This past month has been filled with celebration—our daughter graduated high school! She is our youngest (we have two kids), and while I’m excited for her, I can feel the sand beginning to shift under my feet. I’m trying to not look too far forward into the future (in just a few months she and our son will be off to their respective universities). Instead, I’m working to stay present—to spend time with them, share dinners and conversation, and enjoy the summer!

Also, a quick wish for a happy Pride to those who celebrate! 🌈

Behind the Scenes: Remembering Jane Yolen

A few days ago, I heard the news that Jane Yolen had passed. I probably knew her best from her How Do Dinosaurs...? book series for children (my son enjoyed them). But she was a prolific writer—she wrote over 400 books (this is not a typo). Many of her stories were based on folklore and included tales of faeries, unicorns, dragons, and Arthurian legend.

Yolen also wrote the foreword for the deluxe collector’s edition of Faeries, described and illustrated by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. The book contains faerie lore and beautiful artwork—I treasure my copy of it. This quote from the foreword she wrote has stayed with me:

I remember the first time I saw Faeries in a bookstore, where it seemed to leap into my hands without my actually willing it, instantly becoming the mainstay of my fairy-tale library. It proved to me that an artist (or writer) could start with folklore and then make imaginative leaps with sensibility, nonsense-ability, humor, wit, and charm.

She is so inspiring.

Exploring Folklore: In Search of the Dead Moon

I have always been fascinated by the moon. If I wake in the middle of the night, I often look for it through my window before going back to sleep. I especially love full moons—bright and large in the night sky. Even the moon rising in the afternoon before the sun sets (which I often see on my walks) brings me joy.

So when I came across the legend known as “The Dead Moon” (also called “The Buried Moon”), I was intrigued. At the time, I only had access to a summary of the tale (in Katharine Briggs’ An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures), but that was enough to hook me in. I’ve even included reference to it in the folklore-inspired novel I’m currently revising.

Since then, I’ve gathered more background information about the legend, which I’ll share first. Then we’ll explore the legend itself!

“The Dead Moon:” A Legend From North Lincolnshire

“The Dead Moon” was originally documented in “Legends of the Cars,” a series of three articles by Marie Clothilde Balfour, published in Folk-Lore in 1891. Within this series are ten tales, which Balfour collected in North Lincolnshire. More specifically, they are stories and legends from the “Cars,” which today is written as “Carrs.”

In her thesis “Investigating the ‘Legends of the Carrs’: A Study of the Tales as Printed in Folk-Lore in 1891,” Maureen James explains that the Carrs were wetlands close to the River Ancholme. She writes: “Until the mid-17th Century, in the Carrs, like the Fens further south, the flat land to the east and west of the River Ancholme, was flooded for much of the year ….” Once good drainage was established for the area, the land became cultivated. However, the tale of “The Dead Moon” takes place before that drainage occurred, when the Carrs was marshy and boggy—a land where reeds, willows, and alders grew.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there’s been some criticism regarding Balfour’s collection of tales, including “The Dead Moon.” Doubts regarding the authenticity of the collection have been made over the years. Briggs, who cites Balfour’s articles as a reference and includes summarized versions of many of the stories in her encyclopedia, writes the following in her discussion of “The Dead Moon”:

This is one of a group of stories so unusual that some folklorists have doubted their genuineness. Mrs Balfour, however, published the notes which she took at the time, which established the general accuracy of the tales, though an occasional Scottish word may have strayed in [Balfour was born in Scotland], and there is no doubt from subsequent collection that the Fen area was a unique confine of legends and traditions.

In her thesis, James digs into the authenticity debate of the tales, but notes that:

… despite these criticisms, reputable compilers of story collections have included the Legends in their anthologies; writers for children have produced books based on the stories; storytellers involved in the revival movement have continued to tell the Legends within performances; and artists have used the Legends as inspiration for many projects.

While we cannot know the complete truth, the legends from Balfour’s collection persevere. My interest in “The Dead Moon” stems from its uniqueness—it feels like a combination of legend, myth, folktale, and fairy tale.

“The Dead Moon” Is Also Known as “The Buried Moon”

The original legend of “The Dead Moon” that Balfour collected is actually difficult to read because it is written in a phonetic dialect. But we are fortunate because Joseph Jacobs (the editor of Folk-Lore who included Balfour’s articles in the journal) also incorporated a version of the tale under the title “The Buried Moon” in his own collection, More English Fairy Tales.

In his own notes on the tale, Jacobs explains that his version of the story has been “somewhat abridged and the dialect removed.” For ease of reading, I will quote from Jacobs’ version (“The Buried Moon”) at times and summarize at others.

To briefly set up the tale, Balfour explains in her article that she first heard of “The Dead Moon” from some children who were singing a nursery rhyme. She collected the specific legend, though, from a nine-year-old girl, who “heard it from her ‘gran.’” Balfour writes of the storyteller in this way:

But I think it [the tale] was tinged by her own fancy, which seemed to lean to eerie things, and she certainly revelled in the gruesome descriptions, fairly making my flesh creep with her words and gestures. I have kept not only to the outline of her story, but in great part to her very words, which I think I could not have made more effective even if I had wished to do so.

Sounds a bit spooky! In her thesis, James explains that the stories Balfour collected tended to “reflect aspects of the lives of the tellers.” Specifically, she notes that the teller of “The Dead Moon” was “concerned with the dangers that lurked in the Carrs at night.”

If you’re ready, let’s tread carefully back in time to when the Carrs were still boggy and filled with spirits and the supernatural!

The Moon Is Troubled by “Bogles and Crawling Horrors”

As we learned before, it’s a young girl telling the tale, and she begins by referencing her grandmother and a specific place (the Carrs). This adds some element of believability to the tale, making it feel like a legend:

Long ago, in my grandmother’s time, the Car-land [the Carrs] was all in bogs, great pools of black water, and creeping trickles of green water, and squishy mools which squirted when you stepped on them.

Well, granny used to say how long before her time the Moon herself was once dead and buried in the marshes, and as she used to tell me, I’ll tell you all about it.

The Moon up yonder shone and shone, just as she does now, and when she shone she lighted up the bog-pools, so that one could walk about almost as safe as in the day.

But when she didn’t shine, out came the Things that dwelt in the darkness and went about seeking to do evil and harm; Bogles [goblins] and crawling Horrors, all came out when the Moon didn’t shine.

Well, the Moon heard of this, and being kind and good—as she surely is, shining for us in the night instead of taking her natural rest—she was main troubled. “I’ll see for myself, I will,” said she, “maybe it’s not so bad as folks make out.”

Sure enough, at the month’s end down she stept, wrapped up in a black cloak, and a black hood over her yellow shining hair. Straight she went to the bog edge and looked about her.

I find this personification of the moon as a woman fascinating. In their books, both Jacobs and Briggs refer to the tale as having a mythological aspect. Briggs doesn’t go into details, but states that the story is mythological and not typical of English folk tradition. Jacobs, however, explains that the personified moon is presented as “a beneficent being, the natural enemy of the bogles and other dwellers of the dark.”

But what did the Moon see when she came down to the edge of the bog? And who were some of these “dwellers of the dark?”

The Moon Enters the Bog

I had to go to Balfour’s version of the tale to find out as Jacobs skips over this section of the original text. In her thesis, James explains that Jacobs removed “some of the darker references.” I’m not exactly sure why, but it seems from his preface that maybe Jacobs anticipated children would read the stories in his book.

Summarizing from Balfour’s version:

At the bog’s edge, beyond the darkness lit only by the stars and the subtle shine coming from the Moon’s uncovered feet, lurked a whole host of frightening characters in the endless water. She saw witches riding on their great black cats and the evil eye that “glowered fro’ tha da’arkest corners.” Will o’ the Wykes danced about and “de’ad fo’ak” rose out of the water. Trembling, the Moon drew her cloak around her and kept going deeper into the bog.

Now I feel like I’m reading a folktale! According to Briggs, Will o’ the Wykes is the Norfolk name for Will o’ the Wisp or ignis fatuus (which is Latin for “foolish fire”). (Here’s an interesting article from Scientific American if you’d like to go down that rabbit hole.)

Returning to Jacobs’ version of the tale:

Just as she came near a big black pool her foot slipped and she was nigh tumbling in. She grabbed with both hands at a snag [a tree or branch] near by to steady herself with, but as she touched it, it twined itself round her wrists, like a pair of handcuffs, and gript her so that she couldn’t move. She pulled and twisted and fought, but it was no good. She was fast, and must stay fast.

While trapped, she saved a man lost in the bog who was calling out and crying into the darkness. She couldn’t free herself, but “she twisted and turned, till her black hood fell back off her shining yellow hair, and the beautiful light that came from it drove away the darkness.” Her light scared off “all evil things,” and the man found his way out of the marsh.

The Moon, too, wished to escape her entanglement, but witches, bogles, “Crawling Horrors,” and other evil things crept forward in the darkness:

They came crowding round her, mocking and snatching and beating; shrieking with rage and spite, and swearing and snarling, for they knew her for their old enemy, that drove them back into the corners, and kept them from working their wicked wills.

The witches wanted to poison the Moon for spoiling their spells, and the “Crawling Horrors” wished to smother her. They argued about what punishment to inflict on the Moon, but as dawn approached “the Bogles fetched a strange big stone and rolled it on top of her, to keep her from rising.” Two Will o’ the Wykes were stationed to guard her. “And there lay the poor Moon, dead and buried in the bog, till some one would set her loose; and who’d know where to look for her.”

I noticed that the phrase “dead and buried” appears several times in both Balfour’s and Jacobs’ versions. I feel like it might explain the difference in the titles between the two versions. Balfour seems to lean into the darkness, desiring to capture the teller’s “gruesome descriptions,” as I mentioned earlier. It makes sense, then, that she would choose “The Dead Moon” as the title for the legend. (In her article she implies that she chose the title—it doesn’t seem like it was given to her by the young girl telling the story.)

On the other hand, Jacobs chose to remove some of the darker elements, so changing the title to “The Buried Moon” lightens the overall tone of the tale. And as we shall soon see, there’s hope to be had for the poor Moon.

In Search of the Moon

Days passed, the new moon did not arrive, “the Evil Things were worse than ever,” and folk grew nervous. At this point, people began consulting a wise woman about how to find the missing Moon.

At first the wise woman, who practiced divination by “looking in the brewpot, and in the mirror, and in the Book,” couldn’t tell them what had happened to the Moon. But after more days passed, the man who’d been lost in the bog and helped by the Moon realized that he may know where she was. So he and some other folk returned to the wise woman, who told them:

“Go all of ye, just afore the night gathers, put a stone in your mouth, and take a hazel-twig in your hands, and say never a word till you’re safe home again. Then walk on and fear not, far into the midst of the marsh, till ye find a coffin, a candle, and a cross. Then ye’ll not be far from your Moon; look, and m’appen ye ‘ll find her.”

The next night the local men went out to the bogs, each “with a stone in his mouth, and a hazel-twig in his hand.” And they discovered that the wise woman’s clues were spot-on: the stone covering the Moon resembled a coffin, the snag that had caught her was shaped like a cross, and a “tiddy light flickered” on the snag like a candle. (I believe “tiddy” means “tiny.”)

Knowing they were in the right spot, they knelt and said the Lord’s Prayer to themselves, “first forward, because of the cross, and then backward, to keep off the Bogles.” Then they lifted the stone, freeing the Moon. For a brief moment, they saw her face, but her shining light overwhelmed them. Once they could see again, they saw:

… the full Moon in the sky, bright and beautiful and kind as ever, shining and smiling down at them, and making the bogs and the paths as clear as day, and stealing into the very corners, as though she’d have driven the darkness and the Bogles clean away if she could.

A happy, hopeful, fairy-tale ending! In Balfour’s version, there is an additional paragraph, in which the young storyteller claims that the story is true, and that her “gran” had seen the snag and the stone where the Moon had been buried.

So what do you think? Does the tale feel like a legend, myth, folktale, or fairy tale to you?

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: If you’d like to read and learn about another story from More English Fairy Tales, then you might enjoy this article from The Orange & Bee on the giant-slayer tale, “Tom Hickathrift.”

This month in my household we are nearing the final stretch of the school year. Just this past week, our son finished his spring semester exams at his university and moved back home for the summer. Our daughter is a senior in high school—she went to prom last weekend and is looking forward to graduating in a few weeks.

I’ve been (mostly!) keeping up with my writing routine with all of the school-related excitement. And when I need a mental break from it all, I take a walk in the wilderness area near our home.

Also, it’s my mom’s actual birthday today! Happy birthday, Mom! ❤️

Behind the Scenes: I Attended the B+ Well Conference

I recently attended the B+ Well Conference, which is a wellness conference for the bi+ community. The conference included a keynote panel as well as breakout sessions. I really enjoyed the two sessions I attended: one discussed healthy dialogue within relationships, and the other focused on movies and scripts that do (or perhaps do not) offer authentic bi+ representation.

Also, I want to congratulate Lorraine Gow, a writer in the writing group I belong to. Her collection of short stories and poems, It’s All in the Masa, recently came out. To learn more about Lorraine and her book, click here.

Exploring Folklore: Some Dragon Legends Connected to the Landscape

Near the tail end of last year, John Rux-Burton, a writer and photographer, sent me a link to a piece he’d written regarding Radnor Forest in Wales. In it, he refers to a few dragon legends. One of the legends describes Radnor Forest as the place where the last dragon in Wales sleeps. This intrigued me, but when I did some research, I couldn’t find too much more than what is written in the post, “The Dragon Of Radnor Forest.”

However, near the end of John’s article, he references a medieval dragon legend. During our correspondence, he mentioned that he was curious if the medieval tale was connected to or had influenced the Radnor Forest legend in some way. This took me down a research dragon hole!

While I haven’t been able to determine for certain if the medieval legend gave rise to the local story of the dragon sleeping in Radnor Forest, I have learned more about the legend itself. Or rather, legends, I should say. It turns out that the medieval legend is actually a pair of connected legends about two dragons, and it’s been a fun puzzle to piece it all together. The dragon legends begin with the tale of “Lludd and Llefelys” and conclude with a story that includes Merlin (of Arthurian legend).

To make good use of my all of my research on the topic, I thought it would be fun to share these dragon legends with you.

A Tale of Three Plagues and Two Dragons: “Lludd and Llefelys”

Before we get to the dragons, I want to briefly set the scene. The tale of “Lludd and Llefelys” layers folklore and myth within a pseudo-historical narrative. The story first appeared in a medieval, Welsh translation of the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Later it was included in two other medieval texts: the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest. Additionally, it’s part of the collection of tales that make up the Mabinogion. In the introduction to her translation of the Mabinogion, Sioned Davies summarizes the tale in this way:

Lludd, who according to tradition was king of Britain shortly before Julius Caesar’s invasion, overcomes three plagues that threaten the land, with the help of his brother Llefelys, king of France. All three plagues have parallels elsewhere in Welsh literature, and can be seen as variants on the theme of the historical invaders who threatened the sovereignty of the Island of Britain.

The tale explores not only the arrival and eventual defeat of these three plagues, but also the relationship between the two kings and how they navigate the situation.

After Lludd and Llefelys are introduced at the beginning of the tale, the three plagues descend on Britain. The first is a group of people known as the Coraniaid, who can hear every conversation on the island, “provided the wind carried it.” The final plague is “a powerful magician who can lull the court to sleep,” then steals their food and provisions.

However, it is the second plague which occurs between the Coraniaid and the magician that we are most interested in for this post.

And that plague begins with a dragon’s scream.

The Second Plague: A Terrifying Scream

Every year, Lludd and the people of Britain hear a terrible scream, but they don’t know what it is or what it signifies. Here’s Davies’ translation of the description of the second plague in the Mabinogion:

The second plague was a scream that was heard every May eve above every hearth in the Island of Britain. It pierced people’s hearts and terrified them so much that men lost their colour and their strength, and women miscarried, and young men and maidens lost their senses, and all animals and trees and the earth and the waters were left barren.

What a chilling and awful scream! The fact that it occurs on May eve, though, is a clue that the scream is potentially not of this world. In a note, Davies explains that in Wales (as in Ireland), the Celtic year had two seasons—winter began with “Calan Gaeaf (the first day of winter)” and summer began with “Calan Mai (the first day of the summer, or May).” These two days of the year were considered to be liminal periods, when the “boundaries between the natural and the supernatural world would be removed.”

But even though the scream occurs every May eve, Lludd doesn’t know what to make of it or how to handle the other plagues, so he travels to see Llefelys and seek his counsel. Llefelys is known to be wise, and he explains to Lludd that the source of the scream is a dragon. The dragon is engaged in battle with another dragon, which is trying to “overthrow it.”

As Llefelys describes the situation to Lludd, the dragons are also presented as symbolic. He refers to the attacking dragon as “a dragon of another foreign people” and the dragon defending its ground and emitting the scream as “your dragon,” by which I believe he means that the dragon represents Britain.

But the question remains—how does a king set about to conquer two dragons in order to end this second plague? Not to worry, Llefelys has it all figured out.

Rather than try to destroy the dragons, Llefelys advises Lludd to capture and bury the dragons, and he gives very explicit instructions on how to accomplish this. So Lludd, bursting with the knowledge of how to defeat the dragons (as well as the other two plagues), returns home to put Llefelys’ suggestions to the test.

How to Catch Two Dragons

In order to catch the dragons, Lludd first measures Britain (its length and width) in order to find the precise center of the island, which turns out to be in Oxford. If you look at a map, it’s clear that Oxford is not the physical center of Britain, and Davies acknowledges that it’s uncertain why it is named as such. Regardless, at that location, a hole is dug and “a vat of the best mead that can be made” is placed in the hole. A “sheet of brocaded silk” is laid over the vat of mead. Then Lludd spends the night keeping a watchful eye for the dragons.

The dragons come that night, fiercely fighting each other up in the air. Llefelys had explained to Lludd, that when the dragons grew weary from combat, they would “fall onto the sheet in the shape of two little pigs, and make the sheet sink down with them, and drag it to the bottom of the vat, and they will drink all the mead, and after that they will sleep.” Lludd waits and watches until the dragons (in their pig shape) consume the mead and fall asleep. Then he wraps them up in the sheet and places them in a chest made of stone.

Lludd takes the stone chest and buries it at what he deems is the safest location in Eryri (Snowdonia)—at a hill-fort known from that point on as Dinas Emrys. The final sentence of this portion of the tale in Davies’ translation reads: “And so ended the tempestuous scream that was in the land.” Indeed, Lludd had rid Britain of the plague of the scream. But we must remember, the dragons are only but asleep.

Again, as I’m focusing on the dragons, I will just quickly let you know how Lludd defeats the other two plagues. The Coraniaid (the people with the exceptional hearing) meet with an untimely end: Lludd essentially poisons them with an insect and water recipe given to him by Llefelys.

As for the magician, he sneaks in during one of Lludd’s courtly feasts with a hamper (which functions much like Mary Poppins’ magical carpet bag) and fills it with food and drink. Lludd is positively amazed, but he regains his senses quickly and challenges the magician to a fight. Lludd wins the fight, but the magician asks for mercy and pledges to return what he’s taken, which Lludd agrees to.

While the tale of “Lludd and Llefelys” ends here, the legend of the two dragons does not. Their story picks up again in another medieval text and includes Merlin of Arthurian legend!

Merlin, Vortigern, and Two Sleeping Dragons

This second legend of the dragons is chronicled in the History of the Britons, which is attributed to Nennius. It is later found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. In Nennius’ version, Vortigern, a king of Britain, learns of the dragons from a fatherless boy named Ambrosius (Emrys in Welsh). I came across a note in Davies’ translation of the Mabinogion in which she explains that in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version, he “identifies the wonder-child Ambrosius with Merlin, who becomes an integral part of the Arthurian legend.”

As a quick prologue, Nennius presents Vortigern as a terrible king and person. By the time we get to the dragons, he has received the Saxons as friends, relinquished Kent for the daughter of a Saxon chief, and then “as if desirous of adding to the evils he had already occasioned, married his own daughter, by whom he had a son.” I’ll be honest, Nennius doesn’t really hold back.

While researching, I found a summary of this second legend in Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of the Mabinogion. I compared it to a translation of Nennius’ History of the Britons. Guest’s summary matches it and is fairly lively and succinct, so I will quote from it. Just to be clear, she uses the name Merlin for Ambrosius. Without further ado, let’s pick up where we left off—with a king and two buried, sleeping dragons.

Merlin Reveals the Dragons to Vortigern

Guest begins the tale in the following way:

Vortigern being forced to retire from his kingdom, in consequence of his various delinquencies, took refuge in Snowdon [Eryri]; and finding Dinas Emrys an eligible spot, commenced building a tower [a citadel] there. But, to his great dismay, he found that whatever he built in the daytime, always fell down in the succeeding night.

Vortigern consults his magicians (wise men) regarding this mystery. They explain that he must find a child without a father, and sprinkle the ground where the citadel will be built with the child’s blood, or he will never succeed at building the citadel.

On learning this, Vortigern sends out messengers to search for such a child. They eventually find Merlin, whose mother explains that she doesn’t know how he was conceived as she hadn’t had intercourse with a man and claims that Merlin doesn’t have a mortal father. The messengers then bring Merlin to Vortigern. Before Vortigern can put Merlin to death, the boy speaks up to defend himself. Guest writes:

But the boy exposed the ignorance and imposture of the magicians, and caused the ground to be dug at the foundation of the building, where they found two sleeping dragons, one white and the other red. These dragons awaking from their sleep commenced a furious conflict. The white one at first had the advantage of the red, but at last the red dragon prevailed, and expelled his opponent. Merlin then informed them that the red was the British dragon, and the white one that of the invading Saxons.

