This is my first blog, so please bear with me. I am the guitarist in the band ‘earth’. I will be doing a new solo album based on my interest in early modern (15th-18th century) cunning-folk and the fairy-faith. I was led here by an experience in Camden Town December 7th of 2010. Much later I learned that the site (tube station and associated crossroads) was occulturally significant. The Worlds End and its associated club the Underworld, which we previously played in 2009, was the site of an inn Mother Red Cap, named for a local cunning-woman/witch’s house(Mother Damnable,Jinny Bingham), also the area was forest and fields crossed by the Fleet River(now London’s main sewer)and that in front of what is now the tube station was a gibbet for hanging/displaying the bodies of highwaymen/criminals. 4 of the main ingredients for a fairy encounter-liminal water boundaries/crossroads/the dead and dying/magical practitioners past and present, add someone of scotch/english descent facing a life threatening illness, and something happens. Sorry new-age types, no gossamer winged things a la tinker bell and puerile Cottingley fairy photo style tweeness.
Addendum: The earliest literary source I was able to track down for the Jinny Bingham story, appears to be a book by Bram Stoker from 1910, ‘Famous Impostors’.
drcarlsonalbion 
http://www.marshmanchronicles.com/marshman/2011/11/the-occult-hackney-marshes/
Your blog is sounding great . You might like this ?
Thanks, very interesting link, a good friend of mine is into Ian Sinclair, and recommended I should check him out. I have found the presence of liminal water, even if no longer physically present in this time/reality, significant as well. DRC
Bairns, here , I love this quote, speaking of the other world;”For forty days and forty nights they waded red bloode a boon the knee, and they saw neither sun nor moon but heard the roaring of the sea.” From Yeats about True Thomas being taken to the other land.
I enjoy it as well. I think the gude wychtis/ffayre-ffolke are intimately connected with the dead/dying, rather than ‘nature spirits’ or other crystal wearing/sedona living new age ideations.
Did you see this performance with Iain Sinclair at the Barbican?
http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=12536
Unfortunately I did not. I am waiting for a ‘care’ package of Mr.Sinclair’s work as we speak/write. His books are hard to find in the U.S. for some reason, at least in my neck of the woods. DRC
That’s a real shame, but maybe they’ll perform it again sometime when you’re around in the UK.
I am scanning a collaborative piece between an Icelandic poet called Ragnhildur Jóhanns and Iain Sinclair at the moment, I will send you a link once it is finished.
Looking forward to hearing that, been reading ‘Lights out for the Territory’ and really enjoying it, so many good quotes and passages.DRC
i have nothing but love for the work you have done, i wish you all the best. both my parents had a life threatening illness, and are still here.
Nik .
That is good. I am glad they are still with you, Definitely puts things in perspective. DRC
oh, just read an interview of yours online that explained more! shame you’re not playing newcastle, might try and get to Leeds gig.
Nik.
Let me know if you are able to attend, can put you on list for your trouble/journey. DRC
just really digging it all.
i used to call the norse fairy folk, Alfar, by candlelight in my bedroom when i was a little girl. still summoning spirits & rattling bones today in the texas hill country.
looking forward to what unfolds. . .
∞
thank you, the nicest part of texas, the hill country. lived in san antonio for a little while and went up there often. drc