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Maps of the Lost

@mapsofthelost.com

The maps to the lost places and the secret histories. Be cautious: if you follow them, you may become lost yourself. stories/Substack/podcast. Substack probably the place to start. https://linktr.ee/mapsofthelost

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Posts 07.06.2023
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Latest posts by Maps of the Lost @mapsofthelost.com

In a reed-shrouded pond in some small woods in Weardale, you might chance upon the sight of six herons, all close together, standing still in the water the way that herons do. The six of them meet there at dawn once a year and wait until the sun sets. If a seventh heron arrives while they are there, then all of them stand for a moment, as if they are committing the water and the reeds and the clouds and the air to memory, and then they take off into the sky, slow wings beating the air, and then so do the smaller birds from in amongst the reeds and then the larger birds from amongst the woods and then all the birds from every field and every tree and the tops of houses and the arches of bridges and the cliffs and the shores and the gardens and the rocks, and every bird flies up, every one, up and out of sight and beyond, as they know that this world is done.

In a reed-shrouded pond in some small woods in Weardale, you might chance upon the sight of six herons, all close together, standing still in the water the way that herons do. The six of them meet there at dawn once a year and wait until the sun sets. If a seventh heron arrives while they are there, then all of them stand for a moment, as if they are committing the water and the reeds and the clouds and the air to memory, and then they take off into the sky, slow wings beating the air, and then so do the smaller birds from in amongst the reeds and then the larger birds from amongst the woods and then all the birds from every field and every tree and the tops of houses and the arches of bridges and the cliffs and the shores and the gardens and the rocks, and every bird flies up, every one, up and out of sight and beyond, as they know that this world is done.

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07.03.2026 12:00 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Terrific time at the UK Ghost Story Festival this weekend. Three days of panels, workshops and performances, lots of inspiration and met some lovely people.

favourite quote from any of the panels was maybe Will MacLean talking about the need to begin ‘reweirding your house’.

03.03.2026 21:40 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Myself and @gavcross.bsky.social have been blown away by the response to our first Haunted Book Club episode on The Signalman. Thanks so much to everyone who joined us live and who has watched or listened since.

Please check it out on whatever podcast app you use, and please help spread the word.

19.02.2026 15:48 👍 13 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
How to Make a Homunculus That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit [a pumpkin-like gourd] for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse’s womb, or at least so long that it comes t...

With #SmallProphets on everyone's minds, you might be interested in some extra info on Homunculi.
Back in 2017 I wrote this piece: "How to Make a Homunculus" for @dailygrail.com
www.dailygrail.com/2017/11/how-...

21.02.2026 11:09 👍 40 🔁 22 💬 0 📌 2
NOTHING It’s that strange hour when it’s not quite dusk but the day is fading away, and the blue of the fine autumn day has shaded from sky blue into something darker. You’ve been for a meeting somewhere in a part of town you don’t know that well, and decided to walk home as the air is crisp and you like to find new streets, quirky architecture, fading adverts from a hundred years ago just visible on a gable end like a ghost, the neon lines of modern graffiti. You turn a corner down a side street because the big road you were on looks like it curves off in the wrong direction, and you know you need to head towards where the sun is setting. This thought pleases you, as if you are some kind of great explorer who can navigate by moss and the flight of geese. The street you’re now on is a row of mews houses, the occasional car parked up on the pavement, an atmosphere of calm satisfaction and newly painted front doors. There’s only one person on the street other than you. A little further down, a man has stopped in the middle of the road, and is waving his hands up towards the sky. You slow a little, think about turning. You don’t want to be judgmental, but you’ve had some bad experiences. He is smartly dressed, a dark mac over what looks like a blue suit, but all the same, you slow. He gestures with his hands again, and a perfect circle is removed from the sky, as if a hole has been cut in it. The deepening blue is gone, and the blackness within the circle is darker than the dark of night, darker than anything that you have seen or will see again. You stop, and maybe you cry out or maybe you scuff your shoe or maybe he just knows, and the man looks over his shoulder in alarm, sees you there, and quickly waves a hand again and the sky is back, uninterrupted blue. He hurries off, you stand there a little while until an Uber Eats moped swings round the corner on a short cut and nearly runs you over.

