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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Steven Morris

Ashburton casts a spell as witches and writers gather for folklore festival

Helen Bruce, storyteller, holds a dog while standing next to a well
Helen Bruce will lead a festival walk exploring tales of spectral black dogs. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The Guardian

Stroll through the Devon town of Ashburton, or pop into the Old Exeter Inn on West Street, and you’re almost bound to bump into a storyteller, a mythologist, a pagan – perhaps even a friendly witch.

The town on the edge of craggy Dartmoor, home to about 4,000 people, is becoming a magnet to those drawn to the old folky ways and the reimagining of 21st-century versions of earthy rural traditions.

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