As a side note, at this point in the tale Guest explains that in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version, this is where “Merlin uttered the celebrated prophecy concerning the fate of Britain” and “declared his name to be Merlin Ambrosius.”

After exposing the dragons and interpreting their significance, Merlin claims that he will remain at the citadel, but that Vortigern should look for a new location to build his fortress. Guest concludes the tale in this way:

Vortigern departing thence to seek some other place of refuge, bestowed that citadel upon the wonderful child [Merlin], … and after whom the spot was called Dinas Emrys.

Recalling that Dinas Emrys is the location where Lludd buried the sleeping dragons, we can see that the two dragon legends are connected through the landscape. Davies points out, though, that the use of the place name of Dinas Emrys in “Lludd and Llefelys” is a little bit of the cart before the horse. She notes that “the naming here is anachronistic, for Emrys [the Welsh name for Ambrosius/Merlin] … was only linked with the place later, after he had disclosed the whereabouts of the dragons.”

Additionally, these two legends are important beyond their scope as stories. They contribute to the history and lore of the red dragon as a Welsh symbol. Even today, the red dragon appears on the Welsh flag.

Are These Legends Linked to the Sleeping Dragon of Radnor Forest?

To come full circle with respect to John’s curiosity as to whether the legend of the sleeping dragon of Radnor Forest might be connected to the two legends we just explored, I’m happy to report that I did discover a link. So while I can’t say for certain that the medieval legends gave rise to the Radnor Forest legend, I can see that there might have been some type of connection.

At the end of Vortigern and Merlin’s story in Nennius’ History of the Britons, when Vortigern leaves Merlin at Dinas Emrys and seeks a new location to build a fortress, Nennius states that Vortigern arrives in “the region named Gueneri, where he built a city which … was called Cair Guorthegirn.” A footnote attached to “Cair Guorthegirn” explains that there has been some debate between antiquarians about where this city was. Some thought it to be in Monmouthshire or perhaps Caermarthen, but others placed it in Radnorshire, where Radnor Forest is.

When myth and legend are blended with history, it is difficult to know all of the facts. But tales shared through oral storytelling and manuscripts are often passed between people, generations, and cultures. As a result, similar types of stories can be found in different geographical locations.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Need more dragon folklore? I’ve also written about British and Celtic dragons and explored the tale of “The Celtic Dragon Myth.” :)

The past month has been filled with many comings and goings for my family. It was spring break season for our son (a college student) and our daughter (a high school senior). This year their breaks were on two different, back-to-back weeks.

During the first week, my husband and son (who is studying finance) traveled to China to visit the suppliers who build the products for our online business, GearBlocks, a bike storage solution. Usually, my husband runs most of the day-to-day business and packs orders, and I deliver the orders to the post office and other package delivery companies every morning.

But for that week, I received a crash course in packing and shipping, and I did that portion as well. I was slow and triple-checking everything, but I was able to keep the backlog from building up too much. My husband and son had an amazing trip and saw the Forbidden City and the Great Wall in between meetings. And they brought me back some tea in a beautiful container. :)

My daughter and I were able to sneak away during the last weekend of their trip in order to visit the college she’s pretty sure she wants to attend. We explored the campus and town and spoiled ourselves with burgers, pizza, and frozen yogurt. A few days after that trip, our daughter traveled to New Orleans with her school choir during their spring break for a whirlwind tour of singing and sightseeing.

Behind the Scenes: Working on Scene-Level Revisions

I’m back to working on scene-level revisions for what I consider to be the fourth draft of the folklore-inspired novel I’m working on. (Last month I had found myself needing to make a few story-level edits.) For me, revising a scene involves the following:

• Addressing any revision notes that I left for myself for the scene.

• Improving the scene for clarity. I want to be sure that the action and emotions of the scene are clear, easy-to-follow, and presented in an appropriate order.

• Adding or improving interiority (thoughts, feelings) for the point-of-view character of that scene. Removing any information dumps.

• I also check to be sure that the scene is meaningful and advancing the story or characters.

• I end with a round of polishing up language.

• I have found that I learn a lot about writing from the process of revision. :)

Also, I want to congratulate Marilyn Carvin, a writer in the writing group I belong to. Her historical novel ¡Viva California! just came out, and I’m excited for her because it was 25 years in the making. I was able to attend her book launch last month, and it was such fun. To learn more about Marilyn and her book, click here.

Exploring Folklore: Folklore Overview of the Tylwyth Teg

As I’ve mentioned before, Welsh faerie folklore is at the heart of my interest in folklore. In fact, it is what prompted me to embark on the novel I’m writing and this newsletter. I’ve written on many topics related to faeries, and will continue to do so, but I felt like it was time to do a proper overview of the Tylwyth Teg (the Welsh faeries).

If you are new to the newsletter (welcome!) or missed last month’s post, you can read it here if you’d like. It introduces the Tylwyth Teg and the many names they go by. It also explores Annwn (the Welsh otherworld) and early faerie tradition through a medieval manuscript, the Mabinogion.

This month we’ll continue learning about the Tylwyth Teg, but from a 19th- and early-20th-century perspective. We’ll explore their general characteristics and some of the folklore associated with them as collected by folklorists during that time. So without further ado, let’s dive in!

Origins and Characteristics of the Tylwyth Teg

From a 19th- and early-20th-century standpoint, the Tylwyth Teg seem to be both tangible and otherworldly at the same time. The origins of the Tylwyth Teg or the source for the belief in them appears to be up for debate. Some folklorists saw the faeries as being rooted in history, suggesting that these myths were accounts or traditions from early Welsh history. Others, however, interpreted the faeries as the ghosts or spirits of departed ancestors, or even as demons.

Regardless, I think Elias Owen in his book, Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, sums up this dichotomy when he writes: “There is a real and unreal, a mythical and a material aspect to Fairy Folk-Lore.” Indeed there are times when the Tylwyth Teg seem very human-like, and there are other occasions where they definitely behave in an otherworldly fashion.

Descriptions of the Welsh faeries seem to range as well. In Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, John Rhŷs includes some general notes on the Tylwyth Teg as provided by an essay written by Mr. William Jones for a folklore competition in 1880. Jones explains that traditions and beliefs surrounding the Tylwyth Teg varied within Wales. For example, he notes that in certain locations the Welsh faeries were depicted as “a small folk of a thieving nature,” who stole money from farmers. In other locales, the faeries were a little larger and inclined to steal dairy goods and more troubling, unbaptized infants. Changeling legends were common in Wales, where faeries were believed to steal children and leave an unwanted faerie, commonly known as a changeling, in its place.

Yet in other instances the Tylwyth Teg seemed to treat mortals with kindness or modeled human family structure by marrying and having children, even though they were said to be “spiritual and immortal beings.” These faeries were depicted as attractive and lived an aesthetic lifestyle. Jones’ notes describe them in this fashion:

Not only was this last kind [of Tylwyth Teg] far more beautiful and comely than the others, but they were honest and good towards mortals. Their whole nature was replete with joy and fun, nor were they ever beheld hardly, except engaged in some merrymaking or other. They might be seen on bright moonlight nights at it, singing and carolling playfully on the fair meadows and the green slopes, at other times dancing lightly on the tops of the rushes in the valleys. They were also wont to be seen hunting in full force on the backs of their grey horses; for this kind were rich, and kept horses and servants.

This description reminds me of the heroic faeries found in the Irish tradition, the Daoine Sídhe. Heroic faeries were likened to human aristocrats and enjoyed pursuits such as music, dancing, riding, and hunting.

Did the Tylwyth Teg Have Their Own Language?

If you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, you may already know that Sindarin, one of the Elvish languages of Middle-earth, is based on the Welsh language. Apparently, Welsh was one of Tolkien’s favorite languages. It seems he was fascinated by its sound, spelling, and the duality of an older language that felt “alive.” (I can totally relate!)

As we discussed in last month’s post, Y Tylwyth Teg, the most common name for the Welsh faeries, has quite a few synonyms, including ellyllon, a word with a variety of translations. One possible meaning of ellyllon is “elves.” This got me to thinking—did the Tylwyth Teg have a language of their own (an Elvish, if you will), or did they simply speak Welsh?

I was delighted to learn that the answer was … maybe! In his book, Rhŷs (who was very interested in Celtic and Welsh philology in addition to folklore) addresses this very question. He notes that tales often present the faeries as speaking the same language as the humans. But then he mentions that there were some exceptions to this.

According to Rhŷs, a well-known story of the Welsh faeries having their own language is the tale of Elidorus recorded in the medieval manuscript, Itinerarium Cambriae, by Gerald of Wales. As the story goes, Elidorus, a priest, spent time in the faerie realm during his youth. Elidorus recounts that while he was with the faeries, he learned their language and gives some examples, which he found to be similar to his own language (Welsh). Rhŷs explains though, that Gerald of Wales saw in these faerie words a “similarity to Greek.” Rhŷs acknowledges that while Elidorus’ tale doesn’t answer the question of what the faerie language was, it did stir his curiosity, and he had “begun looking out for stories bearing on it.”

He then shares a few other stories he had come across where faerie language is addressed. In one tale, the language is “not intelligible” to the humans, and in two other stories, the faerie language is “clearly stated that it was neither Welsh nor, probably, English.” Rhŷs offers a potential theory and writes: “Since the fairies are always represented as old-fashioned in their ways, it is quite possible that they were once regarded as talking a more ancient language of the country.”

Lakes Serve as the Entrance to the Realm of the Tylwyth Teg

The realm of the Tylwyth Teg, as presented in folktales and folklore collections, is generally subterranean and has a strong connection with water. Mountain lakes and pools are often described as entrances to the faerie otherworld—beneath the dark water’s surface existed a magical realm. In his book, Owen describes how faerie ladies (as well as faerie cattle) might “emerge from lakes and disappear into lakes.”

In the thesis “Y Tylwyth Teg: An Analysis of a Literary Motif,” Angelika Heike Rüdiger explains that this folk belief of a faerie realm in a pool or lake is prevalent in legends surrounding lake maidens and faerie cattle.

I find lake maiden tales fascinating, and I took more notes on them than was reasonable for this article, so I will save the details of these stories for another post. But to briefly explain, in the Welsh faerie tradition, they are faerie mistress tales in which a faerie marries a human, but there are rules and conditions to be followed. In the meantime, if you’d like to read a legend of this type, I did include one in my post on apple tree folklore.

As for faerie cattle, I explored a few Welsh legends about them when I looked at “cows of abundance”—faerie cows that produce limitless amounts of milk. These tales are similar to lake maiden stories in that certain conditions must be followed; if not, the magical cow will leave and head straight for a lake, as in the Welsh legends of Y Fuwch Frech (The Freckled Cow) and Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn (The Stray Cow).

