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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 Hykeham. Having spent the last couple of months planning events and researching in archives, I was interested in a more personal perspective on Lincolnshire folklore…
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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 and those of the King. One Royalist soldier, who had been disembowelled, tried to reach Kirmington. He went through a hedge-gap and crossed Caistor Lane (now Caistor Road). But he…
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Th’ Lad ‘at Wantid to Larn to Shuther an’ Shak
The tale is reset into a local milieu, and is one of the most entertaining things I’ve read in a long time. It’s rendered quite down-to-earth, despite the fantastic elements: the hero isn’t stupid like in the original; the apparitions and boggards he encounters have a local air about them
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The Gaps in History where the Stories Grow
“What’s the one landscape you would want to avoid after dark?” Virginia Crow weaves a compelling hypothesis about the origins and fate of the Amcotts Moor Woman, a bog body discovered in 1747 and shrouded in mystery to this day…
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For Want of a Hunt
The Wild Hunt is a folkloric motif well known across the British Isles and on the Continent. Its basic structure is that of a supernatural procession, rushing through the night sky or along desolate roads during a storm, accompanied by an uncanny noise. The motif was named by Jacob Grimm in his Deutsche Mythologie
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The Monster of the Marsh
Dragons! Who doesn’t love dragons? As a boy, I battled them in dreams. As a teenager, I revelled in cryptozoology and Tolkien’s writing. And as an adult fleeing London, yomping with terriers across the otherworldly Lincolnshire Marsh, I was delighted to discover that even in so unpretentious a place there might be monsters.
Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project 