NOTHING It’s that strange hour when it’s not quite dusk but the day is fading away, and the blue of the fine autumn day has shaded from sky blue into something darker. You’ve been for a meeting somewhere in a part of town you don’t know that well, and decided to walk home as the air is crisp and you like to find new streets, quirky architecture, fading adverts from a hundred years ago just visible on a gable end like a ghost, the neon lines of modern graffiti. You turn a corner down a side street because the big road you were on looks like it curves off in the wrong direction, and you know you need to head towards where the sun is setting. This thought pleases you, as if you are some kind of great explorer who can navigate by moss and the flight of geese. The street you’re now on is a row of mews houses, the occasional car parked up on the pavement, an atmosphere of calm satisfaction and newly painted front doors. There’s only one person on the street other than you. A little further down, a man has stopped in the middle of the road, and is waving his hands up towards the sky. You slow a little, think about turning. You don’t want to be judgmental, but you’ve had some bad experiences. He is smartly dressed, a dark mac over what looks like a blue suit, but all the same, you slow. He gestures with his hands again, and a perfect circle is removed from the sky, as if a hole has been cut in it. The deepening blue is gone, and the blackness within the circle is darker than the dark of night, darker than anything that you have seen or will see again. You stop, and maybe you cry out or maybe you scuff your shoe or maybe he just knows, and the man looks over his shoulder in alarm, sees you there, and quickly waves a hand again and the sky is back, uninterrupted blue. He hurries off, you stand there a little while until an Uber Eats moped swings round the corner on a short cut and nearly runs you over.

(text version in the alt text, or: substack.com/@mapsofthelo...)

21.02.2026 11:55 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Newsletter out now. An underpass that doesn’t behave, something learning how to be human a word at a time, an odd tune leaking through you into the world, strange labyrinths, thoughts on ghost stories and why it's best to never see the monsters.

mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...

21.02.2026 10:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Ashes There's a grey-looking man who moves around South London, never settling in one place too long. He's thin, with intense eyes. He's grey-looking not just because his hair is grey, or because his clothes began that colour, or faded to it, but because he looks as if a fine layer of ash has settled on his skin. He does have a name, but he's forgotten it. He's nearly six hundred years old, and as long as he keeps feeding will live at least another six hundred more. You might read that and think him a vampire. Maybe he is, of sorts. But he has no interest in blood. The grey-looking man stands at the back of funerals where everyone thinks someone else has invited him, and he will stop and stand nearby if he passes someone being evicted from their house. He sits over a tea in bookies while men around him lose the money they had promised their wife would pay the rent, and he finds a seat in the public gallery of the court at murder trials, as near the family as he can. He browses food-banks without ever taking anything, and he'll wait in a hospice car park, pretending to be on his phone. He will spend evenings waiting to the side of bridges that are notorious for suicides, and he lingers outside coroners' courts, and in the back pew at memorial services. He'll stand by shop doorways where homeless people freeze and despair, and he'll wander that far section of the graveyard that is covered with teddy bears and bright plastic windmills, holding some flowers, drifting close to those sobbing as if their heart breaks again with every breath. He feeds and he feeds and he feeds, and he will never, ever go hungry.

Ashes There's a grey-looking man who moves around South London, never settling in one place too long. He's thin, with intense eyes. He's grey-looking not just because his hair is grey, or because his clothes began that colour, or faded to it, but because he looks as if a fine layer of ash has settled on his skin. He does have a name, but he's forgotten it. He's nearly six hundred years old, and as long as he keeps feeding will live at least another six hundred more. You might read that and think him a vampire. Maybe he is, of sorts. But he has no interest in blood. The grey-looking man stands at the back of funerals where everyone thinks someone else has invited him, and he will stop and stand nearby if he passes someone being evicted from their house. He sits over a tea in bookies while men around him lose the money they had promised their wife would pay the rent, and he finds a seat in the public gallery of the court at murder trials, as near the family as he can. He browses food-banks without ever taking anything, and he'll wait in a hospice car park, pretending to be on his phone. He will spend evenings waiting to the side of bridges that are notorious for suicides, and he lingers outside coroners' courts, and in the back pew at memorial services. He'll stand by shop doorways where homeless people freeze and despair, and he'll wander that far section of the graveyard that is covered with teddy bears and bright plastic windmills, holding some flowers, drifting close to those sobbing as if their heart breaks again with every breath. He feeds and he feeds and he feeds, and he will never, ever go hungry.

04.02.2026 17:54 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Tonight’s watch. No, never blow a whi- oh. Too late.

Decent adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard‘s excellent “Three Miles Up”.

01.02.2026 21:22 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
There's a young dentist, new to practice, working in Rochester. Once every so often, when he is working with patients having a routine check-up, he thinks that he can see a tiny symbol, so faint that it almost might not be there, etched into the molar on the left-hand side, so delicate and tiny it does not compromise the tooth in any way. He's thought about raising it with the senior dentists in the practice but he doesn't because it is so faint that he is not sure whether he might be imagining it, and doesn't want to look ridiculous or prejudice his career. He also doesn't raise it because every time he thinks about doing so he feels cold, as if he has just stepped into ice water, and he has a night of dreams which he can't remember in any detail beyond that they are furious and terrifying. He is also trying very hard to stop running his tongue over his left-hand rear molar.