In addition to lakes and pools, I also encountered accounts which linked the Tylwyth Teg to mist. Last month we learned about Y Brenin Llwyd (The Grey King), who Owen described as “king of the mist,” a personage which embodied “the spirit of the mist.” As I researched for this post, though, I found several mentions in Rhŷs’ book connecting the faeries to mist. A few different people in the area of the Llŷn Peninsula told Rhŷs of folk beliefs where the Tylwyth Teg appeared with the mist or loved revelling in it, especially in misty mountainous areas. He also includes the following account:

To this I may add the testimony of a lady, for whose veracity I can vouch, to the effect that, when she was a child in Cwm Brwynog, from thirty to forty years ago, she and her brothers and sisters used to be frequently warned by their mother not to go far away from the house when there happened to be thick mist on the ground, lest they should come across the Tylwyth Teg dancing, and be carried away to their abode beneath the lake.

This story links the Tylwyth Teg to both the mist and to the belief of a faerie realm under a lake. It also reminds me of tales of nursery bogies, which parents would sometimes use to frighten their children into safe or good behavior.

The Coblynau (Knockers)

I wanted to give a brief description of a very specific group of Welsh faeries—the Coblynau (Knockers). Owen includes them within the section of his book devoted to the Tylwyth Teg and describes them in this way:

The Coblynau or Knockers were supposed to be a species of Fairies who had their abode in the rocks, and whose province it was to indicate by knocks, and other sounds, the presence of ore in mines.

Miners working in a mine might hear the knocking sounds made by the Coblynau. If they followed in the direction where the knocking came from, they would find the ore. It was said that when the Coblynau stopped knocking, the miners had reached the location of “rich lodes of lead or other metals.”

While researching for this post, I came across a North Wales Wildlife Trust web page with an audio trail for Halkyn Mountain Common. The web page includes audio clips that a hiker might listen to while exploring the region, which was once an area known for lead mining. Audio clip number 6, is a fun listen—Andy Harrop-Smith, a storyteller, gives additional details about the Coblynau.

More Faerie Folklore to Come

When I first outlined this piece, I had wanted to include some specific tale types of the Tylwyth Teg (like the lake maiden tales I mentioned earlier). Because I’m a reader and writer of fiction in addition to being a folklore fan, I find that love folktales. But to keep this post a reasonable length, I shall hang on to my notes and ideas for future articles.

I would like to leave you with a quote about the Welsh faeries I found several years ago in An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures by Katharine Briggs:

The Welsh fairies seem to have been rather unusually high-souled. As a rule the most people expected of the good fairies was a general readiness to be helpful, and fairness in their dealings; that is, the return of fairy borrowings, gratitude for kindness done to them, patronage of true love, delight in music and dancing and a general interest in fertility, in neatness, order and beauty.

Even bad fairies did not lie; they only equivocated.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Here’s a link to last month’s post in case you missed it. :)

As you may know, I have a fondness for Wales and Welsh folklore. I have only visited Wales once (while in my twenties), and I mostly remember drinking hard cider while chatting with friendly Welsh youth. 😉 I was fascinated by the language (and I still am). In fact, here is a photo of my first lesson in Cymraeg, which was written on the back of a candy wrapper at a pub.

I’ve been learning Welsh on Duolingo, and I’m proud to say that I can now read the phrases on the wrapper! Basically they are phrases like “What time is it?” and “Where is the bathroom?” As for the really long word near the bottom, well I think the writer was going for the name of a town, “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.” According to We Learn Welsh: “The actual name of the town is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, or Llanfairpwll / Llanfair PG for short, but it is said that the name was lengthened in the mid-19th century as a publicity stunt to attract tourists to the area.”

Behind the Scenes: I Hit a Speed Bump While Revising My Novel

I’ve been working on scene-level revisions for my novel, which unfortunately hit a speed bump recently. I realized that I needed to make some changes to my world and accompanying map, which I’ve been working on. While doing so, I also discovered that I had failed to review my overall timeline for the novel. Luckily, the timeline is mostly fine, but I have found one scene so far that I need to pull forward because it happens slightly earlier in the novel than where I had it.

Exploring Folklore: The Tylwyth Teg and Annwn

Welsh faerie folklore captivates me. It serves as the foundation for both my newsletter and the novel I’m working on. I’ve written about many different aspects of Welsh faerie lore, but I haven’t really given an overview of the Tylwyth Teg (the Welsh faeries) yet.

So I thought that this month, we’d begin a two-part series to learn about the Tylwyth Teg. We’ll first look at some of the names they go by (there’s more than one!). Then we’ll explore Annwn, which is the realm of the Tylwyth Teg. This month’s post will be a bit linguistic in nature, and the tales will come from the Mabinogion.

Next month, we’ll look at the Tylwyth Teg from a 19th- and early-20th-century perspective in order to learn about some general characteristics and folklore as collected by folklorists during that time period. Hopefully, what we discuss this month will serve as helpful background information in order to better appreciate next month’s material.

Y Tylwyth Teg (and Bendith y Mamau): The Welsh Faeries

By and large, the most common name for the Welsh faeries is Y Tylwyth Teg, which has the meaning of “The Fair Family” or “The Fair Tribe.” In this use, “fair” is synonymous with “beautiful” or “pleasant.” In Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, Elias Owen explains that this is because the Tylwyth Teg “are spoken of as a people, and not as myths or goblins, and they are said to be a fair or handsome race.”

In some parts of Wales the expression Bendith y Mamau (“The Mothers’ Blessing” or “Blessing of the Mothers”) is used to refer to the faeries instead. While it is considered to be a synonym for Tylwyth Teg, there seems to be debate on what this expression is referencing. But several sources I looked at did suggest that this name was used in order to keep the faeries appeased.

Indeed both Tylwyth Teg and Bendith y Mamau are polite and amiable names. In the thesis “Y Tylwyth Teg: An Analysis of a Literary Motif,” Angelika Heike Rüdiger offers us a reason why folks used these type of names when referring to the faeries: “The choice of appeasing names suggests that they [faeries] were believed to be powerful and were feared.” It seems that it was viewed as safer to call them by a gentle name rather than stoke their ire by referring to them using a name that described their true nature.

Other Names for the Welsh Faeries: Ellyllon and Plant Annwn

I came across several more names for the Welsh faeries, but two in particular stood out to me because they lend interesting insights into Welsh faerie folklore. One such name is ellyllon. The word “ellyllon” is intriguing because it seems to have a wide variety of translations. While Owen states that ellyllon is a name given to the faeries, he describes the word to mean “elves,” “demons,” or “goblins.”

Rüdiger’s thesis also explores the ellyllon and how the word is often translated differently. In addition to the meanings given by Owen, she also mentions that ellyllon could be rendered as “sprites” or “ghosts,” depending on the translator. This variety of associations has given rise to the question of whether the Tylwyth Teg and the ellyllon are the same or are simply related creatures. Per Rüdiger’s thesis, it doesn’t seem as if there’s a definite answer, but it does suggest that the word “ellyllon” isn’t clear-cut, much like the faeries themselves. They could be seen as supernatural, ghostly, or evil in nature.

The other name for the Welsh faeries that interested me is Plant Annwn (“Children of Annwn”). Again, Plant Annwn is considered to be a synonym for Tylwyth Teg, but in this case, the term isn’t so much describing the faeries themselves, but is noting where the faeries live—in Annwn. We’ll look more at where and what Annwn is in the next section.

Out of curiosity, I looked up all of these names and terms in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (A Dictionary of the Welsh Language), which is a historical dictionary of Welsh, much like the Oxford English Dictionary. From a written language standpoint, Annwn and ellyllon are the oldest of the group—they first appear in writing during the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. Next comes Tylwyth Teg in the 15th century and Bendith y Mamau in 1587. I was a little surprised to find that Plant Annwn was first mentioned in writing much later—in 1703.

The fact that Annwn and ellyllon appear in texts long before Tylwyth Teg, Bendith y Mamau, and Plant Annwn intrigues me. Rüdiger offers some perspective in the following way: she explains that “fairy traditions were present in Wales prior to the first appearance of ‘Y Tylwyth Teg’ in writing.” She notes that some medieval texts contain stories of Welsh faeries even though the writings may not include the expression “Y Tylwyth Teg” or contain characters that are explicitly named as faeries. So I thought we’d look at the Mabinogion (my favorite medieval text!) for some examples of this early faerie tradition, starting with Annwn.

What is Annwn and Who Are Its Kings?

According to Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, the word Annwn (and its older form, Annwfn) is defined as “underworld, netherworld, other world, Fairyland.” But Rüdiger explains that “the etymology [of Annwn] is difficult” and that some translators prefer “not-world” or “very deep.” Myself, I like to think of Annwn as the Welsh otherworld. From my research, this appears to be a contemporary usage.

In the Mabinogion, Annwn is presented as a beautiful, courtly realm separate from the human world, but accessible from specific locations. Rüdiger cites Patrick Sims-Williams and explains that Sims-Williams interprets Annwn to have been a single kingdom with a high king, which was divided into sub-kingdoms with sub-kings. This would have been similar to Welsh medieval political structure. Sims-Williams points to “The First Branch of the Mabinogi” (a tale in the Mabinogion) as evidence of this.

Curious, I searched through the Mabinogion, as translated by Sioned Davies, and I saw what Sims-Williams meant. In this tale, Pwyll (Prince of Dyfed) meets Arawn (King of Annwn/Annwfn) Here is Davies’ translation:

‘Lord,’ said Pwyll, “good day to you. And which land do you come from?’

‘From Annwfn,’ he replied. ‘I am Arawn, king of Annwfn.’

‘Lord,’ said Pwyll, ‘how shall I win your friendship?’

‘This is how,’ he replied. ‘A man whose territory is next to mine is forever fighting me. He is Hafgan, a king from Annwfn. By ridding me of that oppression—and you can do that easily—you will win my friendship.’

In the text, Arawn is self-described as “king of Annwfn” and refers to Hafgan as “a king from Annwfn.” Sims-Williams notes that this reveals Arawn to be the high king and Hafgan to be a sub-king.

Additionally, both Arawn and Hafgan are considered to be otherworldly with supernatural abilities. In “The First Branch of the Mabinogi,” Arawn alters his own shape as well as Pwyll’s. He tells Pwyll:

‘… What I shall do is to put you in my place in Annwfn, … and give you my face and form so that no chamberlain nor officer nor any other person who has ever served me shall know that you are not me. …’

Arawn also instructs Pwyll to kill Hafgan stating, “… ‘and you must give him only one blow—he will not survive it. …’” In a note to the text, Davies explains that “striking a monster twice is a common international motif—were the hero to strike a second time, then the monster [in this case Hafgan, a supernatural character] would revive.”

