Mysterious Times has been rummaging around in the stranger corners of history, the unexplained and folklore since October 31st 2008. What began as a place for curious stories has grown into a substantial archive covering folklore, ghosts, archaeology, witchcraft, cryptozoology, strange history, superstition, mythology, UFOs, the paranormal and those awkward cases that refuse to sit in any particular box. Along the way, we have also accumulated investigations, reviews, original fiction, old newspaper reports, forgotten legends and more that a few historical rabbit holes that got considerably deeper than expected.
We like a good story. We like it even better when we can find out where it came from.
That means Mysterious Times isn’t interested in simply repeating a legend because it has been repeated a thousand times. We go looking for the earliest accounts, contemporary newspapers, parish records, books, academic research, archives and whatever other evidence survives. Sometimes the old story holds up beautifully. Sometimes it changes completely when you start pulling at the threads. Occasionally, it falls to pieces.
All three outcomes are interesting.
You’ll find the supernatural here, but you don’t need to believe in the supernatural to enjoy Mysterious Times. Folklore matters whether or not the ghost walked. A strange burial is worth investigating whether it’s occupant ever climbed back out of it or not. A centuries old superstition can tell us something about the people who practiced it even if nobody is prepared to test what happens when you turn the bread upside-down.
We are interested in the stories people tell, the things they feared, the things they believed and the traces those beliefs left behind.
Mysterious Times is independently run and edited by author and editor Kirst Mason D’Raven and her partner, author and co-editor Simon Axford, with contributions from other writers and a growing collection of guest and reader-submitted work. The site is also home to original short fiction, because sometimes the best thing to do with all that darkness lurking in the archive is to make something new from it.
After all these years, there are thousands of articles buried in here. Some are serious investigations. Some concern ghosts, monsters, witches, fairies, strange deaths or things found where things really shouldn’t have been found. Others begin with somebody saying,
“Have you heard about this?”
Those are dangerous words around here.
So have a rummage. Follow the categories. Abuse the search box. Disappear into the archives. Start with one article and emerge three hours later wondering why you know quite so much about screaming skulls, concealed shoes and medieval revenants.
That’s more or less how Mysterious Times works.
Welcome to the rabbit hole.
