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.
Speaking to the Dead: Necromancy in Magic and Folklore
So, what is necromancy and what does it have to do with folklore? Come with me, and let’s enter the peculiar world of death divination…
Why Werewolves Eat People: Cannibalism in the Werewolf Narrative
The one constant throughout visual and literary representations of the werewolf is the willing – or unwilling – consumption of human flesh. This trope is drawn directly from the ancient origin of the werewolf myth.
Black Arts and Talismans: Huw Llwyd, the Real Welsh Wizard
Huw Llwyd, the Welsh wizard, has been immortalised in the folklore and fairy tales of Wales, his fantastic exploits told and re-told down the ages.
Fact or Fiction? The Fate of the Witchfinder General
here is no name from the period of England’s witch trials more infamous than that of Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled witchfinder who was instrumental in the witch-panic that swept East Anglia in the middle of the 17th century.