All the tales below are also available via our Folk Tale Map. We would love to publish your comments on the blog posts, or hear your suggestions for new ones. Please get in touch!
What is a folk tale?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a folk tale is any tale that is ‘of, pertaining to, current or existing among, the people; traditional, of the common (local) people’. The boundaries around the edges of this, or any other sensible definition of the term, are blurry, and we don’t mind that, though we do not focus on ghost sightings, superstitions, etc, unless they amount to stories and are (or were until recently) commonly known, or religious miracles unless they have strong secular, community-centred links or connotations. We accept this is unsatisfactory in some senses, but do not know how it could be otherwise. Primarily, we are interested in stories, where they come from, and how they are remembered and played with by storytellers and writers – and in sharing all of this, through books, articles, events, workshops and this website.
For the purposes of this website, and project, a folk tale is taken to be a scientifically unverifiable or largely unverifiable narrative (or a narrative with such elements), of any length or complexity, and of unauthored, unknown or unverifiable provenance (though famous versions by named authors may exist), which has primarily been told, has entered public consciousness, and is effectively public property. We include legends: traditional narratives that are or have been popularly regarded as historical, but which are not or cannot be authenticated.
Folk tales, or folklore?
Folk tales are an inherent aspect of folklore, a broader term covering all aspects of folk belief, customs, etc. For the purposes of this project, though, we are primarily interested in stories, some of which are rooted in verifiable fact, many of which are not – which does not mean they are entirely untrue either, or that they don’t have truths within them.
Your contributions?
We encourage you to come to our events, read the articles and books that are generated through the project, contribute to this website and our social media, and make use of the interactive map. That map can never be complete, but it can grow! We want it to be a community endeavour, and will continue to add to it until July 2025, after which it will be archived. Your contributions to the map and folk tale page will be fully credited and deeply appreciated! If you have a suggestion for it, or anything to add to one of our entries, please do contact us.
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Three Kings
Threekingham is an unusual name, and an incorrect etymology has long been attached to it, as is not uncommon with place names that are unusual – especially when those names so obviously seem to suggest something concrete. Three kings, for example.
Twyford Wood (RAF North Witham)
RAF North Witham was established in 1942, and closed in 1960. It encroached upon what had been Twyford Forest, and after the closure of the base the Forestry commission took it back over and planted thousands of trees. This has created a beautiful, unusual composite: increasingly mature woodland grows thickly around increasingly crumbling and buckling…
The Leaning Tower of Surfleet
The tower of St Lawrence’s Church, Surfleet leans towards the main road through the village, which straddles the River Glen.
The Origins of the Wild Man of Stainfield?
In All Saints’ Church, Bigby, you can see a sixteenth-century alabaster Twywhitt family tomb, depicting a supplicant wild man of the woods, or wodewose. He is attached to a Tyrwhitt family legend…
The Sebastopol Inn
A local legend has it that a soldier returned from the Crimean War (1853-6), got drunk at the pub, and drowned in a dyke as he made his way home.
The Leaning Tower of Dry Doddington
Our research hasn’t discovered many extant folk tales in this part of the county, as you might have noticed from the map. However, the pretty hilltop village of Dry Doddington has the makings of one.
Villain or Victim: was Tom Otter wrongfully accused?
The tale of Tom Otter is one of the grisliest stories featured by the Lincolnshire Folk Tales project. The historical event fit for any true crime podcast had its own mythology grow up around it, fed by nineteenth-century audiences yearning for the macabre. Otter, a young navvy (or, in local vernacular, banker) working near Lincoln,…
Ghostly Monks on Lincoln Edge
The Lincoln Edge outside the village of Bracebridge Heath, south of Lincoln, is supposedly haunted by a procession of ghostly monks carrying flaming brands.
Newton’s Apple
Any schoolchild who has heard of Sir Isaac Newton is almost certain to know one thing about him: he was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head, and put into it the universal law of gravity.
Saint Etheldreda’s Staff
The seventh-century St. Etheldreda (also known as Æthelthryth or Æðelþryð, and in religious contexts as Audrey) stopped at Stow on her journey from Northumbria to the Isle of Ely, to where she was fleeing in order to become a nun. She planted her ash staff in the earth, and it transformed miraculously into a mature, foliage-rich tree.
