Our love-hate relationship with the dark has been a constant throughout human history, whether we’re celebrating its glories or shrinking from things that go bump in the night.
This year’s Monty Lit Fest features two sessions that look at the shifting nature of darkness, both literally or metaphorically.
For writer, Jacqueline Yallop, darkness is endlessly fascinating, captivating and appalling in equal measure; an absence and a presence; a solace and a threat. Her book, Into the Dark, documents a series of night-time walks as she explores both the physical realities of darkness and the psychological dark that shapes how we see the world.
Hear from Jacqueline, in conversation with Festival favourite, Jon Gower, on Saturday 8th June at 2.30pm.
Darkness has always been more than that physical reality of course. Dark shadows and the night are also fertile ground for magic and folklore, myths and ghost stories.
Delyth Badder is an expert in this darker side of folklore, channelling years of research into Welsh death omens and apparitions into The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts, the book she co-authored with Mark Norman, folklorist, author and the host of the popular Folklore podcast. She shows us that Wales is a land with a vast wealth of ghost stories, from spectral beasts and water spirits to poltergeists and fantastical ghouls.
Together with storyteller, Owen Staton, Delyth will be scaring and delighting us in equal measure for what promises to be a proper Monty spook-fest.
Join us – if you dare – on Saturday 8th June at 4.30pm.
Tickets are both sessions are available online, or in person at The Montgomery Bookshop or Ivy House Café in Montgomerythe