Collectable Mermaids and the Myth of the Merrow
The early sirens, the ones Odysseus encountered, were not fish at all but bird-women, but they had those great siren qualities – bewitching songs and the will to lure the unwitting to a bad end.
The 2019 Boggart Census: Surveying the Supernatural
Simon Young is gathering in material for a boggart census, a survey of the last people who grew up with talk of the north’s most mysterious folk monster. Can you help?
The Medieval Robin Hood: Folk Carnivals and Ballads
Robin Hood is known by everyone as the English outlaw hero, dashing through the greenwood with his band of merry men to rob from the rich and give to the poor, before feasting on poached deer under the stars.
Forest Folk Tales for Children: Of Hobs, Dragons, Witches and More!
Twenty-two thousand words, research of folk tales from across the UK and 2 months to do it. What had I gotten myself in for? One heck of a ride, that’s for sure, but was it worth it?
Tellers of Tales
Folklore is at heart oral and behavioural traditions, so the notion of written folklore is somewhat oxymoronic. Any attempt to preserve oral traditions in writing involves a transformation of the material