We cover here the range of material that comes under folklore and cultural tradition, including legends, customs, folk magic and others
Rosemary Pardoe’s article ‘The wolf that wasn’t’ in NE181 sparked some interesting correspondence, published in NE182. Below is the full text from Vita sancti Edmundi (Life of St Edmund) by Abbo of Fleury, translated into Old English by Ælfric around the year 1000. It describes the miraculous story of St Edmund’s head being guarded by […]
St Edmund and the Wolf Read More »
This is an updated version of John Billingsley’s article in Northern Earth 181. A memory popped into mind some months ago as I was driving along a stretch of road near my home in West Yorkshire. It was an image of that stretch at some point in the early to mid/late 1990s when the roadside
Getting it down on tape Read More »
By Eric Fitch This article is a companion to Eric Fitch’s article ‘H.G. Wells and the megaliths’ in Northern Earth 180 (Summer 2025). Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was best known for his seminal science fiction, but he was a polymath – as novelist, prophet and popular educator – who spanned the Victorian and the atomic
H.G. Wells and King Arthur Read More »
By Simon Crook And if you flung her headdress on her from under her highlows you’d wheeze whyse Salmonson set his seel on a hexengown – James Joyce, Finnegans Wake ‘an orangefiery shipload from the planet Alpha’ On 10 December 2023, 32 days into navigating a family bereavement, I learnt of a recently discovered Roman
‘The foal seeks the pasture’: A hexagonal Roman shrine in Hampshire Read More »
Many stones around Britain bear the name ‘pennystone’, and have often been explained as plague stones. John Billingsley (with a little help from Robin Hood) cures these stones of their ague Near Halifax in W Yorkshire, on Midgley Moor, and at one time on a hillside at Wainstalls, you could find large boulders called
An Unlawful Game: Robin Hood and Pennystone Read More »
With tales of oak and mistletoe, holy wells and miraculous images, John Palmer takes us to meet the Virgin Mary in the old wetlands of Flanders Many of the houses lining the Veertien Bunderslaan, in Blaasveld, have a miniature wooden chapel attached, each containing an image representing the Virgin Mary; the lane leads towards
The Little Chapel of the Fourteen Bunders, Netherlands Read More »
Arthur O’Neill recounts how a chance visit to an old church in the Leeds area led to an investigation into Tudor magic We are very fortunate to have ancient churches because they preserve much of historic interest. I enjoy visiting village churches whenever I pass through a place new to me. I was on
Whither we are led… Ledsham and Ledston in Leodis (Leeds) Read More »
Folk cures for humans as well as beasts involved the medical, the magical and sometimes the simply mystifying. Peter Watson reveals some of the techniques in traditional and historical medical practice The library of Chetham’s school in Manchester contains a remarkable if largely forgotten herbal, beautifully written and illuminated in a hand of the early
Folk Medicine and Magic in Lancashire Read More »
A Yorkshire tale of presences and mysteries, related for us by Jo Hirons What happens to those places which have a reputation for being ‘haunted’, and which may have a record of disturbances’ going back many years, once their topography changes beyond recognition? Remembrances of previous buildings may be preserved to retain ‘character’ in the
Robert W E Farrah looks into the esoteric furore ignited by a new public artwork in Carlisle The Curse In the very heart of the city of Carlisle, as the new millennium was beginning, a tale of the supernatural was unfolding which would be worthy of the wild imaginings of many a horror writer.
The Archbishop’s Stone and the Great Curse Read More »