Cooking Up Local Stories and Folklore

Cook, his crew and the natural scientists aboard his ships came across a limitless wealth of plant and animal life, much of which was completely alien to them. They described, drew and classified them for the first time. The specimens they brought home from their expeditions captivated a public eager to be associated with a brave new world of scientific endeavour. Discover their amazement at seeing a kangaroo and collecting and trading exotic specimens with the indigenous peoples, like the rainbow lorikeet, and the countless hours drawing and painting plants, such as Banksia.

"In 2010, writer and broadcaster Bob Fischer was fascinated to discover a marker stone on windswept Gisborough Moor that bore the legend 'Hob on the Hill', and the date 1798. Who - or what - was the 'Hob', and what was it doing on an ancient Bronze Age burial site in this remote area of the North Yorkshire Moors?

Bob's further investigations led to the commissioning of his acclaimed 2014 BBC Tees radio documentary Worms, Witches and Boggarts, as well as articles in the Fortean Times magazine and, ultimately, this entertaining lecture on the legends of the North Yorkshire hobs.