Both Arawn and Hafgan are otherworldly kings that rule in Annwn, yet neither one is considered to be the king of the Welsh faeries. You may be wondering then, who is the king of the Tylwyth Teg? There is a third king mentioned in the Mabinogion: Gwyn ap Nudd. Rüdiger notes that in the tale “How Culhwch Won Olwen,” “Gwyn ap Nudd rules over the denizens of Annwn,” who are otherworldly and “must be closely guarded by Gwyn and kept away from the world of man, for otherwise they will destroy it.”

While the Tylwyth Teg are not mentioned directly in the Mabinogion, Rüdiger explains in a footnote that they are linked to Gwyn ap Nudd through a manuscript called Buchedd Collen:

Evidence that Annwn is the abode of the fairies is connected with the character Gwyn ap Nudd, for Buchedd Collen with the first manuscript version dating to 1536 refers to Gwyn ap Nudd as ‘Brenin Annwn’ (‘King of Annwn’) and in a version of Buchedd Collen published in Y Greal as ‘[b]renin Anwn a’r tylwyth têg’ (‘King of Annwn and the fairies’).

Now that we’ve established that Annwn is a faerie realm and learned about its otherworldly rulers, let’s look at some of the other supernatural beings that show up in the Mabinogion.

Otherworldly Beings in the Mabinogion

The Mabinogion does not always call out faeries and supernatural creatures directly, but their behavior and the narrative motifs presented in the text clue us in to their true nature.

Over the years that I’ve been writing this newsletter, I’ve covered several otherworldly beings from the Mabinogion. In fact, as I made a list of potential characters to present here, I was surprised that I’d already written about most of those on my list. So aside from one, I will simply give a brief description and then link to my previous post on the topic (in case you’re interested in learning more).

I’ll begin with a character that I have not yet covered, though: Llwyd ap Cilcoed. Llwyd ap Cilcoed appears in “The Third Branch of the Mabinogi,” and Rüdiger describes his otherworldly behavior in the tale:

To begin with, Llwyd ap Cilcoed changes the land by means of a magical mist; he takes people after enticing them into his battlements with an enchanted white boar: white is a magical colour typical of otherworldly animals; Llwyd’s people destroy the crop in the shape of mice.

As a side note, I looked at Davies’ translation of the tale, and “Llwyd’s people” who were transformed to mice include: his retinue, the ladies of the court, and his wife (who was pregnant!). The destruction of crops by faeries is a common folklore motif. Also, white animals are often portrayed as otherworldly or belonging to the faeries in folktales. Because of Llwyd ap Cilcoed’s ability to control the mist, Rüdiger links him with Y Brenin Llwyd (“The Grey King”). In his book, Elias Owen also writes of Y Brenin Llwyd and describes him in this way:

In Carmarthenshire the spirit of the mist is represented … as a hoary headed old man, who seats himself on the hill sides, just where the clouds appear to touch them, and he is called Y Brenhin Llwyd, or The Grey King. I know not what functions this venerable personage, or king of the mist, performed, unless it were, that he directed the mist’s journey through the air.

Rüdiger suggests that due to his actions Llwyd ap Cilcoed might also be considered to be a faerie king or otherworldly ruler in Annwn. But in Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, John Rhŷs offers another interpretation. He likens Llwyd ap Cilcoed to the Irish Liath, son of Celtchar, of Cualu. He notes that both “Llwyd” and “Liath” mean “grey,” and he writes that Liath “is described as the comeliest youth of noble rank among the fairies of Erin.” Rhŷs doesn’t quite name Llwyd ap Cilcoed as a faerie, but he does call him “a great magician.”

In fact, Rhŷs makes note of something I find interesting: he observes that often in the Mabinogion, “the greatest magicians function as kings” and that there are some members of “kingly families whose story shows them playing the role of magicians.” He then lists characters he might include in these categories. He describes Arawn and Llwyd ap Cilcoed, who we’ve already discussed. But he also mentions Math and Gwydion (who created the maiden Blodeuwedd from flowers, then later transformed her into an owl) and Rhiannon (a Celtic horse-goddess, who is linked to magical birds that can transfix the listener with their birdsong).

In addition to magicians and otherworldly beings, there are also supernatural creatures who make appearances in the Mabinogion. Two of my favorites are the Cŵn Annwn (the “Hounds of Annwn,” Arawn’s hunting dogs, which have white fur and red ears) and the afanc (typically a Welsh river monster, but in the Mabinogion he lives in a cave and kills all who come near with a poisoned spear).

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the Tylwyth Teg and Annwn! Next month we’ll continue learning about the Tylwyth Teg from a 19th- and early-20th-century perspective and explore some of the folklore associated with them.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Happy (belated) St. Patrick’s Day! 🍀 Should you need some clover folklore, please see my post on four-leaf clovers.

There are two things that if you handed them to me, I would not be able to say “no” to—cookies and lattes. And right now, my house is full of cookies! Last weekend, my daughter and a friend baked chocolate chip and sugar cookies. And for Valentine’s, my husband bought me Jammie Dodgers in a variety of flavors. I am in heaven! But I am trying to be good and limit myself to two a day (*sigh* but also *grabs a third one*). It’s so hard!

Additionally, my daughter has been wanting to watch the Bridgerton shows, so we decided to start with Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. (I do love romantic period pieces!) For me, this is my second time viewing it, but I’m a person who enjoys rewatching shows. Sometimes it’s just comforting to rewatch a show I’m already familiar with. Other times, I feel like I gain a better understanding of the show with a second watch, especially if the plot is complex or the viewer is presented with a lot of details.

Behind the Scenes: More Intentional Note-Taking

I’m always looking for ways to improve how I research and write the “Exploring Folklore” section of my newsletter. Lately I’ve been working to streamline my note-taking and be more efficient. I’ve been trying a more intentional approach, which I think has been helpful.

In the past I would choose a subject matter, find pertinent reference materials, and take notes that related to the subject. Using the notes, I would determine the main topics I wanted to cover, then create a brief outline and begin writing.

But for the past few months, I’ve been changing up my method slightly. I still begin by choosing my subject matter and gathering reference materials, but instead of simply taking notes right away, I first read/scan through the material. Then I create my outline based off what I’ve read. This way, I only take notes related to the topics in my outline. After taking notes, I’ll begin writing, and if I discover I need more details, I’ll go back and take a few more notes.

Exploring Folklore: The Language of Flowers

About a year ago, I discovered Phil Gates’ newsletter, Phil’s Substack. Gates is a botanist, a naturalist, and a Country Diarist for the Guardian. His newsletter often documents the flora and fauna that he encounters on his walks, complete with great photos. He also has a lovely collection of old books that he occasionally writes about and shares images from.

One of the books he has highlighted is his grandmother’s copy of The Language of Flowers. Before reading his post on the book, I had only heard of it in passing on social media. I had initially thought it to be a single book. However, after reading about it in Gates’ newsletter, I did a little research and soon realized that it is actually a genre of books—many with the same (or similar) title. I have also learned that these books were extremely popular during the Victorian era, have a strong connection to poetry, and have influenced set design in the show, Bridgerton.

Floriography and the Language of Flowers

The language of flowers books are based on the tradition of floriography (using flowers to send messages). According to “Written in Petals: The Language of Flowers in Victorian Europe” (an online exhibition found on the Cornell University Library website), floriography “is an ancient art, rooted in the symbolism of China, Egypt, and Assyria.” However, the British tradition of floriography seems to have come from France.

The “Written in Petals” exhibition explains that the book, Le Langage Des Fleurs by Charlotte de La Tour, was “the first completely devoted to floriography and was translated and published widely.” The exhibition notes that de La Tour’s book provided the model for language of flowers books in Britain.

During the nineteenth century, these books were prominently displayed and consulted in middle-class homes in Britain, the US, and France. The online exhibition explains that Victorian women in the middle and upper class weren’t encouraged to pursue occupations or higher education; rather, they were expected to care for their children and home.

By extension, maintaining a garden and learning about horticulture was in keeping with a Victorian woman’s pursuits. Knowing the language of flowers allowed women to set the tone of their home and express their feelings through floral arrangements and flowers in their hats.

What Does a Language of Flowers Book Include?

The common element found in language of flowers books is the inclusion of a floral dictionary, which often takes the form of two alphabetical lists: one sorted by flowers and the sentiment they convey and another by sentiment and their corresponding flower. Using the first list, a reader could easily determine what meaning a flower held. Likewise, if a person wanted to send a particular message to someone, they could look up the sentiment and use the correct flower.

Using the pages displayed above from The Language of Flowers: An Alphabet of Floral Emblems published by T. Nelson and Sons, you can see that a red tulip is a “declaration of love,” while a yellow rose signifies “jealousy” or “decrease of love.” If you want to call someone “a boaster,” you might give them a hydrangea. But if you wish to let a friend know that they are “comforting,” you could present them with a scarlet geranium.

In his post, “Say it with flowers ... but choose your blooms carefully,” Phil Gates warns that these books did not always list the same sentiments and that flower meanings could change over time. He writes: “To avoid misunderstanding, giver and receiver need to be reading from that same code book.”

You may have noticed that the book pages pictured above also include trees and other plants in addition to flowers. The “Written in Petals” exhibition explains that during the 19th century in Britain and the US, “botany and the growing of plants became a serious hobby for vast numbers of women.” The exhibition further notes that the language of flowers formed a portion of the literature created for botanical hobbyists.

Additionally, some of these books offer information on practical uses and benefits of plants and flowers. In The Language of Flowers: Including Floral Poetry published by Frederick Warne and Co., the book’s introduction includes this:

And in these days of utility, when a thing is nothing if not useful, we must remind our readers that the vegetable and floral world holds in it the secret of health to a greater degree, we believe, than is yet dreamt of in our philosophy.

Throughout the book, “mythology, history, usefulness” of different plants and flowers is sprinkled in—some within descriptive text and some through the inclusion of floral poetry. The book also provides a dial of flowers, which lists the opening and closing time of different flowers.

Odes to Flowers and Plants: The Poetry Connection

Because my creative writing background began with poetry, I was immediately drawn to language of flowers books that incorporated floral poetry into their pages. Several books I looked at, like The Language of Flowers: An Alphabet of Floral Emblems, include a selection of floral poetry at the end of the book.

However, in The Language of Flowers: Including Floral Poetry, each flower or plant is presented in a sort of floral essay with meaning, folklore, tradition, and history mingling with a variety of poems. I found the book’s entry for rosemary interesting because it references both William Shakespeare and folk traditions. Rosemary is introduced in the following way, with the publishers referring to lines from two of Shakespeare’s plays:

Our forefathers invariably adopted Rosemary as the symbol of remembrance; it was believed to possess the power of improving the memory, and was frequently employed as a means of invigorating the mental faculties. Perdita, in the “Winter’s Tale,” says:

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“For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be with you both!”

