Episode description

The People's History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, folk expert Tim Healey and writer Zoe Gilbert join Matthew Sweet to explore rituals and beliefs associated with May Day, including the otherworldly figure of Herne the Hunter, and ideas about community and collective action.

Shirin Hirsch is one of the 2022 New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to turn research into radio. Tim Healey is author of The Green Man in Oxfordshire. Zoe Gilbert's latest novel Mischief Acts explores Herne the Hunter http://zoegilbert.com/ You can also find Zoe discussing Enchantment, witches and woodlands with Matthew Sweet in a previous Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000qkl and Charms and folk tales with the authors Madeline Miller and Kirsty Logan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q0xc

On Sunday May 1st at 5.30pm and available on BBC Sounds - Radio 3's weekly curation of poems and prose extracts set alongside music is on the theme of May Day.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod