Shadowing Practice: The Origins of Folk Horror - Learn English Speaking with Video

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recently i was doing some research on a book called the place called dagon

which was originally published in 1927 what interested me about the place called dagon is

that it revolves around an insular rural town.

And in this town, hiding behind closed doors, there's a sinister cult practicing witchcraft.

And as if this wasn't bad enough, this sinister cult is planning to conduct a human sacrifice in

honour of their dark gods to bring prosperity to their impoverished rural town.

If you think this plot sounds familiar, then you'd be right.

This has pretty much become a ubiquitous plot in horror films these days.

Think of films like The Wicker Man, or more recently Midsommar, and you'll be on the right track.

One of my favourite examples of this is the Edgar Wright film, Hot Fuzz.

This story trope, which I would like to call the town with a secret cult,

is a huge part of a particular subgenre of horror fiction and films called folk horror.

While there's no concrete definition of the subgenre, folk horror often involves rural settings where the horror elements come from pagan religions,

witchcraft, or elements of folklore.

In films in particular, the typical folk horror story is about a rural village where, behind the charade of everyday village life, lurks a dark secret.

It's often a sinister cult which demands a human sacrifice, usually for the purpose of bringing prosperity to a rural community.

But what interested me is that I thought that this was a relatively recent literary trope.

Except the place called Dagon has this trope in it, and that was published all the way back in 1927.

So how old is the trope of the town with the secret cult, and where did it come from?

I decided to take a look at the first stories which contained this trope, and came up with some pretty interesting results.

At the start of The Place Called Dagon, there is an introduction, written by a man named Larry Creasy, who's an expert on Herbert S.

Gorman's work, and this introduction gives a bit of history about Gorman's work and also his inspirations for the novel.

In the introduction, Creasy lists Nathaniel Hawthorne as being a big inspiration for Gorman.

In particular, a short story by Hawthorne called Young Goodman Brown, which was published in 1835.

In Hawthorne's story, Young Goodman Brown, the titular character ventures into the nearby forest at night on an errand, and while in the forest,

the young man stumbles upon a black mass being observed by the entire population of the town which he lives in.

The story is essentially an allegory about Christian faith, and so it isn't written in the style of a mystery,

like the trope of the town with a secret cult usually is, but this story does contain a lot of the essential elements of the trope.

There's a rural town, wherein there's a secret witch cult not known about even to some of the inhabitants of the town.

It's easy to see how Gorman might have extrapolated on the

plot of young Goodman Brown to come up with a more mystery -based thriller plot for his book, The Place Called Dagon.

And there are good reasons to suspect that this is probably the case.

Herbert S.

Goleman actually wrote a biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, so Goleman would have been very familiar, not only with Hawthorne's work, but also with his family history,

which is an interesting clue as to where Hawthorne might have gotten his idea for young Goodman Brown.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a native of the town of Salem, a town infamously known to most of the world for the witch trials that were held there.

One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's ancestors, John Hawthorne, was actually one of the judges who presided over the witch trials in Salem.

So we can see that Hawthorne was probably drawing on history for the plot of Young Goodman Brown.

While Young Goodman Brown does have many of the common motifs of folk horror, such as a secret cult in a small rural town,

it also doesn't share many of the ideas of other folk horror stories, such as the European setting, the theme of the modern way of life versus the ancient way of life,

and of course, human sacrifice.

Young Goodman Brown was the the earliest example of the folk horror trope of the town with a secret cult

that I could find.

but I still wasn't entirely satisfied with Young Goodman Brown as being the original source of this folk horror trope.

More importantly, the witches and heathens in Young Goodman Brown

and the place called Dagon seem to draw very much from Puritan values and exist within the Christian worldview,

while the dreaded heathens in The Wicker Man and other examples of folk horror have their own alternative worldview and gods.

A quote from Young Goodman Brown demonstrates this.

My faith is gone, he cried, after one stupefied moment.

There is no good on earth, and sin is but a name.

Come, devil, for thee is the world given.

In Young Goodman Brown, the horror comes from the idea that Christians have turned away from God and are worshipping the devil,

which is not surprising since the inspiration for the story is probably the witch trials at Salem.

