This week, the Boo‑Foons head deep into the storm‑lit folklore of East Anglia as Steve and Dan travel to the Black Shuck Festival for a very special conversation with Katie, better known as East Anglian Kage. A folklorist, practicing witch, and true Folkstorian, Katie guides the Boo‑Foons through centuries of charms, curses, churchyard legends, and the eerie tales that cling to Norfolk and Suffolk like coastal mist.
Together, they explore how stories evolve, survive, and shape the identity of the land, and why East Anglia remains one of Britain’s richest landscapes for supernatural lore.
East Anglia: A Land Built for Legends
Katie begins by painting a picture of Norfolk and Suffolk not just as counties, but as folkloric ecosystems. Wide skies. Marshes that swallow sound. Flint churches standing on ancient ground. Lanes where the wind carries old warnings.
East Anglia’s folklore thrives because the landscape itself feels unfinished, full of liminal spaces where the ordinary world thins.
Katie explains how these stories aren’t static. They shift with each generation, absorbing new fears, new symbols, and new interpretations. Folklore is a living creature, and East Anglia is its perfect habitat.
Black Shuck: East Anglia’s Burning‑Eyed Guardian
No Boo‑Foons trip to East Anglia would be complete without confronting Black Shuck, the region’s most infamous spectral hound.
Katie dives into the legend’s deep roots:
- The 1127 Peterborough Chronicle, describing ghostly huntsmen and black hounds
- The 1577 Bungay and Blythburgh church events, where Shuck allegedly burst through the doors during a storm
- The claw marks still visible on Blythburgh’s church door
- The way Shuck’s image shifts, sometimes a harbinger, sometimes a protector
Katie’s has a familiar link to Shuck and a perspective that reframes Shuck not as a monster, but as a cultural guardian, a symbol of East Anglia’s identity, fear, resilience, and storytelling tradition.
Witchcraft, Magic & Rural Belief
As a practicing witch and folklorist, Katie brings a rare dual insight into East Anglia’s magical heritage.
Katie emphasises that witchcraft in East Anglia is not just history, it’s a living practice woven into the land, the people, and the stories they keep.
We Are Witch Quilt
We Are Witch is a collaborative project that honours the women killed under the Witchcraft Act in East Anglia.
We Are Witch – Website
The Black Shuck Festival: Folklore in Full Colour
The Boo‑Foons’ meeting with Katie takes place at the Black Shuck Festival, a celebration of East Anglia’s supernatural heritage.
Festival highlights:
- Folklore talks and storytelling sessions
- Art exhibitions inspired by Shuck and other regional spirits
- Music, parades, and community events
- Local historians sharing new research on black dog legends
- Workshops on charms, runes, and rural magic
The festival is part celebration, part education, and entirely East Anglian.
Find our more about the excellent The Black Shuck Festival
Why This Conversation Matters
Meeting East Anglian Kage at the Black Shuck Festival wasn’t just an interview, it was a journey into the living heart of East Anglian folklore.
Katie’s concept of Folkstory captures exactly what the Boo‑Foons love most: Stories that breathe. Stories that change. Stories that refuse to die.
From spectral hounds to witch‑marks, from churchyard storms to charms whispered across generations, East Anglia remains one of Britain’s most enchanted landscapes, and this conversation proves it.
Find out more about East Anglian Kage on Instagram