There's a young dentist, new to practice, working in Rochester. Once every so often, when he is working with patients having a routine check-up, he thinks that he can see a tiny symbol, so faint that it almost might not be there, etched into the molar on the left-hand side, so delicate and tiny it does not compromise the tooth in any way. He's thought about raising it with the senior dentists in the practice but he doesn't because it is so faint that he is not sure whether he might be imagining it, and doesn't want to look ridiculous or prejudice his career. He also doesn't raise it because every time he thinks about doing so he feels cold, as if he has just stepped into ice water, and he has a night of dreams which he can't remember in any detail beyond that they are furious and terrifying. He is also trying very hard to stop running his tongue over his left-hand rear molar.

01.02.2026 10:20 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
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Reading and watching over the last week, and up next for this weekend, The Turn Of The Screw/The Innocents, The Haunting Of Hill House/The Haunting.

Up next for tomorrow, The Uninvited.

Got to say though, Henry James, end a sentence once in a while, PLEASE. Shirley Jackson’s prose though 😘

31.01.2026 16:56 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Not long to go now - the UK GHOST STORY FESTIVAL ONLINE starts on Friday 6th Feb, with three days of talks, interviews, workshops and more! www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #ghost #ghosts #ghoststories #ghoststory #writing #writers #authors #darkfiction #supernaturalfiction

31.01.2026 15:01 👍 7 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1

(text is in the alt text, as usual)

31.01.2026 16:33 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Next time you’re in a public Zoom meeting with many participants, keep an eye out. It might be a social gathering, a talk or lecture, an educational event or a seminar. Look out in the list of participants for a man named Michael Kilgolfen. He’s easy to spot, with his bright red hair and engaging grin, nodding away as if everything that anyone says is insightful and wise. He won’t ever speak, but there he is. If you’ll see him a second or third time, you’ll wonder if you have mutual friends, how it’s funny you don’t know each other as you have such intersecting interests.⁣ ⁣ You might message him, but you won’t get a reply.⁣ ⁣ If you ever find yourself logging in to two Zoom meetings at once, or three, or four, is that you may see Michael Kilgolfen in all of them, smiling and nodding away. No big deal, you think, after all I’m in more than one meeting at a time, so…⁣ ⁣ Then you realise that the Michael Kilgolfen you see in each of these meetings is nodding and smiling at different times, and one of them scratches his head for a moment, and the others do not, and as you realise this all of the Michael Kilgolfens stop smiling and look very intently into their cameras, as if staring at one person.⁣ ⁣ Which indeed they are.

Next time you’re in a public Zoom meeting with many participants, keep an eye out. It might be a social gathering, a talk or lecture, an educational event or a seminar. Look out in the list of participants for a man named Michael Kilgolfen. He’s easy to spot, with his bright red hair and engaging grin, nodding away as if everything that anyone says is insightful and wise. He won’t ever speak, but there he is. If you’ll see him a second or third time, you’ll wonder if you have mutual friends, how it’s funny you don’t know each other as you have such intersecting interests.⁣ ⁣ You might message him, but you won’t get a reply.⁣ ⁣ If you ever find yourself logging in to two Zoom meetings at once, or three, or four, is that you may see Michael Kilgolfen in all of them, smiling and nodding away. No big deal, you think, after all I’m in more than one meeting at a time, so…⁣ ⁣ Then you realise that the Michael Kilgolfen you see in each of these meetings is nodding and smiling at different times, and one of them scratches his head for a moment, and the others do not, and as you realise this all of the Michael Kilgolfens stop smiling and look very intently into their cameras, as if staring at one person.⁣ ⁣ Which indeed they are.

31.01.2026 16:33 👍 7 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism In the past two months, I’ve found myself thinking back to an essay Ursula K. Le Guin posted on her blog in November 2016. It was one of her last long essays, and she wrote it at a time when she—li…

When I wrote this a year ago I had no idea how bad things would get. Today, eight years after she left us, I'm trying to follow Ursula's advice: write and worry. Write and act. Worry and keep writing.

lithub.com/the-way-of-w...

22.01.2026 17:48 👍 334 🔁 124 💬 8 📌 15
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Three weeks to go until we present a packed line-up of ghost story goodness, all happening online so you can join us from the comfort of your own home! And some line-up we have incoming too... www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #onlineevent #onlineevents #onlinefestival #onlinefestivals

17.01.2026 15:30 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1

If you enjoy it and think your followers might too, please do share it.

24.01.2026 10:06 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Maps of the Lost 30 ...from the path to the deep dark woods

A footpath best left alone, directions to places that don’t exist, gifts from birds who know too much, a man with far too many names, books that aren’t ghosts but haunt you anyway, a ghost story festival, and why you never want to meet Ash Francis.
mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...