And in “Hamlet,” Ophelia says:

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“There’s rosemary for you: that’s for remembrance.
Pray you, love, remember.”

The book then goes on to explore a folk custom connected to rosemary:

Respecting its employment at funerals, Mr. Martyn observes that in some parts of England, in his time, it was still customary to distribute it among the company, who frequently threw sprigs of it into the grave. Slips of it were also sometimes placed within the coffin; and in some secluded villages these innocent customs are still practised.

The publishers also include the poem, “To the Herb Rosemary,” by Henry Kirke White. The following stanza from the poem seems to best exemplify the custom described above. Please note that this version from the book is slightly different than other instances of the poem that can be found online:

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Come, funeral flower! who lovest to dwell
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
And throw across the deepest gloom
A sweet decaying smell.
Come, press my lips, and lie with me,
Beneath the lowly alder tree;
And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude
To break the marble solitude,
So peaceful and so deep.

Because of my interest in folk life and literature, I really enjoyed reading through this book and exploring the connection of plants and flowers to tradition and poetry.

The Use of Flowers in Bridgerton

Dearest Gentle Reader, this author is delighted to find that she has reached a point in her letter where she simply must write about Bridgerton and the show’s use of flowers. Indeed, if you enjoy watching Bridgerton then you may have noticed that the set includes a great many flowers!

In the article, “The flowers in ‘Bridgerton’ can reveal characters’ secrets: How to crack the code,” Sophie Caldwell explains that Alison Gartshore (production designer for the third season of Bridgerton) and Phillip Corps (florist for the show) used floriography in their set designs. Caldwell writes:

Floriography grew increasingly popular during the Regency era, in which “Bridgerton” is set. Gartshore and Corps say the set design for one of the season’s most elaborate balls was inspired by the language of flowers.

According to the article, one of the books they used for research was Language of Flowers illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Caldwell also describes “tulips, geraniums, lilies and roses as particularly significant flowers” in the show.

In looking at the pages from Language of Flowers shown above, it becomes apparent that roses were very complex with respect to the sentiments they represented. How wonderful to give an Austrian rose (“Thou art all that is lovely”), but I wouldn’t hand a York and Lancaster rose to anyone (“War”).

I also love Greenaway’s delicate illustrations. The “Written in Petals” exhibition explains that she was a clothing illustrator and notes that “most of the images in the book focus on women and children wearing clothes that Greenaway made popular.”

Further Reading on the Language of Flowers

I definitely recommend reading Phil Gates’s post that initially sparked my interest in the subject. In it, he imagines how “a floral courtship” might transpire via a flower dialogue (worthy of a Bridgerton episode!). It is delightful to read.

Additionally, Icy Sedgwick’s post, “The Victorian Language of Flowers: Hiding Secret Messages in Plain Sight,” explores more of the history of the language of flowers.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: What is your favorite flower? I’d love to know. :)

As you may know, I enjoy walking as my primary exercise, and I often post photos from my walks in this newsletter and on social media. But I’m also a yoga practitioner, and I usually attend a class once a week if possible. Yoga has been a part of my life since college, and I’ve been learning from my current teacher since 2010.

After class few weeks ago, I learned that we had lost one of our yoga friends to cancer. She was a student and a teacher, and I had been in a class with her at least twice a month for about 15 years. Another long-time student hosted a celebration of life for her, which was beautiful to attend. I feel fortunate to have known her. 💛

Behind the Scenes: My Poem, “Birdsong,” Is on the Poetry Path in Mission Viejo

Last week I was excited to learn that one of my poems, “Birdsong,” has been included in a new Poetry Path alongside Lake Mission Viejo! The poem was originally part of the Poetry + Art Collaborative installation at the Mission Viejo Library. (You can read the poem more easily here on my website.) A friend of mine happened to see it while she was walking around the lake and shared it to her Instagram story. The next day I stopped by to check it out and take some photos. Thank you to the Mission Viejo Library for including my poem!

This past month I was able to finish revising the short story I’ve been working on, and I submitted it to a magazine that I really enjoy reading. I also learned of a scholarship for emerging writers that includes some mentoring, so I decided to apply for that as well.

If you’re new to my newsletter (welcome!) or if you missed my December letter, the behind-the-scenes portion of that post sums up the writing I’ve been working on for the past year.

Exploring Folklore: The Capricious Celtic Mermaid

Mermaids! I’m kind of excited about this topic. :) Mermaids have a long history and are found in the literature, mythology, and folklore of many different countries, so I have decided to focus primarily on the Celtic mermaid.

Additionally, I have discovered that mermaids are quite complex (which I love!), but I had to rein myself in to keep this post a reasonable length. So please consider this an introduction to the enchanting mermaid. We’ll take a quick look at her origin story, highlight some of her characteristics, and explore a few folktales that include her.

A Brief History of the Mermaid

The exact origin of the mermaid seems to be difficult to determine. She is a very old figure in both myth and legend. In the article, “The Mermaid and Her Sisters: From Archaic Goddess to Consumer Society,” Boria Sax suggests that the mermaid may stem from a mother-goddess figure like Gaia from Greek mythology.

The earliest known representation of a merperson comes from Babylon. Sax explains that Ea, the god of the sea, “was represented with the torso of a human being and the tail of a fish.” Atargatis, a Syrian goddess, was similarly depicted, but with a woman’s face and the body of a fish.

But according to “The Folklore of the Merfolk” by Sir Arthur Waugh, it is within the bestiaries where the mermaid begins to acquire characteristics that we would recognize, but through a Christian lens. Bestiaries were medieval collections, much like an encyclopedia, which offered descriptions of both real and mythical creatures and included allegories or moral themes. Waugh writes:

It is the Bestiaries which gave the mermaid all the attributes associated with her from early Christian days—her vanity, constantly with comb and mirror, her alluring appearance and voice, and her danger to the human soul. Early on in the Christian Era, a fish was a symbol of the soul; and, in medieval Church carvings, a mermaid grasping a fish is an Awful Warning to the Laity.

As time passed from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, a variety of sources influenced mermaid descriptions and representations. Sax explains: “Myth, literature, and folk belief blended in the lore of mariners during the early modern period, to create the popular image of the mermaid.” Additionally, humans still maintained a complicated relationship with the sea during this time in that they simultaneously feared and were amazed by it.

Keeping this history in mind, now let’s shift to look at folklore and attributes of the Celtic mermaid.

Characteristics of the Celtic Mermaid

In general, mermaids within Celtic folklore are presented much as they were in antiquity. Katharine Briggs lays out a succinct description of them in An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. She writes:

… the mermaids are like beautiful maidens from the waist upwards, but they have the tail of a fish. They carry a comb and a mirror and are often seen combing their long and beautiful hair and singing with irresistible sweetness on some rock beside the sea. They allure men to their death and their appearance is ominous of storms and disasters.

And Briggs clarifies that it wasn’t just that their presence foreshadowed some type of misfortune, but that mermaids also intentionally caused trouble like capturing men, then drowning or “devouring them.” (More on that to come.)

In The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore, Patricia Monaghan adds to this idea. She explains that because it was thought that mermaids had a penchant for brandy, it was believed that several mermaids might attack a ship as a group. Once they had successfully wrecked the ship, they would scour the debris for intact bottles of brandy.

Both Monaghan and Briggs consider the mermaid to be a type of faerie, and if captured, it was believed that she might grant wishes. But be warned—Briggs notes that mermaids might tweak the wishes (most likely to their own advantage) if they could manage it.

The Irish Mermaid (Merrow) and the Scottish Highland Mermaid (Ceasg)

While all of the Celtic nations included mermaids in their folklore, there were different versions of her depending on the region. But as I researched, the Irish mermaid and the Scottish Highland mermaid stood out. The sources I consulted included extra folklore on these mermaids that went beyond the Celtic mermaid’s general attributes.

The Irish mermaid was known as the merrow (from the Irish murúch), but was also called the moruadh or moruach (“sea maid”). Both Briggs and Monaghan explain that in some early descriptions of Irish mermaids, such as one found in the Annals of the Four Masters, they are portrayed as giants.

I located an English translation of the Annals of the Four Masters, and in the annal corresponding to the year A.D. 887, there is an entry describing a mermaid. It reads:

A mermaid was cast ashore by the sea in the country of Alba. One hundred and ninety five feet was her length, eighteen feet was the length of her hair, seven feet was the length of the fingers of her hand, seven feet also was the length of her nose; she was whiter than the swan all over.

I found this description fascinating—at this size, fears of being devoured by a mermaid or her breaking apart a ship make more sense.

Another aspect of Irish mermaids was a special cap they wore called the cohuleen druith. Monaghan explains that the cap kept the mermaid safe beneath the water. However, should a human man marry a mermaid, he must take and hide her cap from her, essentially trapping her on land.

Monaghan notes that as a wife, the mermaid was “industrious, loving, sensuous.” But whether due to her capricious nature or her love for the sea, if she ever found her cap, she donned it and “escaped from land, leaving husband and children behind, without a thought or a second glance.”

In Scottish folklore, the Highland mermaid is called the Ceasg or maighdean na tuinne (“maiden of the wave”). Her body is that of a woman, but her tail is that of a young salmon (grilse). Briggs notes that if captured, the Ceasg might “be prevailed upon to grant three wishes.” Stories of her marrying humans exist, and there are sea captains believed to have been born of these marriages.

This Highland mermaid appears in a story called, “The Celtic Dragon Myth,” credited to John Francis Campbell, but published by George Henderson. In the tale, the mermaid strikes a bargain with a fisherman, then later returns to make good on the bargain by swallowing the hero of the story. The hero’s wife (a princess) plays a harp for the mermaid to entice her to open her mouth so that the hero may escape. But as he escapes, the princess is then swallowed instead. The hero must undergo a challenge in order to destroy the mermaid and save his wife.

I explored the overall narrative of “The Celtic Dragon Myth” last year, which in addition to the mermaid includes dragons, giants, and shape-shifting heroes. You can read more about it via the link below.

Two Mermaid Folktales from Wales

As you can imagine, there are a plethora of tales and stories about mermaids. But as I hadn’t encountered much in the way of specific folklore or folktales about mermaids in Wales, I turned to Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx by John Rhŷs. There I discovered several tales which further illuminate the Celtic mermaid.

In Welsh, the word for “mermaid” is môr-forwyn. It is a compound word that means “sea maid.” Rhŷs relates two mermaid tales from when he was visiting Trefriw, a parish in Nant Conwy. The first comes from a man named Morris Hughes, and Rhŷs relates the story in this manner:

Lastly, Morris had a tale about a mermaid cast ashore by a storm near Conway [Conwy]. She entreated the fishermen who found her to help her back into her native element; and on their refusing to comply she prayed them to place her tail at least in the water. A very crude rhyme describes her dying of exposure to the cold, thus:—

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Y forforwyn ar y traeth,
Crio gwaeddu’n arw wnaeth,
Ofn y deuai drycin drannoeth:
Yr hin yn oer a rhewi wnaeth.

