We cover here the range of material that comes under folklore and cultural tradition, including legends, customs, folk magic and others
Once a charm, now a design element; but John Billingsley considers if the crossed W has become a subconscious metaphor of its traditional symbolism? In NE165 we asked for readers’ impressions of two varieties of the letter W, and this article reports on our feedback as well as suggesting how the image aspect […]
The Marian Mark W: An afterlife, metaphorically Read More »
When Britain’s last deep coal mine closed, I found myself conflicted* between my environmentalist, folklorist and political identities, in all of which coal miners and their industry have played an important role. My overwhelming feeling in the end was one of sadness and loss, focussed on the communities and the values they represented. Folklore, they
The Last Shift: RIP Kellingley Coal Mine 2016 Read More »
Eileen Roche dives into a folklore trope, and recommends ‘suspend disbelief here’ The subject of Treacle Mines has a long and interesting history, which I suspect will be of interest to some NE readers. I first became aware of their existence when some friends took me for a walk one hot summer’s day on
A homespun pharmacopeia was once more than simple folklore, as Mark Greener shows Folklore often contains kernels of truth. In 1568, for example, gardeners in England began cultivating Goat’s Rue (Galega officinalis). First recorded in the wild in 1640, Goat’s Rue (also called French Lilac or Italian Fitch) is now a common wildflower.1 Healers
Britain’s herbal heritage: Folklore and a kernel of truth Read More »
In NE145, a review of the ‘Celts’ exhibition that took place in London and Edinburgh observed the curiosity of a wooden keg assumed to have held drink being made from the highly toxic yew. Mark Greener considered the implications. At first sight, yew isn’t the wood you’d choose for a tankard, bucket or barrel.
Yew’ll drink to that? Read More »
Digging through old newspapers can bring some strange rewards, as Kai Roberts found in West Yorkshire Sowood House (Kai Roberts) Situated at the junction of Coley Road with the A644 between Hipperholme and Stone Chair in the dispersed settlement of Coley on the hills above Halifax (W Yorks), Sowood House is a minor but typical
The Screaming Skull Of Sowood House Read More »
Did those feet in ancient time belong to the Devil – or to giants? Kai Roberts calls the question in relation to a Yorkshire legend Unlike many regions in the S Pennines, including neighbouring districts such as Longdendale, Saddleworth and the Calder Valley, there is a dearth of landscape legends associated with the upland
Old Nick and the Child o’th’Edge: Some Pennine giant lore Read More »
Kai Roberts reports on a stone and a borrowed story of boggart behaviour in West Yorkshire Ellen Royd, Elland, and its ‘boggart chair’ in 2001 (John Billingsley) In June last year, an incongruous gritstone boulder was deposited in the memorial garden of Jepson Lane in Elland. Doubtless many casual
Don’t Boggart That Joint: Elland’s Boggart Chair Read More »
One of the harbingers of spring in the north country was Spaw Sunday. John Billingsley reports on a recent revival The blessing in 2010 (Roy Collinge) About 100 people turned up at Cragg Spa, in Cragg Vale, W Yorkshire, on Spaw Sunday (1st Sunday in May – in 2010 falling on
Spaw Sunday at a Calder Valley well Read More »
Traditional healing takes many forms and can be found in unlikely places… John Billingsley came across some curious Japanese traditions in an Orkney showcase. On a trip to Orkney, I came across a page of a diary written by J J H Scharbau,1 a doctor visiting Japan in 1874 and evidently diligently collecting traditional cures
A Japanese water healing pharmacopeia of 1874 Read More »