Start your Christmas celebrations slightly differently this year and join us for an evening about the darker side of the festive season as Sarah Clegg uncovers the folk tales and arcane traditions that still haunt Europe’s winter months.
Sarah will take us on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions, from English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy - a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead.
Learn about wassails and hoodenings and winter gatherings, attended by ghastly, grinning horses, snatching monsters and mysterious visitors, as we discover how these traditions originated and how they changed through the centuries.
