“The idea that drives the subgenre is the survival of ancient cults, usually in remote rural areas, a mere step away from our ‘civilised’ surroundings…in folk horror the past always returns to haunt us.”
-from “Archaeology and Folk Horror in Hellebore” (2020) by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
In 2019, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo launched Hellebore, a heavily researched, visually delicious magazine dedicated to British folk horror, psychogeography, weird history, and the occult. Like talismanic grimoires of the Middle Ages–which brought together all kinds of demonologies, languages, symbols, and popular beliefs–Hellebore is a syncretic masterpiece, a work that evokes not only memories of the past, but also visions of the future.
It’s hardly surprising that the new magazine sprang from the archaeology-minded and widely published Cuervo. A veteran storyteller with an insatiable appetite for esoterica, strange fiction, and dark folklore, she has bylines at a number of outlets, including The Daily Grail, Folklore Thursday, Mental Floss, and the Fortean Times.
We caught up with Cuervo to learn more about her influences and forthcoming projects.
The Custodian: Could you tell us more about your archaeological work? What initially inspired you to pursue archaeology as a course of study?
Maria J. Pérez Cuervo: When I finished my degree in Journalism, I knew I didn’t want to work for a newspaper. I think I only studied Journalism because I liked writing and travelling. I’d grown up reading my dad’s books on anthropology, mythology, archaeology and ancient history, and did my A-level equivalents in Latin and Greek, which I loved. After I graduated, I got a job as an archivist. And then I came to England. I didn’t feel confident enough to write in my second language, so I got a job in a shop and enrolled in a masters in Archaeology for Screen Media, because I thought I could try and work in documentary production, and archaeology remained one of my favourite subjects.
Most of the work I did for my MA was about archaeology and re-enchantment, or about why archaeology remains associated with occult and supernatural themes in popular culture. I now do freelance communication in commercial archaeology, which is somewhat more conventional, but I keep researching and writing about its connection with the occult—in Hellebore, of course, but also in other publications.
C: You’ve said that you occasionally see demon-like beings during sleep
paralysis. How have these experiences shaped your writing and general
understanding of occult phenomena?
MC: Yes, I’ve had sleep paralysis for many years. I used to find it deeply distressing, but then I learned about what it was, as my mum and other people I know had it too. So I started telling myself “it’s fine, this is just a dream”, and with this it became slightly less horrifying. Still, I can only tell myself I’m dreaming once I realise I cannot move, and I only realise I cannot move when I’m trying to escape whatever is by my bed, so for a few seconds, or even minutes, I believe these things I’m seeing are real.
I also experience false awakenings often. They always follow this pattern: I wake up and there’s something by my bed. Then I wake up (really wake up) screaming, and turns out there was nothing there. These experiences feel so real that it’s inevitable to be aware of how fragile our concept of reality is, and how it can be shaped by so many things.
The fear of having something around your bed is a primordial one. I remember being 2 or so and unable to comprehend why my parents were sending me to another bedroom where I was supposed to sleep on my own, in the dark. My mum and my grandma taught me a prayer in Spanish that I was supposed to say before bedtime. It was similar to “four corners to my bed, four angels round my head”.
Angels were supposed to be these holy creatures that protect you, but the thought of having four supernatural beings around my bed, whatever their intentions, terrified me. I realised very soon that, if you believe in angels, you also have to believe in demons, and that if you believe in an afterlife, you also have to believe in ghosts. So I suppose it was my Catholic background, which was more or less the norm in Spain in the ’80s, that made me think about all these things.
C: How did you approach Hellebore from a design standpoint? Did you
encourage the design team to pay homage to any particular vintage or
present-day works?
MC: I contacted the designer and art director, Nathaniel Winter-Hébert, because we’ve been online friends for a long time, and his aesthetic sensibilities are very much in tune with mine. We worked with a secret Pinterest board where I had pinned all the aesthetic influences I wanted to evoke in Hellebore, mostly, Czech and Polish film posters from the ’60s and ’70s, and some occult magazines and film posters from the same time period.
Nathaniel then gathered some typefaces that appeared in these. The one he chose for the Hellebore masthead is actually an Edwardian typeface, which is really fitting, as the roots of literary folk horror go back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Then he started working his magic and he created something I think is quite unique, integrating all our references: Victorian and Edwardian elements, a bit of surrealism and psychedelia, the murky and grainy finish of old school zines—all coming together with modern sensibilities and a fresh colour palette.
C: Do you collect folk horror memorabilia like album covers and movie
posters? If so, which items in your collection do you cherish the most
and why?
MC: I’m not really a collector, possibly because I’ve moved houses so many times in my life that I got used to not accumulating stuff. If anything, I collect books, but I’m not at all obsessive. Among my favourite ones are the vintage copies of Margaret Murray’s The God of the Witches and of [James] Frazer’s The Golden Bough.
C: In these tumultuous times, why do you think re-enchantment is
so important?
MC: There is this idea, that comes from [Max] Weber, that modernity is disenchanted, that we live in times that are fundamentally rational. And you often hear the argument that capitalism is the only viable economic system (Mark Fisher called it “capitalist realism”), and that other alternatives are unrealistic and unimaginable, nothing more than utopias.
Capitalism is driven by the pursuit of individual means, and it comes with a profound sense of alienation from the natural world and from others around us. But if we move towards re-enchantment, we can engage with nature and with others in ways that are outside the frame described by capitalism. Re-enchantment allows us to imagine better alternatives, draw meaningful relationships, and have more fulfilling lives. And the feeling of being part of a community is powerful.
C: Anything you’d like to share about your forthcoming novel?
MC: During lockdown, I found myself with more time to write than I had in the last few years, so I thought perhaps it was time to “write the damned novel”. I’ve had this idea in my head for years now, and I’ve planned and plotted it almost obsessively, but I find the prospect of writing a novel so daunting I’m still not entirely sure I won’t give up.
For me, as a reader, fiction has always been an escape, so I feel drawn to creating a story that can also deliver that for other people. And because we’re living through such difficult times, it’s been a comforting place to retire to for a few minutes at a time. All I can say is that it does have elements of folk horror and the occult, and it’s set in England, in the first half of the twentieth century.
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