Shadows on the Horizon

Shadows on the Horizon examines reported supernatural activity associated with Britain’s open landscapes rather than houses or enclosed buildings. Neil Arnold takes his subject to moors, marshes, forests and open urban spaces, considering how stories of haunting become attached to particular stretches of ground, trees and soil.

The book gathers traditions and accounts involving banshees, ghoulish wanderers and phantoms, presenting them within the broader folklore of Britain’s haunted places. Its focus is the uneasy relationship between ordinary landscapes and the reports connected with them, from remote countryside to familiar spaces close to home. Arnold treats these stories as claims and local traditions, asking how the apparently empty ground around Britain has acquired its reputation for disturbance and apparitions.