The witches in Young Goodman Brown are essentially anti -Christians.

And please note that I'm using the term anti -Christians very loosely here.

What I mean when I say anti -Christians is that in the Puritan value system,

a person must work hard in this life and forego pleasure to receive everlasting joy in the afterlife.

But the witches in folklore invert this system them.

They trade their eternal souls for immediate pleasure, and that is the extent of the magic and religion in Young Goodman Brown.

In the more European type of folk horror, such as the Wicker Man, the themes of religion extend beyond the Christian worldview,

they have completely denounced the Christian God as either being non -existent or as being less powerful than other gods,

such as in The Wicker Man where the villagers decide

that their Christian god can't bring them a rich harvest

and instead Lord Sama 'al offers them an alternative religion which can deliver these results.

in the last century the islanders was town like our neighbors today they were scratching a bare subsistence from sheep

and sea then in 1868 my grandfather bought this barren island

began to change things the best way of accomplishing this

so it seemed to him was to rouse the people from

their apathy by giving them back their joyous old gods and that as a result of this worship So,

the main themes of the most famous example of folk horror, the wicker man, don't really fit with the origin of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Salem Witch Trials,

or even with European Witch Trials, which are limited to being mainly concerned with a Christian worldview.

I have to say though, there are other examples of American folk horror, stories such as The Lottery by Shirley Jackson,

which involve human sacrifice in exchange for a good harvest.

But regardless, this only points to another source of this inspiration.

The fact that Shirley Jackson of all people drew on this idea is a really big clue

and I'll come back to that later.

But I didn't want to stop there.

I wanted to find out other possible sources for folk horror.

And particularly I wanted to find out where the idea of alternative religions to Christianity came into the picture.

And usually the best place to start

when you want to find the source of a literary trope

is to start with the most famous example of it and work backwards.

In this case, I think the most famous example is The Wicker Man film from 1973.

The Wicker Man was based on a book called Ritual by David Pinner, published in 1967.

When I looked up interviews with David Pinner, Pinner had this to say about his inspiration.

I was interested in witchcraft and Dennis Wheatley's books, and that combination resulted in Ritual.

Dennis Wheatley was an early 20th century author who wrote a prodigious amount of adventure and thriller novels,

but most importantly for us is that a few of his books dealt with the occult and Satanism, things which, despite him being a devout Christian,

he was a bit of an expert on.

One of his most famous novels in particular is called The Devil Rides Out, and it's about a cult of devil worshippers led by a charismatic figure.

The presence of a charismatic leader is an important aspect of the trope of A Town with a Secret Cult

and we can see the origin of that here, but this is where the trail went dead.

The Devil Rides Out was published in 1934 and we already know

that The Place Called Dagon was published in 1927

and already had the trope of a town with a secret cult in it

and also had the trope of a charismatic leader in it.

In fact, while David Pinner cites Dennis Wheatley as a source of inspiration for Ritual and therefore The Wicker Man,

The Devil Rides Out doesn't really have many of the tropes of folk horror in it, and for that matter neither does Ritual.

I actually read Ritual as part of the research for this video

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and I was quite surprised what the book was actually like.

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It's really a bizarre fever dream of a book, and while it definitely does have a lot of the aspects of folk horror,

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its plot is not as clearly defined and typical as later entries into the folk horror genre are.

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What Ritual does have is the thematic opposition between Christianity and other religions.

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The protagonist in Ritual is, like in The Wicker Man,

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a puritanical Christian police officer who expresses outrage and disgust at the irreligiosity of the villages and their occult practices.

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So we see here a seed of the juxtaposition between the old

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and new religion that would become a staple of folk horror in works like The Wicker Man.

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But I was at a loss, so I wanted to go back to the drawing board.

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It seems to me like this idea of the town with a secret cult maybe just sprang out of the cultural zeitgeist.

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After all, a town with a mystery is not exactly that difficult to come up with, so maybe there wasn't really an original source for this idea.

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The witches in Dagon are descendants from Salem, a town notable for its witch trials,

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which at the time people believed exposed a secret cult of witches in the town, so perhaps that really is the source of the trope of the town with a secret cult.

