Another lake, another spine-tingling myth, this time in picturesque Snowdonia – specifically, the mountain of Cader Idris, which derives its name (meaning Chair of Idris) from the giant said to have created his seat in this lofty spot. Beware of pitching your tent here overnight, as legend warns that anyone slumbering on Idris’s seat will wake up either a madman or a poet. There’s another story haunting Cader Idris in Wales: its glacial lake Llyn Cau is rumoured to be bottomless. But that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a very popular wild swimming spot.
The United Kingdom has lost a lot over the years, but a sense of quirky mystique isn’t among them. After all, this is where you’ll find the real Shire, the fabled forests of yesteryear and more eccentric literature than the average imagination can conceive. This is the land of dragons, witches, hobbits, ghosts, fairies and a bizarre owl/man hybrid, and that’s just the tip of this most idiosyncratic of icebergs. There are no shortage of magical and mystical places in the UK.
Almost every town in the UK offers something that could easily find its way onto this list, but what follows below is the cream of the curious crop. A mix of day trips, weekend adventures and longer journeys, the term ‘warts and all’ has never been so apt, and that is definitely a good thing. These are places where myths and legends come to life, where the paranormal coexist a little too well with the expected.
Thought the United Kingdom was a little weird? You have no idea just how ‘out there’ the world’s biggest little country can get.
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