials with Marion Gibson, and walks Britain's haunted lands with Jeremy Harte and The Stone Lands Fiona Robertson.

In person and online.

Saturday 21 November 2026 10 am - 5 pm Book in-person tickets: £25 • £20 Student • £17 Living Support (inc. booking fee).

Book online only tickets: £14 (inc. booking fee).

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Getting to Conway Hall

Ronald Hutton  - The Return of the Horned God
Sara Hannant - Panic: Visions of the Horned God
Francis Young - A History of European Fairy Traditions
Jeremy Harte - Mad, Bad or Sad? Ghost Monks and their Hidden Treasures    
Fiona Robertson - Stone Lands: A Journey Through Britain’s Ancient Places
Marion Gibson  -  Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War
Jo Hickey-Hall - Modern Fairy Sightings: Personal Encounters in Extraordinary Times 

Ronald Hutton  - The Return of the Horned God

This talk examines the reason why the Horned God has become the main form of Pagan male deity in the modern West, representing the regenerative powers of nature. It traces the sudden and dramatic emergence of the ancient Greek god of the wild, Pan, as the favourite male divinity of the Victorians and the animating spirit of the English landscape. It then explores the way in which Pan became, for different writers, a comforting and protective divinity, a dangerous and disturbing one, and one of personal liberation (especially sexual). Finally, it shows how a particular deity became an enduring modern archetype.

Ronald Hutton is professor of history at Bristol University and a leading authority on the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, and on the global context of witchcraft beliefs. He is the author of twenty books.

Sara Hannant - Panic: Visions of the Horned God

In this talk, Sara Hannant will describe highlights from her magical journey which resulted in Panic: Visions of the Horned God in the English Country Garden (Strange Attractor Press, 2026). Wild and exciting, the Greek god Pan induces both fear and awe; at times, he is dangerous, stirring panic and creating pandemonium. Often depicted as a satyr, with the lower body and legs of a goat and a human torso and horned head, this half-man, half-goat represents a fusion of human and non-human. Her dreamlike images investigate statues of the Horned God as a personification of nature in our climate emergency, rousing us to recognise our place within the living world.

Sara Hannant is an award-winning artist and photographer. Her practice is inspired
by witchcraft, magic, and folklore. Sara has exhibited internationally, and her books include Panic: Visions of the Horned God in the English Country Garden (Strange Attractor Press, 2026), which includes texts by Ronald Hutton and Simon Costin. Of Shadows: One Hundred Objects from the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Strange Attractor Press, 2017) and Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey Through the English Ritual Year (Merrell, 2011), which was also a Horniman Museum touring exhibition, bringing contemporary British folklore and Paganism to a wide and diverse audience.

Sara's book Panic: Visions of the Horned God in the English Country Garden will be available on the day.

Francis Young - A History of European Fairy Traditions                                    

Fairies are persistently associated with certain regions of Europe and not others, while the word we tend to use for these beings in English derives from French and was borrowed into English. Yet there is a great deal more to Europe's fairies than the well-known fairies of Britain, the aos síof Ireland, and the elves of Iceland and trolls of Scandinavia. This talk explores the possible origins of some of the less well-known fairies of Europe, from Greece and the Balkans to the Baltic and Slavic worlds, as well as France and Iberia, to show that belief in nature spirits, godlings and social supernatural beings is common to almost all European cultures and a central feature of the Continent's cultures.

Francis Young is a tutor at Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education. He writes on the history of religion, belief, and folklore, and has written, edited, or translated over twenty books, including Twilight of the Godlings and Magic in Merlin's Realm. His latest book, Fairies: A History, will be available on the day. 

