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.
Spirits of Place is an anthology examining the relationship between place and narrative: how stories, folkloric or historic, become embedded in a location.
In North America, legends of haunted places often claim they have been built on an “Indian burial ground.” Indigenous burial ground urban legends are so widely shared they’ve become a part of popular culture. Writers used them repeatedly as a literary device in horror until they became a comedic cliché and eventually a meme.
Paul Watson reviews a collection of essays which explores case studies of the associated folklore of landscape and place in countries throughout the world.
While landscape changes and stories decay, the marriage of the two – folklore – remains the constant dance in our collective memory.
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