Cock Lane and Common-Sense

A careful, conversational inquiry, this work tackles the long‑standing rivalry between folklore scholars and psychical researchers. The author shows how both camps readily discuss myths and rural superstitions, yet quickly dismiss firsthand accounts from respectable, educated witnesses. By laying out a series of baffling cases—ghostly knockings, fire‑walking feats, crystal‑gazing visions—the book asks whether these phenomena belong solely to “savage belief” or deserve serious anthropological attention.

Drawing on historic episodes such as the 1716 disturbances at a clergyman’s parsonage and a 19th‑century diary documenting similar happenings, the writer argues that strange experiences form a continuous thread through human culture. Rather than offering a definitive explanation, the text invites listeners to reconsider the boundaries of “common sense” and to see the uncanny as a genuine, if puzzling, part of our shared heritage.