Forums: Folklore and Legends

The recent piece about Learmouth Garden brought back to me all those ideas about the occult powers of the ancient Egyptians and particulary how dangerous it is to disturb their dead.

Can folklore be used to measure a societies development?   Do societies that are predominantly hunter gatherers have folkore and sirits predominantly associated with animals?  When you get societeies that then settle and become agriculturaly based, is it fair to say we then see the introduction of harvest spirits, also the house and hearth spirits or fairy types.   What ab

I have for a while now, with my best friend been investigating the various myths associated with Merlin (Wether he is one man or several is not my interest at the moment, but has factored into my research) We have taken it upon ourselves to try and gather together as many Merlin stories and such to see if we can draw some sort of correlation between all the myths…

hi,

have seen this rosette in various old UK churches – can anybody tell me what it symbolises please?

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~aferm/images/rosette.gif

in churches it is generally inscribed in stone and never coloured and always apparently the work of the laity as opposed to stone masons?

hope you can help? / thanks

Ric

Black Annis [also called Black Anna, Black Anny, Black Agnes and Cat Anna or Cat Annis] is a blue faced hag who haunts the Dane Hills of Leicestershire in central England. She is very tall with tattered hair and long, yellow or white fangs. Some say that she has only one eye. She lived in a cave called Black Annis’ Bower, which she scraped out of the rock with her own sharp fingernails.

While reading up on my other great passion-travel, I came across this article.  I hope you enjoy!

http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-protect-yourself-from-vampires-around-the-world/

Wendy

There may little folk traditions throughout the world and the British Isles and I would like to start gathering a few together to discuss and maybe add to the main gazetteer at some point.

To start with:

Orkney

Hi

I’m trying to trace any English Folklore that was based around the Autumn Equinox, other than a simple Harvest Festival.  Can anyone help? or maybe point me in the direction of likely sources?

Many thanks

Sian

In my current researches, dealing with all manner of British cannibalism and cynocephali, I find two interesting things.  The main impetus of my research, at least at first, was to provide a Celtic folkloric or even cryptozoological origin for the character of Sawney Beane.  I’ve found some possible derivations of the name and his attributes.