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It certainly inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herbert S.

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Gorman, and those are the two earliest examples of this particular trope that I could find.

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But it also seems that folk horror isn't really an American genre.

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The modern country of America as we know it is, after all, a colony, and its history only goes back a few hundred years.

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And before that, the continent of North America was occupied by Native Americans, and Native American culture doesn't tend to be a big staple of folk horror,

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although it certainly plays a part.

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So the idea of a sinister ancient cult worshipping old gods, like the old gods that are mentioned in the place called Dagon, doesn't seem to fit this setting,

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because they clearly have pagan inspirations.

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On top of that, The Wicker Man and The Devil Rides Out are very British

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and it's pretty unlikely that these works would have been drawing on American history like the Salem Witch Trials.

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Of course there were witch trials in Europe a lot earlier than America, but I still think this doesn't quite fit.

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So I kept searching.

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Since all this research began with a book that inspired the famous horror author, H .P.

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Lovecraft, I decided to go and see whether H .P.

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Lovecraft had anything to say on the matter.

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Lovecraft actually wrote an essay called Supernatural Horror in Literature, which was all about the supernatural horror genre,

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and this essay had a selection of Lovecraft's thoughts thoughts about the genre.

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Maybe that would help me in unraveling the mystery.

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The essay was written in the mid -1920s and then added to into the early 1930s,

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so it's a valuable resource of the history of supernatural horror from the perspective of somebody in the 1920s.

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In the essay there's a section called The Dawn of the Horror Tale, and in that section Lovecraft writes this.

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Much of the power of Western horror lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden

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but often suspected presence of a hidden cult of nocturnal worshippers,

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whose strange customs were stealthily handed down amongst peasants for thousands of years despite the outward reign of the Druidic,

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Greco -Roman and Christian faiths in the regions involved.

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The Salem Affair forms the chief American example.

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So this is really fascinating.

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Lovecraft seems to be very familiar with this trope already in the 1920s.

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And not only that, but Lovecraft also identifies Salem as a source for this,

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and points to the idea that these secret cults could be handed down for thousands of years.

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So Lovecraft is identifying two sources for this kind of story.

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First, in the American context, Salem seems to form a lot of the inspiration for this kind of story, and we've already explored this and found it to be a bit of a dead end.

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But Lovecraft also identifies that in other regions, different folklore and history might be responsible.

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While I was looking at Lovecraft's essay, I recalled Lovecraft mentioning a book called The Witch Cult in

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Western Europe by a Miss Murray in a few of his stories, like The Call of Cthulhu.

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So I decided to check out this book and see what I could find.

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Now, this is where it gets really interesting.

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The Witch Cult in Western Europe is a book written by Margaret Murray, who was an anthropologist in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

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This book was published in 1921 on, and presents a really interesting hypothesis, commonly referred to as the witch cult hypothesis.

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To quote the book itself, the hypothesis is roughly this.

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Underlying the Christian religion was a cult practiced by many classes of the community,

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chiefly, however, by the more ignorant or those in the less thickly inhabited parts of the country.

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It can be traced back to pre -Christian times and appears to be the ancient religion of Western Europe.

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Basically, Murray was arguing that there was originally an ancient pre -Christian religion in Western Europe, and when Christianity was spreading throughout Europe,

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a lot of people publicly adopted Christianity but secretly still practiced their original religion behind closed doors,

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especially in more remote areas where church organizations held less sway.

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Now that sounds more like it.

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We have all the elements of folk horror, an ancient sinister religion, and remote villages and it's european centric

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so this is starting to look a little bit more like

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the inspiration for the trope of a town with a secret cult in addition to this margaret murray was proposing

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that the witch cult was worshiping the horned god a deity

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which was being mistakenly conflated with the christian devil

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but was in fact a completely different pagan deity the witch

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cult in western europe is a pretty obscure book these days

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and margaret murray's theory was reaching a bit too far and tend to generalise too much.

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The Witch Cult hypothesis was increasingly criticised in the 1960s and early 1970s, which is why the book isn't well known today.

