Cauldrons, Courts and Crowns

Jess found the whole thread on Tumblr and sent it over with the kind of message that means this is going to become a project. It started with one post, a long, delicious thread of books, old magic, faerie courts, folk horror, and all the strange literature that sits between childhood enchantment and adult obsession, and quickly became a conversation. We talked our way through it, added books, argued for favorites, corrected the list, and before long it had turned into something more than a reading list. It had become a map.

So now we’re reading our way through it together, book by book, and sharing what we find here along the way. This blog is part reading journal, part folklore archive, part shared fascination with the strange old roads that connect Prydain to The Dark Is Rising, Tam Lin to McKillip, Bordertown to romantasy, and fairy tale to folk horror. We’ll write about some of the books on the list, but also about the other things that orbit them: spooky stories, haunted landscapes, myth, legends, and whatever else catches our attention.

We also just got the Severin folk horror box set, which means there will probably be some watching together as well. The sort of thing that naturally leads to more conversations about old landscapes, hidden rites, pagan echoes, and the stories people tell when the woods are watching.

So that’s the shape of it: a shared reading project, a little bit of a gothic cabinet, and a place to keep track of the books and stories that feel like they’re still alive.