The stranded mermaid on the beach
Did sorely cry and sorely screech,
Afraid to bide the morrow’s breeze:
The cold it came, and she did freeze.

But before expiring, the mermaid cursed the people of Conway to be always poor, and Conway has ever since, so goes the tale, laboured under the curse; so that when a stranger happens to bring a sovereign [a gold coin] there, the Conway folk, if silver is required [silver coins, I presume], have to send across the water to Llansanffraid for change.

This act of mermaid vengeance against the people of Conway is a common feature of mermaid tales. In his article, Sax explains that “many tales record of terrible revenge taken by mermaids on those who harmed or offended them.”

The second story has a similar setup, but a different ending. It was told to Rhŷs by a John Duncan Maclaren, whose father was from Scotland, but Maclaren himself was considered to be a Welshman. The mermaid tale he shared with Rhŷs is this:

A fisherman from Llandrillo yn Rhos, between Colwyn and Llandudno, had caught a mermaid in his net. She asked to be set free, promising that she would, in case he complied, do him a kindness. He consented, and one fine day, a long while afterwards, she suddenly peeped out of the water near him, and shouted: Siôn Ifan, cwyd dy rwyda’ a thyn tua’r lan, ‘John Evans, take up thy nets and make for the shore.’ He obeyed, and almost immediately there was a terrible storm, in which many fishermen lost their lives.

It’s not stated whether the mermaid caused the storm, but this combination of helpfulness in conjunction with tragedy is a little unnerving. Sax addresses this briefly in his article as well, explaining that while mermaids might be helpful, “one could never take their good will for granted.”

What Does the Mermaid Symbolize?

It may seem obvious that the mermaid symbolizes femininity—after all, she is part woman. But her association with the feminine goes deeper than that. Sax notes that both ships and the sea were also seen as feminine by mariners, and so sailing on the ocean was viewed as entering into a feminine environment.

But at the same time, the sea evoked fear—in its vast power, as a precarious setting, and as a world of the unknown. By extension, Sax observes, the “mermaid embodied the wonder and terror of the sea, which drew the sailors even to their doom.” He also notes that the “bestial part of the mermaid,” which defined her as a being other than human, was included as part her femininity. Consequently, fear of the ocean and the mermaid also included fear of the feminine and the other.

The article “Mermaids: Myth, Kith and Kin,” by Akanksha Singh, traces the history of this fear of the feminine and otherness as related to the mermaid, but also describes how the mermaid has been embraced in more modern times as a way to explore gender and sexuality, including queer identity. This includes Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, The Little Mermaid. Singh writes: “Today, most scholars agree that Andersen, a bi-romantic, wrote the story after Edvard Collin rejected his affections.” Knowing this provides for a deeper reading and interpretation of The Little Mermaid.

To this day, the mermaid lives on in books and films, as branding for companies, and as a symbol that challenges and disrupts societal beliefs. I love the last line of Singh’s article, which reads:

To celebrate the mermaid, is no longer to fear femininity, otherness, or half-fishness; it is to celebrate diversity.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: If you know someone fascinated by mermaids or folklore, please feel free to share this post with them. :)

A few weeks ago my husband, daughter, and I took a quick vacation up to the Central Coast of California. We stayed in San Luis Obispo, but also drove up to Morro Bay one afternoon to catch the sunset on the coast. It brought back a lot of memories as both my husband and I had attended university there at Cal Poly, SLO.

Our daughter is in her final year of high school and is currently applying to universities. So for her, this was an opportunity to check out the campus and town. For us, it was a chance to reminisce and see how the school and surrounding area had changed. As we walked and explored, we peppered our daughter with endless stories and memories of our time there. She was patient with us (for the most part!).

I was surprised at how much the campus had changed—new buildings had been built and fun murals decorated previously blank spaces. I even found a bench with a seated statue of Albert Einstein, so I took a selfie with him!

During the past month we also had the chance to see our son (he’s currently in his third year of university). He came home for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and spent time visiting with us, extended family, and some of his friends. We even watched a few episodes of the new season of Stranger Things. We’ve been watching the show as a family from the outset, and we have a goal to finish it as a family—no cheating and watching on your own or with friends, lol!

Behind the Scenes: Writing-Related Wins of 2025

The December newsletter allows me the opportunity to think about the past year and reflect on my writing life. (It has become a winter tradition for me!) More than anything, this year has been one of reflection, assessment, and revision. I’ve also been working to be more authentic in my writing, my online presence, and my personal life.

For the folklore-inspired novel I’m revising, I’ve been working on improving characterization and ensuring that the folklore and worldbuilding are consistent. I want the story to feel like a folktale, so I’ve been taking that into consideration as well.

Plot and dialogue came fairly easily to me when drafting the book, but characters (in some ways) have been harder. At times in my own life, I have misunderstood myself, only to understand my true feelings later on. It seems like my characters also needed to experience a little confusion and misdirection in order for me to better understand them.

Additionally, I’ve been rewriting and revising a short story, which is a folktale retelling. It consists of two plot lines, one of which is based on folklore and the original folktale. The other plot line, though, has been evolving. But I found inspiration though researching and writing one of my newsletters this past year, so I think I have found my footing and feel more confident with this round of revision.

With respect to this newsletter, it is a joy to research, write, and send to you each month. Thank you for subscribing and reading! :) Readership of my newsletter has grown steadily—as of today we now have nearly 200 subscribers! And readers are located across 30 states within the US and 21 countries worldwide. Thank you for exploring folklore with me!

After I send my newsletter out each month, I add the folklore section to the blog on my website. In general, this is a helpful way for folks interested in folklore to find my writing. But beginning with October of this year, something I like to call, “The Taylor Swift Effect,” has increased both my website’s visibility on search engines and the traffic to my website.

When Taylor Swift released her new song, “The Fate of Ophelia,” there was a sudden (and ongoing) increase in traffic to my blog post on Ophelia. My post explores “a folktale referenced by the character Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” And because this song has stayed at the top of multiple Billboard charts, people keep searching up information related to Ophelia.

I just pulled up the statistics on my site from the beginning of October until now, and this post ranks as my most viewed post during that time frame. It’s kind of amazing the reach Taylor Swift has. I’m grateful for this fun connection that my writing has with her music. Here’s the video, in case you haven’t heard the song yet.

Finally, I attended a few writerly events this past year. I went to the Saturday session of the AWP Conference & Bookfair in Los Angeles and enjoyed listening to some panel discussions on craft and professional development. I also attended the Bi+ Narratives in Film & TV presented by Rewrite the BiLine. And I was invited to a few book launches. I really enjoy learning from and supporting other writers!

Exploring Folklore: What is Tradition? Plus Readers’ Favorite Winter Traditions

Before we learn about some of our readers’ fun winter traditions, I wanted to touch on the concept of tradition within the scope of folklore. The word “tradition” comes from multiple origins. According to the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, it stems from both Middle French and Latin. From Latin, it derived the meaning: “action of handing over.” While the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary offers several definitions for “tradition,” the two that most resonate with me are:

the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction

and

an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior

But then I wondered, how would a folklorist define tradition? When I had researched the definition of “folklore” for an early post, I soon discovered that were as many definitions of “folklore” as there were folklorists. :) So I had an inkling that defining and understanding “tradition” would not be straightforward either.

Tradition is an Evolving Concept

I searched through various books and journal articles, and I found an informative article that traces the concept of tradition as it relates to folklore from the late nineteenth century to the millennium. In “The Meanings of Tradition: An Introduction,” Simon J. Bronner explains that tradition and folklore have been linked since shortly after the term “folklore” originated in Britain.

He writes that in the late nineteenth century, Edwin Sidney Hartland (a member of the Folklore Society, who served as its president in 1899) described “the professional pursuit of folklore as first the ‘study of tradition’ and then the ‘science of tradition.’” Additionally, Bronner includes a quote from Hartland, which describes the concept of tradition as both the “mode of preservation and communication, as well as to the things thus preserved and communicated.”

But in the twentieth century, the study of folklore started being viewed as contemporaneous and linked to individuals, not just focused on the past and on groups. Bronner explains how in that era folklore began to be “spread by technology such as telephones and books as well as by word of mouth.” He cites Joseph Jacobs (an Australian-born, English folklore scholar) as influential in this perspective. Bronner writes:

Tradition, he [Joseph Jacobs] implied, was chosen as well as followed; it was created anew as well as inherited from yore.

I found that quote fascinating, especially in light of our readers’ winter traditions that we will learn about shortly. I like the idea of a more inclusive concept of tradition—that it can encompass both past and present, as well as group and individual.

Industrialization also ignited debates on how the meaning of tradition was being affected by changes in society. And discussions continued as to whether folklore could include studying present-day folk and traditions. But in the 1960-70s, the entire idea of linking tradition with folklore studies began to be considered by some as worrisome. Bronner notes:

Leach [MacEdward Leach, an American folklorist] foretold the rethinking of tradition as the emblem of folklore. In the midst of the dramatic rise of mass media, mass culture, and mass communication emphasizing novelty and uniformity, he observed, tradition came under suspicion.

Bronner describes how some folklorists felt that folk studies bound to tradition would keep them from studying mass culture. Others felt frustrated (in this new, modern era) that tradition still looked primarily backward, enforcing “respect for the establishment and duty to follow precedent.”

And with the turn of the millennium in the year 2000, tradition found itself as a point of discussion yet again. Our world now exists in the digital age with global reach. Bronner explains that this has allowed for traditions to cross borders. What effect this will have on tradition “as a symbol for culture” is part of the discussion.

Before reading Bronner’s article I hadn’t fully realized how much the idea of tradition had been reflected on by folklorists. Similar to how the definition of folklore varies depending on the era and the folklorist defining it, so too does the interpretation of the concept of tradition.

Now let’s enjoy learning about some of our readers’ winter traditions!

Readers’ Favorite Winter Traditions

Thank you to all of the readers who contributed their traditions in response to my request last month. Their traditions were so fun to read and learn about! I have included them here as they were sent to me. Aside from some very light edits to punctuation and spelling, they are written in the reader’s own words.

Rebecca-Anne From Australia

“Mum and I started our own custom—during the year, we find old books, which we then tuck away in secret. At Christmas we wrap them all in fabric and open them. We love the same kinds of books, so they’re really a present from ourselves to ourselves. 😆”

Joy

“As a child, we would walk through the neighborhood singing Christmas carols. The kids would be running up to the doors to ring the bells, and the whole chorus assembly made their way to the next section of block. After another song was sung, most of the neighbors would come out of their house to join the group, and this went on until the whole neighborhood was singing together. At the end of the string of homes was a cul-de-sac where the families shared loads of Christmas goodies, hot chocolate, and laughter. I looked forward to it every year, anxiously waiting for them to reach our house so we could join the singing and door dinging.”

