Until the 20th century, the inadequacies of orthodox medical services left a large proportion of the population dependent upon traditional folk medicine – essentially a mixture of common sense remedies based on the accumulated experience of nursing and midwifery, combined with inherited lore about the healing properties of plants.
The folklore of iron and smithing has been common since prehistory, and one of the oldest folktales tells of a blacksmith forging a deal with the devil.
Between St Distaff’s Day 2020 and Twelfth Night 2021, I practiced ritual year folklore every day, my experiences becoming Everyday Folklore: An Almanac for the ritual year, a practical guide on how to engage with folklore all year round.
The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation addresses everything from piskies – south west Britain’s fairies – to mermaids, harvest festivals, a corpse visiting his betrothed, and the giants long noted for making the Cornish peninsula their home. And amid all this are the spirits of the mines – knockers together with the tommyknockers, their New World descendants.
When you think of tarot cards, do you picture a fortune teller predicting your untimely end in a darkened room? Do you think they’re evil? Thankfully, as you’ll soon discover, the former is unlikely and the latter is simply wrong. Let’s investigate the history and folklore of this much-maligned form of divination.
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