In my book I draw a link between the music of the Old Weird America and the cinema of New Weird Britain. This requires some qualification.

One means of making cultural distinctions between the US and the UK has been to change the spelling of ‘weird’ to ‘wyrd’. In books, fables and films associated to British folklore, the alternative spelling "wyrd" is often preferred. Adam Scovell titled an essay ‘Urban Wyrd’ when arguing how Folk Horror can be set in towns and cities as well as in isolated rural communities.

Critic Douglas McNaughton praised an article by D.L. Rodgers about British folklore and television for the way in which it: “proposes the Anglo-Saxon term ‘wyrd’ as an umbrella term to encompass the common eerie element across Folk Horror, hauntology, and Gothic horror while suggesting a sense of the ancient and folkloric.”

The word ‘wyrd’ has an etymology which can be traced back to Proto-Germanic usage and the meaning also has associations with ancient Norse mythology. According to legend, three Norn sisters lived beneath Yggdrasil, the world tree of life, and spent their days weaving and cutting threads of destiny. The name of the oldest sister, Urd, or Wyrd, means “that-which-was”. The middle sister, Verdandi represents the present (“that-which-is-becoming”) while the youngest , Skuld, symbolises the future (“that-which-shall-become”). These sisters also tended to the Well of Urd and used the shallow pool of water as a scrying bowl to see visions of the past, present, and future.

In tracing the origins and applications of the labels like ‘weird’or ‘wyrd’ and the significance of hauntology, the writings of the late English political and cultural theorist Mark Fisher are invaluable.