Meet the Hulders (Whether You Want to or Not)
The Norwegian hulder-folk pursue Christian-folk – kidnapping their children, making them their partners and servants, and getting their help to steal food.
Diving for stories – Wild Waves & Wishing Wells
If the body of Ireland is The Emerald Isle, then surely it follows that her veins are made of sapphire? The (true) story goes: that there is nowhere in Ireland that is further than sixty(ish) miles from the sea, and inland there are forty five thousand(ish) miles of waterways and a good pouring of lakes and ponds, then it’s no surprise that water appears central to many of our myths and stories.
Piskies, Knockers and Tommyknockers – Cornwall’s Misunderstood Folklore
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.
The Top 3 Japanese Ghosts
19th century Japan was obsessed with ghost stories. These stories are so influential that they serve as direct inspiration for today’s horror films.
Suffragette Mary de Morgan: England’s First Feminist Fairy Tale Writer?
Ask anyone for the names of the great fairy tale tellers, But hardly anyone will mention Mary de Morgan, Pre-Raphaelite, suffragette, and one of England’s first feminist fairy tale writers.