Jeremy Harte - Mad, Bad or Sad? Ghost Monks and their Hidden Treasures            

The Dissolution of the Monasteries filled England with ghosts and ruins. Into the sandals of the real monks – those unexciting land managers and liturgical specialists – stepped a host of cultural imposters. Saintly, fiendish, and sometimes both at the same time, they were remembered largely for the treasures they had concealed and contracts were issued for digging up abbeys, nunneries and friaries in a frenzied search for hidden wealth. Tunnels, those dark highways to the imagination, held secrets it was better not to know. Every deep pool contained a spectacular pair of golden gates, ripped from their shrines and thrown away for safe-keeping when the King’s men came. A curse lay on modernity with its tainted legacy of estates stolen from the old religion, but the lure of gold was too strong for the ruins to be left alone.

Jeremy Harte is a folklorist inspired by landscape and stories of encounters with other worlds. He is the author of Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape (2022) and Travellers through Time: A Gypsy History (2023), and his latest book, Treasures on Earth: Buried Wealth in Landscape and Legend (2026), is published by Reaktion Books. Treasures on Earth will be available on the day. 

Fiona Robertson - Stone Lands: A Journey Through Britain’s Ancient Places

All over Britain prehistoric stones, dolmens, barrows and hill forts have survived into the modern age, places of legend, folklore and mystery that enchant the landscape. Fiona Robertson, author of Stone Lands, explores how these ancient sites can offer us a sense of grounding and solace several millennia after they were built, connecting us with nature's ever-turning wheel and giving a deep-time perspective on our individual lives. She describes some of this country's most evocative prehistoric places, where the link with the past feels especially strong, as well as sharing a few megalith-related tales of demons, ghosts, witches, and antiquarians driven to madness by their obsession with the stones.

Fiona Robertson is a writer, editor and author of Stone Lands (a Telegraph and Waterstones Best Book of 2025), which will be available on the day.. She is passionate about history, archaeology, and folklore, and in a former life as a publisher, enjoyed building a list exploring these topics. Follow her megalith-hunting adventures on Instagram: @stone_lands

Marion Gibson  - Welcome to Witchland: Recovering the Stories of Britain's Civil War Witches

If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed – and what would you have done?

In the 1640s, Britain was swept up in a brutal witch hunt. The economic uncertainty and religious extremism fuelled by the English Civil War created a climate of fear. Neighbours turned on each other. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame. In the resulting hysteria – which would, just a few decades later, provide a handbook for the Salem trials – hundreds of innocent people were killed.

Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, and resentment – and how entire communities took part in persecuting the vulnerable. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. Professor Gibson shows that these were ordinary people with extraordinary stories, largely forgotten by history, caught up in suspicion and moral panic.

Her book, Witchland, is a captivating story of fanaticism, inequality, and the violence that surfaces during times of political upheaval will be available on the day. 

Jo Hickey-Hall - Modern Fairy Sightings: Personal Encounters in Extraordinary Times. 

The modern Western consensus is that the existence of fairies is a ridiculous,

archaic notion, but a surprising amount of credible modern reports of encounters are causing an increasing number of us to reconsider.

The Modern Fairy Sightings Project provides a space for us to listen to people’s eyewitness accounts. In this talk, Jo explores what happens when people come into contact with these beings and what it tells us about our relationship with these non-material worlds at this particular juncture in humanity’s journey.

Author and Folklore researcher, Jo Hickey-Hall, is the host of The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast, which collects and preserves contemporary experiences. Jo undertook her History Master's with Professor Ronald Hutton at the University of Bristol and later contributed to Dr Simon Young’s book, Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies 500AD to the Present. 

She created the Modern Fairy Sightings Project in 2016 to challenge the cultural taboo surrounding disclosure. Her Podcast launched in 2020 and now sits within the highly esteemed SpectreVision Radio platform. She has appeared on Sky History’s Britain’s X-Files, assistant-produced forthcoming documentary film, Fae Folk: A Search for Connection, and her first book, Modern Fairy Sightings: Personal Encounters in Extraordinary Times, will be available on the day.

Coffee and bookstalls on the day. 

In person and online.

Saturday 21 November 2026 10 am - 5 pm

Book in-person tickets: £25 • £20 Student • £17 Living Support (inc. booking fee).

Book online only tickets: £14 (inc. booking fee).

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Getting to Conway Hall