Fancy a folkloric read? Check out #FolkloreThursday’s books!

Fancy a folkloric read? Check out FolkloreThursday’s books!

Fancy a folkloric read? Check out FolkloreThursday’s books!

David Castleton explores a curious local tradition in Glentham, Lincolnshire, which seems to merge folkloric traditions with Christian rituals.

Folklore changes and evolves with the peoples and their societies. It’s not rigid, it’s not concrete. As time passes, new characters emerge and others get their stories and features improved. Some may also disappear. This character (or monster!) I talk about in this post is quite modern – and scares many people, just by being so. Let’s meet A Loira do Banheiro (The Fair-haired Lady from the Toilet).

There are many different kinds of shapeshifting and here we look at different examples from Ireland, Wales and Scotland that provide differing glimpses of shapeshifters in action in the myth, folklore, and tradition of these three Celtic nations.

Folklore and tales form a gigantic living web that threads through our cultures and societies. I see it as analogous to mycelium, the fungal mesh beneath the ground: a gigantic, intricate system of connection that feeds and informs the trees and plants that sprout above the surface whilst quietly spreading, putting out feelers, thriving.

At present I am tangled in brambles and ivy, steeped in acorns and oak and painting the rhythm of the air as it moves through the feathers of a raven’s wing. I am working, as ever, on a new book, The Lost Words, written by Robert MacFarlane, illustrated by me, to be published by Hamish […]
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