Fingers, frogs and fairies

In a John Behan bronze, collector Jacqueline O’Donovan, a child of the Irish diaspora, can sense the desperation of a starving people forced to flee their land

1 SALUTING MAGPIES This centuries-old practice is still common across the British isles in rural and urban communities alike. The magpie is commonly associated with death – perhaps because, legend say

Clear quartz, cold to the touch, but burning to the skin, hinted at great healing and scrying powers, especially when fashioned into a sphere. The Antiques Roadshow jewellery specialist Geoffrey Munn has a talisman of his own

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

Unfairly maligned as a sneaky troublemaker, the quicksilver ferret is a characterful, curious and highly intelligent creature–with fascinating regal and cultural trappings to boot, writes Octavia Pollock

In March 1457, a short, slight widow left Pembroke Castle to embark on a 100-mile journey across territories stalked by civil war and pestilence. Her husband had died only four months earlier, carried