Welsh Lake Legends and Folklore: Llyn Barfog, the Female Dwellers of Annwn and King Arthur and the Afanc
In Wales, legends and folklore of King Arthur and the Otherworld are never far away, and lakes are often the settings for such stories.
Harbingers of Heaven: Chinese Dragons of Earth and Sea
Chinese dragons are believed to be symbols of good luck and wisdom, bearers of immense power, and controllers of the sea and the weather.
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.
Sex, Murder, and the Myth of the Wild West: How a Soiled Dove Earned a Heart of Gold
In the summer of 1960 at the age of five, I joined an honored folk tradition by telling my first Comstock lie. It was about a sex worker who had transformed into a legend of the Wild West.
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.