Mark Norman
Mark Norman is a folklorist and author based in Devon, in the South West of the UK. He is the curator of the Folklore Library and Archive, a council member of the Folklore Society, and the creator and host of The Folklore Podcast. Ranked in the top half percent of podcasts in its genre around the world, and with around two million downloads behind it, The Folklore Podcast is recognized as one of the leading shows in the field of folklore today.
Mark has written a number of books in the field of folklore. The first, Black Dog Folklore, published by Troy Books in 2016, remains the only full-length study on the subject of spectral black dogs by a single author. He has also penned the New York Times feature Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Craft. Mark co-authored the Amazon #1 bestselling Dark Folklore for The History Press, The Folklore of Devon for the University of Exeter Press, and co-authored The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts for Calon Books. His forthcoming title Zoinks: The Spooky Folklore Behind Scooby-Doo is eagerly anticipated and will be published by Chinbeard Books in 2024.
Recently signed to Crossed Crow, Mark has plans to work on a number of titles in the future.
Hallowed Ground: The Folklore of Churches and Churchyards examines the surprising traditions, customs, superstitions and secular imagery found in Christian churches and churchyards with a particular emphasis on the traditional rural protestant church. Beginning with stories associated with the construction of church buildings themselves and the role that they played in the community, the book moves through a number of subjects where everything might not be as it would seem it should be in the Christian church and its grounds. Expect vestiges of pagan symbols hidden in the fabric of the church building and clergymen rumored to hold strange arcane knowledge of their own, kept within their personal occult libraries. Learn the ways in which you can use the church and its grounds to divine who might die in the next twelve months, where you might find love and how you might cure illnesses.
Watch out for a number of figures who you shouldn't expect to find on such holy ground, from run-ins with the Devil to spectral figures inhabiting the church or its graves. Discover some of the ways in which magic and witchcraft seep into the hallowed ground of the churchyard from outside. Hallowed Ground will offer more than a few surprises about the folklore that surrounds the church and its churchyard and a fascinating insight into the social history that surrounds our place of traditional Sunday worship, all delivered with the academic rigor and accessible, engaging style for which the author is known.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-964537-00-9 | Hardcover ISBN: 978-19-6-4537-30-6
Page Count: 220 | Dimensions: 5” x 8” | Format: Paperback & Hardcover
Paperback Publication Date: 05/02/2025 | Hardcover Publication Date: 03/01/2025