Chasing Fog

Finding Enchantment in a Cloud

Laura Pashby

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781398527003
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythic Literary Criticism

‘A delight for anyone whose heart thumps at the sight of dawn, dusk and hazy light’ Nell Frizzell

At first, I didn’t find fog – fog found me.
 
Liminal, transformative and increasingly elusive – far from a simple cloud of water droplets, fog is a state of mind. As mist drifted through a copse of trees, turning a familiar place strange and otherworldly, Laura Pashby snapped a photograph and an obsession began.
 
Pashby hunts for fog, walks and swims in it, explores its often pivotal role in literature, mythology and history, as well as its environmental significance. There has been a 50 per cent drop in 'fog events' in the past fifty years, fog is drifting away without us noticing and the ecological impact could be calamitous.

As she journeys to the foggiest places she can find, Pashby immerses herself in Dartmoor’s dangerous fog, searches for the Scottish haar, experiences Venice’s magical mist, tell us the myths behind the River Severn’s fog and the shipwrecks it hides.
 
It’s easy to get lost in fog, but sometimes it’s where imperceptible things can be found, including in ourselves. Chasing Fog is a captivating meditation on fog and mist, a love song to weather and nature’s power to transform.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: With Vision Obscured – River Severn
• Chapter 2: My Fog-Self – Dartmoor
• Chapter 3: Lost in the Fog – Meirionnydd, Wales
• Chapter 4: The Haunted In-Between – East Anglian Fens
• Chapter 5: The Fog Horn – Devon and Cornwall Coast
• Chapter 6: Scent of the Sea – East Coast of Scotland
• Chapter 7: Sensing Other Worlds – Beara Peninsula, Ireland
• Chapter 8: The Flavour of Fog – River Thames
• Chapter 9: Transformed by the Fog – Venice, Italy
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Copyright