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In fact, I would have never found out about it if not for Lovecraft's references to it in The Call of Cthulhu.

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Regardless of its present obscurity, the Witch Cult in Western Europe received a fair bit of attention in academic circles at the time it was published,

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enough at least that lovecraft came into contact with it

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but also interesting is that the witch cult hypothesis was being criticized by academics in the 1960s

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and 70s about the same time that david pinner was writing ritual

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so all this stuff about witch cults was definitely in the air at the time

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and david pinner said that he was interested in witchcraft

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so maybe murray's novel was a bit of an inspiration for him there are a few clues

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that this might have been the case early on in David Pinner's novel Ritual, a priest refers to witchcraft as the quote, old religion.

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The term old religion, in reference to a witch cult, is something that Margaret Murray popularised,

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so it seems that David Pinner is using the same terminology that Murray used.

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It's not definite proof, since this might have been common terminology used in anthropology surrounding witchcraft,

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but it's a clue, and since it's in the early part of the novel, it's low -hanging fruit when it comes to illusions of literary inspiration.

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In addition, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is another piece of literature, and although Jackson was American,

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it shares the same human sacrifice to bring a bountiful harvest trope.

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I've done a previous video specifically about Shirley Jackson and witchcraft, so I happen to know that as a young woman,

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Jackson was obsessed with the idea of witchcraft and even wrote a book about the witch trials at Salem.

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More importantly she was also reading anthropological texts about witchcraft.

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I think it's fairly likely

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that Jackson may have come into contact with the witch cult in Western Europe at some point

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and even if she didn't she was reading other anthropological texts about witchcraft

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so it's easy to see how she could have come to

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the idea of a small town with a hidden cult practicing human sacrifice anyway i feel

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that the witch cult in western europe is kind of like a missing piece of the puzzle

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when it comes to the origin of the remote village with a secret cult trope

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because it contains the seed of a major horror trope a religion

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which is practiced in secret in remote rural places i'm not saying

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that it's the holy grail that explains the entire origin of folk horror

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but we can see where the ideas about paganism

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and secret religions were starting to come into the societal consciousness business and into horror literature.

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187 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 198 sentences and 3118 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:32. The speaker talks at a natural 160 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 75% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
horror noun	/ˈhɒɹ.ə/	An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.
folk noun	/foʊk/	People, persons.
inspiration noun	/ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/	The drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm, as part of the act of breathing.
ritual noun	/ˈɹɪt͡ʃ.u.əl/	A rite; a repeated set of actions, especially in religious contexts.
devil noun	/ˈdɛvəl/	An evil creature, the objectification of a hostile and destructive force.
sacrifice noun	/ˈsæk.ɹɪ.faɪs/	Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity.
essay noun	/ˈɛs.eɪ/	A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject.
hypothesis noun	/haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/	A tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem and that can be tested by further observation, investigation, or…
sinister adjective	/ˈsɪ.nɪ.stəɹ/	Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate.
mystery noun	/ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/	Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown.
remote adjective	/ɹəˈməʊt̞/	At a distance; disconnected.
clue noun	/kluː/	Information which may lead one to a certain point or conclusion.
genre noun	/ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə/	A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.
literary adjective	/ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/	Relating to literature.
worship noun	/ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/	The devotion accorded to a deity or to a sacred object.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come up with verb		To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
hand down verb		To transmit in succession, as from father to son, or from predecessor to successor.
hide behind verb		To use someone or something as a shield in order to avoid taking responsibility for something; to avoid attention by using someone or something as a shield.
look up verb	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	To have better prospects.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 22 contractions and reduced forms, such as doesn't, isn't, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, thriller /ˈθɹɪ.lə/, grandfather /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌfɑðɚ/, anthropology /ˌænθɹəˈpɑləd͡ʒi/, anthropological /æn.θɹə.pəˈlɑd͡ʒikəl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, genre /ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə/, worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, literary /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, supernatural /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like horror, folk, inspiration.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was published · being observed · isn't written
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	Brown, which was · religion which can · Trials, which are
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have turned · we've already explored · I've done

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: The Origins of Folk Horror - Learn English Speaking with Video

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