The Haunted Landscape: Hollow Places - The Dragon Slayer’s Tomb (at Conway Hall)

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In the Middle Ages, a remarkable tomb was carved to cover the bones of an English hero. For centuries the grave spawned tales about dragons and devils, giants and winged hounds. To understand why this happened, Christopher Hadley takes us on a journey through 1,000 years of history.

The story begins with a Hertfordshire dragon-slayer named Piers Shonks but soon draws us into the company of outlaws and stonemasons, antiquaries and champions. Full of wonder and always surprising, the story takes us to the margins of the Bayeux Tapestry where strange creatures gather, to ancient woodland where hollow trees hide secrets, and to the scribbled clues about folk heroes in eighteenth-century manuscripts. Along the way, we discover how long bones will last in a crypt and where medieval stonemasons found inspiration.

The story of Piers Shonks is the survivor of an 800-year battle between storytellers and those who would mock or silence them. It stands for all those thousands of seemingly forgotten tales that used to belong to every village. It is an adventure into the past and a meditation on memory and belief that underlines the importance and the power of the folk legends we used to tell and why they still matter.

Christopher Hadley is the author of Hollow Places: An Unusual History of Land and Legend.
https://www.christopherhadley.co.uk/

[This talk was filmed at Conway Hall, London, in 2019]

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Conway Hall hosts a wide variety of talks, concerts, exhibitions, courses, performances, community and social events. It is also renowned as a hub for free speech and independent thought, hosting suffragettes, political radicals, scientists, philosophers, artists, performers; campaign, charities and other non-profit organisations.

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