All articles in Folklore
30th July, 2019 in Folklore, Local & Family History
Buckinghamshire: Where old and new sit side-by-side
Buckinghamshire is an ancient county with flowing rivers, Iron Age trackways, Roman roads, and the Chiltern Hills cutting their path across it. Where its woods once hid outlaws and highwaymen and its proximity to London made it popular with royalty, now busy motorways and new tow…
1st July, 2019 in Folklore
‘We’re still here’: Lost voices from Wales to America
In June 2019, I was in Morgantown, West Virginia, hanging an exhibition of Welsh folk art in the Monongalia Arts Center. On the opening night, a lady told me her mother had organised a Welsh Eisteddfod in Morgantown up until the early 1960s, a lady from the St David’s Society of…
5th June, 2019 in Folklore, Natural World
Bringing forests to life through the power of stories
“Beware the deep dark wood” they say, “stay on the path, do not wonder or you shall be lost forever.” The forests and woodlands of this world have forever held a special place in our hearts. When we were but cavemen, these mysterious and dangerous places stretched across the land…
5th June, 2019 in Folklore
Here be dragons
Dragons, or dragon-like creatures, can be found in almost every mythology in the world. No-one knows where the original idea came from or what inspired it although there are many theories which range from an inherited, species-wide genetic fear of snakes, to the discovery of dino…
5th June, 2019 in Folklore
Piskeys, Night-riders and Jack ‘o’ Lanterns: Fairies in Cornish folklore
As a child growing up in a Cornish village, I had a fairy tree covered in ivy at the bottom of my garden. I left the fairies offerings of flower petals, food and petal perfumed water. My sister and I believed in fairies and imagined them co-existing with us as we ran through the…
15th May, 2019 in Folklore, Local & Family History, Natural World
What lies beneath…
The Earth, on whose surface we live out most of our life, has been described as ‘the deep manuscript of time’ – a book of solid and molten rock, written in minerals and moisture, fire and ice. It is a long, slow book, once you dip even a little way below its surface, and look ben…
24th April, 2018 in Folklore, Local & Family History
Finding the folk tales
‘How do you find your stories?’ is the most common question asked of storytellers. The answer is simply, ‘everywhere’: by opening a book, searching the internet, but most of all from other people. The oral tradition, the passing on of stories and songs to one another, is es…
18th April, 2018 in Folklore, Local & Family History, True Crime
Who put Bella in the wych elm?
Watching the many detective series on television it is easy to form the opinion that murderers are always caught. Sadly, that is not the case and one mysterious death in Worcestershire has gone unsolved for seventy five years. At the height of the Second World War four young…
21st March, 2018 in Folklore
Flower fairies – fey or fearsome?
In a place called Mathavarn, in Llanwrin, there was a wood called Ffridd yr Ywen, the Forest of the Yew. It was said the Tylwyth Teg lived there….. When I first started out as a storyteller, I wanted to find stories that spoke of the plants and animals and character of the landsc…
21st March, 2018 in Folklore, Local & Family History
Essex landscapes and ghost tales
One of the most evocative descriptions of the Essex landscape is the first chapter of the Sabine Baring Gould’s book Mehalah. He writes of Mersea Island, ‘A more desolate region can scarcely be conceived and yet it is not without beauty.’ This is true of many Essex landscapes tha…
12th January, 2018 in Folklore, Local & Family History
Dublin Folk Tales For Children – Quest for the Smelly River
When writing Dublin Folk Tales For Children, I was (in part by necessity!) strongly inspired by ‘place’. Not just a geographical place, however, but also an emotional and sensory place. This for me was the Dublin that smelled of salty shores, sugary teas and ripe rive…
5th December, 2017 in Folklore
Suffolk ghost tales
All places have ghost stories. Laurie Lee, in Cider with Rosie, says, ‘There were ghosts in the stones, in the trees, and the walls, and every field and hill had several.’ He’s talking about Gloucestershire, but, even now, a hundred years on from when Lee was a boy, it still hold…