Werewolves that Fish and Fight in Battles: The Scottish Wulver and Irish Faoladh in Folklore
Werewolves. The name alone conjures up nightmarish images from our current pop culture horror films starring this shapeshifting man-wolf.
A Coin for the Ferryman: Charon and the Journey to Hades
There was a time when the living covered the mouths of their dead with a single coin before their final goodbye.
‘May I have some water?’ The Fair-Haired Lady from the Toilet
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).
Gruesome Folk Healing: The Curious Cures for Warts and Wens
These remedies, many of them fairly gruesome to our ears, were recorded only 100 years ago by Mrs Ella Mary Leather at the beginning of the 20th century, from the towns and villages of Herefordshire. Here are the folk memories of people who remembered these remedies being used and, what’s more, being efficacious. They are […]
A ghost story that caused a riot: the strange case of Maude Carew
In February 1862 a riot broke out in a Suffolk churchyard over a ghost story. Margaretta Greene, the story’s author, originated an enduring legend of the ghost of a nun, Maude Carew, who haunts the ruins of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. But the story of Maude Carew, and the riot she inspired, raises intriguing questions about the origins of folklore and beliefs about the supernatural.