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Weird Walk #2
Weird Walk: Number Two - Samhain 2019
Bigger, weirder...
48 page A5 zine
Printed on high quality recycled stock
May summon spirits
As the harvest season ends and we stagger towards winter, the ghostly glimmer of other worlds hovers in our imagination. In this issue we will be channelling Samhain, the gateway to the darker half of the year, poised between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is in this spirit that we explore nature’s bounty alongside forager Adele Nozedar and celebrate an uplifting, eclectic take on folk dance with Boss Morris.
We remember a time when Doctor Who went folk horror in a Wiltshire village, while our new Readers’ Vibes section brings some location-specific spookiness to the party. Elsewhere, Justin Hopper discovers uncanny vibes within rural perfection, and Benjamin Myers tells of strange goings-on in Calderdale.
The veil is thin... keep walking weird.
48 page A5 zine
Printed on high quality recycled stock
May summon spirits
As the harvest season ends and we stagger towards winter, the ghostly glimmer of other worlds hovers in our imagination. In this issue we will be channelling Samhain, the gateway to the darker half of the year, poised between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is in this spirit that we explore nature’s bounty alongside forager Adele Nozedar and celebrate an uplifting, eclectic take on folk dance with Boss Morris.
We remember a time when Doctor Who went folk horror in a Wiltshire village, while our new Readers’ Vibes section brings some location-specific spookiness to the party. Elsewhere, Justin Hopper discovers uncanny vibes within rural perfection, and Benjamin Myers tells of strange goings-on in Calderdale.
The veil is thin... keep walking weird.
48 pages, Magazine
Published January 1, 2019
3 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 4, 2024
The second issue of Weird Walk is a significant improvement on the first and it's a little longer too. I love this concept of the zine - the best way to describe it is the intersection between walking and general strangeness, history, culture, the landscape and folklore in the UK. It feels like everything is a bit random in the issue, and yet at the same time it all feels connected.
The presentation is mostly excellent. Some of the black type on purple is a little hard to read but the card stock this is printed on is of exceptional quality. It feels luxurious to hold which isn't something I say every day. In between the articles there are photographs of things you may see in the country, an old church in a pastoral scene, a megalith with sunlight poking through the stones. The general effect is that you are being taken to a strange place - eerily familiar yet not 'normal'.
A couple of pieces need a little more, for instance the suggested walk around Stanton Drew is crying out for a little more text to describe the walk and what one may see but that was my only disappointment in the text.
My highlights in the zine include an interview with Boss Morris, a women's Morris dancing side and there are some interesting observations on what it means to be English, in what ways Morris dancing is evolving to be more inclusive. I've read about this recently and there is a certain imagining of a pastoral 'white' past and how the far right have co-opted folklore, customs and traditions to imagine a white England. I am loving how groups of Morris dancers, folklorists, historians are both respecting heritage but also adapting it, learning from it whilst giving the racists and fascists the boot.
There is an article about Stonehenge in music which is really good - how the site has influenced music, including album covers, festivals etc. It's a little heavy on the space rock / psych / prog / hippie scene and barely touches on the punk, metal, traveller and rave scenes which have revered and interpreted the Henge in the decades since. Still, whole books have been written about this so I don't know what I am expecting in a short article (I recommend 'Festivalized: Music, Politics and Alternative Culture' by Ian Abrahams and Bridgett Wishart for their observations on Stonehenge).
There is an interview with the author Benjamin Myers about living in Caldervale - it's nice for Weird Walk to 'head north'. Myers wrote 'The Gallows Pole' of which I really enjoyed the TV adaptation of so I think I would enjoy more of his work.
I really liked an article about 'The Daemons' Doctor Who story which is now largely lost and how it ties in with the folk horror / supernatural goings on in 1971. There certainly was something in the water around then.
My favourite bit though was the piece written by Justin Hopper (who was interviewed in Issue 1) about living in 'Constable' country, and how even when Constable was painting his most loved works, the landscape was imagined - this pastoral past, even then was remembered rather than experienced due to the industrial revolution - of which his family was a part of. So much of this essay is quotable, such lovely words, that make me both reflect, explore ideas yet also appreciate the language and craft of writing.
Or what about this?
This really landed well with me to think about this age we live in and how we look back, lonely, for something imagined, which has gone.
There are also in here some folklore stories from readers, and a recipe for a healing tonic made from elderberries. Looking forward to reading more of this zine.
