Just Hanging Around: The Gallows in English Folklore
The gallows play a dark role in the history of punishment, but also show an important influence in folklore, folk practices, and even everyday language.
Fighting Magic With Magic in Italy: The Good Walkers
The Benandanti were a surprising third party in the fight of good versus evil in Medieval Italy; one that not even the Holy Inquisition could make sense of.
Animal Folklore: A Mole in the Hand
Today, moles are usually unappreciated residents of our gardens and fields, but they are embedded in folklore and for centuries were used in remedies.
Peterborough: Folklore from a Neglected Corner of England
The city of Peterborough in the east of England and its surrounding region is one of the few English areas that has not previously benefitted from a thorough study of its folklore.
A Californian Krampus
Relentlessly sunny and known for a love of trend over tradition, Los Angeles is an unlikely home to a new incarnation of the old Alpine devil. It helps, perhaps, that make-believe is serious business in my town, and that it’s filled with creative people prone to see in an old tradition of folk Catholicism a revolutionary way to shake up the holidays.