24.01.2026 10:06 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 1
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Spooky season will be going into overtime in 2026, with the UK GHOST STORY FESTIVAL ONLINE running from the weekend of 6th-8th February! Let us bring the hauntings to you for the weekend... www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #ghosts #ghoststory #ghoststories #hauntings #gothic #gothicfiction

12.01.2026 19:30 👍 7 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 0
Avebury Cove stones from a frosty tree. #StandingStoneSunday

Avebury Cove stones from a frosty tree. #StandingStoneSunday

Avebury Cove stones from a frosty tree.
#StandingStoneSunday

11.01.2026 02:03 👍 199 🔁 30 💬 1 📌 0
Dressing Up Dogs

Dressing Up Dogs

Dressing Up Dogs: https://www.cartoongravity.com/dressing-up-dogs/

11.01.2026 09:26 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
Preview
Home 2026 DATES NOW CONFIRMED! 6th-8th February 2026, Online via Google Meet Pick up your tickets here 27th February-1st March, In-person at QUAD, Derby Pick up your tickets here

Very much looking forward to going to this at the end of February.

www.ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk

11.01.2026 11:36 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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'SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES' CLOCK

Huge thanks for all of yesterday's orders for our new 'Schools and Colleges' clock. Last few available in the shop for shipping in February.

hiddenbritain.bigcartel.com/product/scho...

10.01.2026 12:03 👍 92 🔁 26 💬 5 📌 0
What appears to be a giant praying mantis wandering a corn field is actually a normal sized praying mantis that's actually sitting on my windshield

What appears to be a giant praying mantis wandering a corn field is actually a normal sized praying mantis that's actually sitting on my windshield

Timeline Cleanse: Please enjoy this photo of a praying mantis that was sitting on top of my car windshield, but the angling and lighting were so weird it looks like a giant praying mantis wandering a corn field in Iowa.

10.01.2026 01:03 👍 6208 🔁 1901 💬 108 📌 128

But it’s not the sound of a crying baby. It’s the sound of the thing that the soldiers who buried the bones in the walls were trying to keep out.

(2/2)

02.01.2026 15:24 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Excavations at the Roman fort at Reculver found a number of skeletons of babies within the foundations and the walls. Local legend has it that the fort is haunted by the sounds of a crying baby. If you visit on the right night, you might hear it.

(🧵1/2)

02.01.2026 15:24 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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28.12.2025 09:55 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

the two excellent podcasts mentioned are @ghoststorybookclub.bsky.social by
@adamzed.bsky.social and @strangestudies.bsky.social by
@chrislackey.bsky.social and @chadfifer.bsky.social

If you don't already know them, check them out. Hours and hours of great content.

23.12.2025 09:43 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Maps of the Lost 29 from a quiet suburban cul-de-sac

The last Maps of the Lost newsletter of the year is out. Clouds showing you the way, evil on the 8:14, the edge of the map in a cul-de-sac, two great podcasts, getting more lost than lost can be, avoidance of the Christmas Bone Man and more.

mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...

23.12.2025 09:43 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
TIME TO GO You might be enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon, when there’s a knock at your door. Perhaps you’re reading a book, baking, or catching up on your latest streaming favourite, and you sigh and go to the door. You can’t remember having ordered anything for delivery, so you open the door bracing yourself to say no thank you to someone selling something. But it isn’t anyone selling anything, it’s you. You stand there, dumbfounded, and look at yourself standing on the step smiling. “I’m sorry,” the you outside says. “Despite all the memories you think you have of your life, you have only been in existence for a week while I had to be away in another place, very far away.” You stare, lost for words. The other you places a gentle, warm hand on your arm, and in a kind, sad voice says, “It’s time to go now.” As everything starts to fade you will feel distress, but it won’t last long, and anyway, you’re not really you, are you?

TIME TO GO You might be enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon, when there’s a knock at your door. Perhaps you’re reading a book, baking, or catching up on your latest streaming favourite, and you sigh and go to the door. You can’t remember having ordered anything for delivery, so you open the door bracing yourself to say no thank you to someone selling something. But it isn’t anyone selling anything, it’s you. You stand there, dumbfounded, and look at yourself standing on the step smiling. “I’m sorry,” the you outside says. “Despite all the memories you think you have of your life, you have only been in existence for a week while I had to be away in another place, very far away.” You stare, lost for words. The other you places a gentle, warm hand on your arm, and in a kind, sad voice says, “It’s time to go now.” As everything starts to fade you will feel distress, but it won’t last long, and anyway, you’re not really you, are you?

14.12.2025 17:44 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0