The presentation is mostly excellent. Some of the black type on purple is a little hard to read but the card stock this is printed on is of exceptional quality. It feels luxurious to hold which isn't something I say every day. In between the articles there are photographs of things you may see in the country, an old church in a pastoral scene, a megalith with sunlight poking through the stones. The general effect is that you are being taken to a strange place - eerily familiar yet not 'normal'.
A couple of pieces need a little more, for instance the suggested walk around Stanton Drew is crying out for a little more text to describe the walk and what one may see but that was my only disappointment in the text.
My highlights in the zine include an interview with Boss Morris, a women's Morris dancing side and there are some interesting observations on what it means to be English, in what ways Morris dancing is evolving to be more inclusive. I've read about this recently and there is a certain imagining of a pastoral 'white' past and how the far right have co-opted folklore, customs and traditions to imagine a white England. I am loving how groups of Morris dancers, folklorists, historians are both respecting heritage but also adapting it, learning from it whilst giving the racists and fascists the boot.
There is an article about Stonehenge in music which is really good - how the site has influenced music, including album covers, festivals etc. It's a little heavy on the space rock / psych / prog / hippie scene and barely touches on the punk, metal, traveller and rave scenes which have revered and interpreted the Henge in the decades since. Still, whole books have been written about this so I don't know what I am expecting in a short article (I recommend 'Festivalized: Music, Politics and Alternative Culture' by Ian Abrahams and Bridgett Wishart for their observations on Stonehenge).
There is an interview with the author Benjamin Myers about living in Caldervale - it's nice for Weird Walk to 'head north'. Myers wrote 'The Gallows Pole' of which I really enjoyed the TV adaptation of so I think I would enjoy more of his work.
I really liked an article about 'The Daemons' Doctor Who story which is now largely lost and how it ties in with the folk horror / supernatural goings on in 1971. There certainly was something in the water around then.
My favourite bit though was the piece written by Justin Hopper (who was interviewed in Issue 1) about living in 'Constable' country, and how even when Constable was painting his most loved works, the landscape was imagined - this pastoral past, even then was remembered rather than experienced due to the industrial revolution - of which his family was a part of. So much of this essay is quotable, such lovely words, that make me both reflect, explore ideas yet also appreciate the language and craft of writing.
'Here in Constable Country, decreed by the AONB to remain an early Victorian theme park - a kind of pastoral Vegas - we look back to a time that never really was. Here, we're told, you can nearly see the same view as when... was painted. The Vale is reimagined, not as it was in Constable's time, but as he painted it. His memories are where we live.'
Or what about this?
In Constable's age, men burned the fields in anger. Today, we burn from the inside. Philosopher Rosi Braidotti calls it 'the post-human convergence' - that intersection of the fourth industrial revolution and sixth mass extinction. Some call it the 'Anthropocene' or 'Cthulucene'; some, simply, 'the end of the world'. Edwin O Wilson calls it the Eremocene - 'the age of loneliness'.
This really landed well with me to think about this age we live in and how we look back, lonely, for something imagined, which has gone.
There are also in here some folklore stories from readers, and a recipe for a healing tonic made from elderberries. Looking forward to reading more of this zine.
October 22, 2024
3.5 🌟🌟🌟✨
once again some really fascinating content which can be explored further independently. happy to see more diverse voices, and I found the articles on calderdale and boss morris really interesting. the zine is a gorgeous piece of ephemera in its own right. i didn't enjoy this as much as the first issue, but that's just due to not connecting quite as much with the themes here
once again some really fascinating content which can be explored further independently. happy to see more diverse voices, and I found the articles on calderdale and boss morris really interesting. the zine is a gorgeous piece of ephemera in its own right. i didn't enjoy this as much as the first issue, but that's just due to not connecting quite as much with the themes here
July 22, 2022
I’m docking one star for the black and pink colour scheme which makes for very difficult reading. The Weird Walk around Stanton Drew is a belter and I’d highly recommend it. My own memories of the Druids Arms, only visited once 25 years ago, was that it was a dingy and smelly hole, but perhaps things have improved. The stand out article is the interview with the amazing Benjamin Myers. Don’t do the pink thing again please.
January 5, 2022
Not as good as the first issue but still very entertaining.
September 13, 2025
Benjamin Myers, Boss Morris and Stonehenge as music inspiration.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews