London Month of the Dead - Fairies and the Dead

FAIRIES AND THE DEAD Folklore from the Edge of the Otherworld with Elizabeth Dearnley On Saturday the 17th October 2026 at 3:30 pm Associations between fairies and the dead go back a long way. From Irish folktales of the aos sí (literally ‘people of the earthen mounds’) and accounts of graveyard-haunting fairies in Scottish witch trials to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s near-simultaneous publication of The Case for Spirit Photography and The Coming of the Fairies in 1922, fairies have always been rumoured to inhabit liminal spaces – between life and death, human and supernatural, the familiar and the unfamiliar – flickering on the edges of our imaginations. Led by Elizabeth Dearnley, editor of Fearsome Fairies (British Library, 2021) and author of The Fairy Spotter’s Guide (Welbeck, 2026), this talk invites you to explore the more unsettling side of the fae, charting their history of uncanny associations and delving into some of their more eerie incarnations in contemporary culture. Whether emerging from the earth as green children in medieval Suffolk or appearing as changelings after a volcanic eruption in the 2021 Icelandic Netflix drama Katla, ghostly fairies are never far beneath the surface. Tickets £13.50 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to Brompton Cemetery. Please click here to purchase. Elizabeth Dearnley Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, writer and researcher whose work explores fairy lore, ghost stories and the darker traditions of British folklore. She is the editor of the acclaimed Fearsome Fairies: Haunting Tales of the Fae for the British Library and author of The Fairy Spotter’s Guide. Her work examines the uncanny intersections of folklore, horror and storytelling, revealing the enduring power of the supernatural in our cultural imagination.

FAIRIES AND THE DEAD
Folklore from the Edge of the Otherworld with Elizabeth Dearnley
On Saturday the 17th October 2026 at 3:30 pm

Associations between fairies and the dead go back a long way. From Irish folktales of the aos sí (literally ‘people of the earthen mounds’) and accounts of graveyard-haunting fairies in Scottish witch trials to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s near-simultaneous publication of The Case for Spirit Photography and The Coming of the Fairies in 1922, fairies have always been rumoured to inhabit liminal spaces – between life and death, human and supernatural, the familiar and the unfamiliar – flickering on the edges of our imaginations.

Led by Elizabeth Dearnley, editor of Fearsome Fairies (British Library, 2021) and author of The Fairy Spotter’s Guide (Welbeck, 2026), this talk invites you to explore the more unsettling side of the fae, charting their history of uncanny associations and delving into some of their more eerie incarnations in contemporary culture. Whether emerging from the earth as green children in medieval Suffolk or appearing as changelings after a volcanic eruption in the 2021 Icelandic Netflix drama Katla, ghostly fairies are never far beneath the surface.

Tickets £13.50 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to Brompton Cemetery. Please click here to purchase.

Elizabeth Dearnley
Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, writer and researcher whose work explores fairy lore, ghost stories and the darker traditions of British folklore. She is the editor of the acclaimed Fearsome Fairies: Haunting Tales of the Fae for the British Library and author of The Fairy Spotter’s Guide. Her work examines the uncanny intersections of folklore, horror and storytelling, revealing the enduring power of the supernatural in our cultural imagination.