Fancy a folkloric read? Check out #FolkloreThursday’s books!
Fancy a folkloric read? Check out FolkloreThursday’s books!
The Four-Leaf Clover: Druids, Eden, and… Handbags?
Generally, clover represents protection, fertility and abundance, but where does the widespread belief in a four leaf clover’s good luck come from?
21st-Century Victoriana: Our love letter to the dark
Within our current society of filtered perfection and aggressive online happiness, there is something oddly refreshing in the macabre.
The Boggart: A Study in Shadows
I became fascinated by boggarts about a decade ago. If I turned to the fairy and folklore dictionaries, I learnt that a boggart was a type of house goblin or perhaps, at a stretch, a poltergeist.
From Oracle Ox to Gorse Goddess: Taking Lore Seriously in ‘Folk’
Writers have long retold folk tales just as musicians have reinterpreted folk songs. But when writing Folk, I aimed not to tell old tales but to imbue the world of the novel with folklore, both real and imagined.
Mark Twain’s Wild West and the Presidential Election of 1872
In a daring act, facing frightful peril, Mark Twain exploited a legend to launch his onstage comic career. With his future as a lecturer on a knife’s edge, Twain decided to open with a worn-out narrative that had seen better days. A disgruntled audience nearly drove him from the stage … until they understood his brilliant manipulation of their own folklore.