Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project

A project exploring the origins, legacies, connections and futures of folk tales in Lincolnshire, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2/2024-7/2025) and hosted at Nottingham Trent University.



Our books:
Rory Waterman, Devils in the Details: On Location with Folk Tales in England’s Forgotten County (Five Leaves, 2026), exploring folk tales across Lincolnshire, and the places associated with them.
Anna Milon and Rory Waterman (eds), Lincolnshire Folk Tales Reimagined (Five Leaves, 2025), featuring fourteen of Lincolnshire’s finest writers reimagining local folk tales.

news
  • Dr Anna Milon Anna was the Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project throughout its AHRC-funded duration, from February 2024 until July 2025. She is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate on Project StoryMachine, so this is a ‘guest post’, but also not quite a guest post! The hamlet…

Latest Articles
  • Gibraltar Point Fog Horse

    Gibraltar Point Fog Horse

    Legend has it that a farmer on his way to Skegness Market tried to take his horse on a shortcut along the beach at Gibraltar…

  • A Personal Perspective on Lincolnshire Folklore

    Recently I had the pleasure of talking to a friend of mine called Rob, a Lincolnshire local who grew up and still lives in North…

  • Rantanning

    Rantanning

    Ran-tan-ning or Ran-tan-tan, an onomatopoeically named custom of delivering folk justice to disproportionately violent members of a community (here, a domestic abuser). Ethel Rudkin records…

  • Gibbery Gap

    At Micklow Hill (Michael-low-hill), near the North Lincolnshire village of Kirmington, a battle took place during the English Civil Wars, between the forces of Parliament…

About the project

‘Lincolnshire Folk Tales: Origins, Legacies, Connections, Futures’ is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/Y003225/1), and is led by Dr Rory Waterman and the Research Fellow Dr Anna Milon in the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. The project explores the origins, legacies, intertextual and social connections and futures of Lincolnshire folk tales (LFTs), and is intended to facilitate wider engagement with this heritage from writers, the general public, and scholars.