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A Witch of Kirton in Lindsey
A servant we had from the neighbourhood of Kirton Lindsey [sic], North Line. told me when her mother was confined [pregnant], a man in the village “witched her,” so that she could not move in bed, nor could the bed be moved until the man came and “unwitched her”
Meg’s Island
Cleethorpes is often referred to as Meggies, and it is a word you’ll see written around town. Meggy (or sometimes Meggie) is also a locally-known demonym for a person from Cleethorpes. But why?
Ghost Child
In Scandals and Legends of Barton-upon-Humber, Book 2: Ghosts, Money and Love (1999), Karen Maitland and Jeannie Bishop tell the story, well known locally, of the ghost of a little boy at Providence House (until quite recently used as the town library). ‘The supernatural activity always increases each year’, they write, ‘in the few days…
Forget Me Not
The story of as young woman who lived near the ruins of Monks Abbey, and of the knight she was courting.
Maidenwell: coach and horses
One (spurious) explanation for the etymology Maidenwell, recorded in a reader’s letter in the magazine Lincolnshire Life (1975), is that a young woman was thrown down a well by Cromwell’s soldiers. Ethel Rudkin (1936) includes this brief entry: ‘In Ostler’s Lane there is a haunting – a coach and horses goes by, and the coachman…
The Soldier and the Dog
After his death in his nineties, the soldier has been rumoured to walk to Hubbards Hills with a small dog at his side. Other dog walkers have reported their pets becoming agitated and refusing to go near the spot where the soldier met his paramour.
Gunby Hall Ghost
A path running past the pond on the grounds is known as the Ghost Walk, on account of a gruesome murder the allegedly took place in the 18th century and the unquiet spirit it produced.
Lincolnshire’s Own Mary Celeste
Waters around the British Isles teem with stories of ghost ships, and Lincolnshire is no exception. Two reports of ghost ships driven ashore with no one to be found on board are associated with Cleethorpes Beach.
Halton Holegate Haunting
The tale concerns a farmhouse in the village of Halton Holegate, near Spilsby, which was reportedly the site of a haunting in the nineteenth century – though the story doesn’t end with that.
The incumbents, Mr and Mrs Wilson, were subject to disturbing sounds of furniture moving on its own, and…
Group of horses standing in field on frosty and foggy day with grey sky 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 Point. The day was foggy, the farmer lost his way in the mist and drowned in the rising tide…
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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 it Holton-le-Clay, Langwith and Willoughton, and the process goes something like this…
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…
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
Tatterfoal
‘Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock (1908) mention this ghostly and troublesome horse, and refer to a passage in Pishey Thompson’s History & Antiquities of Boston (1856) where he assigns one such boggard to Spittal Hill in Frieston…
Horkstow Grange
One of the best known folk songs with a Lincolnshire setting. Horkstow Grange is south of Horkstow. The song concerns a fight between a farm bailiff and a worker John Span, alias Steeleye, from which the band took its name – though they didn’t record a version of it until 1998.
Brinkhill Gold
An unexpected discovery in Brinkhill, East Lindsey in the early 17th century led to the Tudor Gold Rush. Or rather, an interest in prospecting that seemed not to spill beyond the local region, but quickly became mythologised…
Cadeby Hall
This unobtrusive stone marker on the verge of Barton Road (A18 between Wyham and Cadeby) could be mistaken for a milestone. Instead, it is a memorial for a young man called George Nelson, who died on the spot after either being thrown by his horse or trapped under an upturned cart in the roadside ditch
The Stamford Bull-run
The Stamford bull-run was a town tradition from late medieval times until 1839, when this cruel practice was eventually banned. According to legend, the tradition started in the early thirteenth century, after two bulls were seen settling a romantic dispute over a lovely cow on what is now Town Meadows by William de Warenne, Early…
The Grimsby Imp
A less famous counterpart to the Lincoln Imp, who according to legend caused mayhem in Lincoln Cathedral and was subsequently turned to stone. The Grimsby Imp is his supposed companion…
Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project 
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