Brian From California (US) Shares a Tradition From the Czech Republic

“I had a coworker from the Czech Republic that once told me about an interesting winter tradition his family had. His family would go to the fish market and buy a Christmas carp. They would bring the carp home, then fill up their bathtub with water, and then put the carp in there. It would swim around in there for two days before Christmas, and then they would eat the carp for Christmas dinner. I thought that was an interesting tradition!”

Marianne From Irvine (US) Shares Some Traditions From Sweden and Ireland

“Firstly food—every year when we go to Sweden we make sweet treats from scratch: marzipan, chocolate covered caramel sweets, and gingerbread cookies. I make trifle for dessert, an Irish family tradition. It’s made with layers beginning with tinned fruit cocktail in jelly, then sponge cake, and a layer of custard and whipped cream on top. Then another tradition from home is watching a short animation, The Snowman, that’s accompanied by a song called “Walking in the Air,” sung by Aled Jones (Welsh) [originally performed by Peter Auty in the film]. I’ve watched it at Christmas every year since I was young, and it still makes me cry.”

Steph (and her mom, Karon) From the US

I wanted to get in on the fun and share some of our family winter traditions as well. I called my mom, because I didn’t know all the details. So this is a joint response.

Our most steadfast winter tradition is the baking and decorating of holiday sugar cookies. It began with my grandmother, who at some point bought a box of cookie cutters. Because the cookie recipe we use is printed on stiff cardboard, my mom is pretty sure that the recipe came from that box of cookie cutters.

It turned out to be a pretty tasty recipe, and later on, my mom took possession of both the cookie cutters and the recipe. Growing up, my brother and I (and sometimes family friends as well) would help my mom to roll out the dough. Then we’d cut, bake, and decorate the cookies. When I was in college, I asked my mom for a copy of the recipe, and I bought some cookie cutters so that I could make them as well.

She’s now given me some of the original cutters, plus other ones that she’s accumulated over the years, and I’ve made them with my own children. We make them every few years (they are quite a labor of love).

My mom also reminded me of another tradition that our family practiced—the kids were permitted to open one package on Christmas Eve, but the rest were saved for Christmas Day.

I hope you enjoyed exploring the concept of tradition from a folklore standpoint, as well as learning about our readers’ very own winter traditions. Thanks again for sending in your traditions!

If you’d like to listen to more winter and holiday traditions, I think you’ll enjoy this recent episode of the Fabulous Folklore podcast.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: I wish you a joyful holiday season and a happy New Year!

As I’ve been working on this newsletter, it’s been raining quite a bit where I live, and the temperature has dropped. This cozy, sweater weather has made Southern California suddenly feel like it’s officially autumn. I went on a (slightly muddy) walk a few days ago—luckily the weather held with only gray skies. And over the weekend, we saw a rainbow!

The past month has been more family and friend-oriented, which has been nice. We’re looking forward to spending time with our kids and seeing extended family during the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday break.

Also, good news on the car front! (Last month I had written that my car had broken down while I was attending an event in Los Angeles.) We finally got the car back from the shop after waiting for a part for about seven weeks. After having three different loaner vehicles during that time, it’s so nice to drive a car that I’m familiar with. :)

Behind the Scenes: I’d Love to Learn About Your Favorite Winter Traditions (and share them in the December newsletter)

Do you have a favorite (or unique, fun, interesting) winter tradition that you’d like to share with our newsletter community? I thought it would be fun to collect and share your winter traditions in the December newsletter!

You could describe a personal, family, or cultural winter tradition. Or you could reflect on a December holiday or end-of-year tradition. It can be a tradition that you participate in or one from the past that you find fascinating.

To make it easy to respond, I’ve created a short Google form. The form will be available until December 11, 2025. If you’d like to participate, click on the button below to access the form. Thanks for reading and supporting my newsletter! It means so much to me.

Share Your Winter Tradition

Exploring Folklore: Maybe Think Twice Before Sharing a Meal With Faeries

Here in the US, we’re approaching the Thanksgiving holiday, where folks often share a traditional meal with family and/or friends. This is why I have food on the brain for the folklore section of this newsletter. :) And it put me to wondering, from a folklore standpoint would it have been a good idea to share a meal with the faeries?

Within faerie folklore, food often plays a pivotal role. Routinely, faeries were dependent on humans as the primary source of their food. Lurking in homes and fields, faeries would take food from mortals as they wished.

Yet many folktales describe how scrumptious and captivating faerie food was. Was it wise to eat faerie food, though? And why would faeries have been interested in our food? Let’s find out!

Faeries Loved to Beg, Borrow, and Steal Food

While faeries were known for stealing shiny things, borrowing implements, and more seriously, kidnapping people, they were also believed to be quite adept at food theft. Many folktales relate how faeries borrowed or stole dairy products, like milk and butter, as well as grains and bread.

In The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore, Patricia Monaghan describes faerie desire (and morality) when it came to pilfering human food:

For all their sensitivity to humans stealing from them—a misdemeanor that they punished with all their might—the fairies thought nothing of stealing from humans. Food was their favorite target, for their own fairy food was not as nourishing as ours.

I found that the concept of nourishment came up quite a lot while I researched this topic. As noted above, faerie food was considered less nourishing, which is why faeries might have found value in stealing human food. But there are also descriptions of how faeries simply spirited away the nutritional, nourishing essence from human food. According to Monaghan, the food that remained would have been “stale and dry and useless.”

Katharine Briggs in her reference work, An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, elaborates on the idea of faeries stealing away the nutritional aspect of food. Referring to Robert Kirk (a Gaelic scholar and folklorist) and J. G. Campbell (a collector of Highland tales), she writes:

The fairies also steal the essential good out of human food, and leave an unnourishing substance behind them. Kirk speaks of their stealing away the ‘foyson’ of human food, and Campbell uses the Gaelic ‘toradh’.

Briggs uses the term “goodness” as a synonym to “foyson” and “toradh.” By stealing this “goodness” from human food, the faeries would have been taking the most valuable aspect of the food. As a result, people often used charms and protections to keep their food safe from faerie theft. (More to come on that later!)

Faerie Food: A Description of Delicacies and the Side Effects of Consumption

To better understand why faerie food may not have been as nourishing as ours, I turned back to Briggs’ book. She explains that while faerie food “appears by glamour to be rich and elegant, [it] consists of weeds.” Additionally, she includes a very precise description of it provided by J. G. Campbell. She writes:

According to Campbell … [faerie food] consists of brisgein (that is, the roots of silverweed), stalks of heather, milk of red deer and goats, and barley meal.

But with a heavy helping of glamour (and perhaps some spices), the faeries could transform their twig and leaf offerings into a sumptuous banquet, which they would use to tempt humans who were visiting Faerie. Monaghan explores this topic in her book as well. She relates how many tales depict faerie food as extremely delicious, but she offers up a warning:

It was especially important never to eat when visiting Fairyland, whether by choice or because one was the victim of fairy kidnapping, for once a human devoured fairy food there, it was virtually impossible to return to earthly life.

It seems that in the stories I came across while researching this post, the person who ate faerie food while in Faerie would either remain trapped there indefinitely, or if they were able to escape, would pine for the treats of Faerie and sometimes died from their burning desire for it.

Be Sure to Guard Your Grains and Bread

Even though faerie food was touted to be the tastiest of all food, the faeries still preferred human food. Briggs relates that some faeries would sneak into fields or barns to carry off grain from under the farmer’s nose.

Bread was also a favorite food of the faeries. Monaghan explains that if a fresh loaf of bread was left unattended, it might get swiped by hungry faeries.

But in Welsh faerie folklore, there exists a common type of tale where humans intentionally aided faeries in baking bread. In Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, John Rhŷs describes how the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales is rich in stories of faeries borrowing human baking implements in order to bake bread and cakes. He explains that the tools they borrowed were a gradell (a griddle or bakestone “on which the dough is put”) and a padell (the “pan put over it”). Rhŷs relates a story told to him by a man named Lewis Jones:

… when they [human women] had been baking, they took care to leave the fairies both padell and gradell, that they might do their baking in the night. The latter used to pay for this kindness by leaving behind them a cake of fairy bread and sometimes money on the hob. I have, however, not been able to learn anything about the quality or taste of this fairy food.

I came across a similar tale in Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales by Elias Owen. In this version, a woman named Mary Roberts would receive a loaf of bread from the faerie who borrowed her gradell once a week. But this faerie had one demand: Mary was not to watch her leave when she left Mary’s house. One day, though, Mary “transgressed, and took a peep as the Fairy went away.” Not pleased, the faerie went to a nearby lake, “plunged into its waters, and disappeared.”

Use Charms to Protect Milk and Butter

Dairy products also seemed to hold great appeal for faeries—especially butter, milk, and cheese. Rhŷs notes that within Wales, many faeries were “of a thieving disposition” when it came to dairy goods. In general terms, he writes of faeries who seize butter and cheese from dairies and take it upon themselves to milk cows and goats as they please.

Butter was seen as a great favorite of the faeries. Monaghan writes that if a woman worked hard at churning, but the butter did not seem to be forming, then often the faeries were blamed for stealing it away. And while faeries might milk cows directly, they also stole it from milk pails or by making a person drinking milk spill some.

Monaghan further explains how charms (“a spell or incantation to attract good fortune”) were often used as a counter measure to faerie thefts:

The Celtic lands provide many examples of charms, which entailed certain ritual gestures, specified offerings, the gathering of specific herbs, and/or incantatory words. Charms were sung to hasten the butter, when the monotonous action of churning milk began to tire the milkmaid. … A milking charm collected in Scotland is typical: With each flow of milk a new verse was sung, calling on a different saint, for many ancient charms were Christianized and continued in use even until recent years.

In addition to singing charms to protect the butter, Monaghan notes that folks also placed holy water or leaves from a mullein plant inside of the churn. And placing iron nails in your milk pail was another option, as it was believed that faeries had a great fear of iron.

Yet the Faeries Could be Generous

Apparently faeries did have a generous side with respect to food. Briggs describes how borrowing food and utensils went both ways in faerie and human dealings. If the faeries lent food to mortals, they usually only expected an equivalent return in response to their generosity. But when faeries borrowed from humans, they included a sort of interest and gave back more than they had borrowed. Although, they were wont to give back barley if they had borrowed oats.

In addition, while eating faerie food within Faerie was dangerous, consuming it in the human realm could bring good luck. Briggs points to a common type of tale in which a human (often a ploughman or farm laborer) fixes a broken tool that belongs to the faeries. In return, the faeries leave a delightful cake for the person who helped them. In these stories, eating the cake brings good fortune to the human.

Finally, Monaghan describes how some faerie stories from Ireland that tell of the Great Famine (1840s) include aspects of faerie generosity. In these tales, the faeries give away their own food, for example by leaving treats in an abandoned field, which keeps the humans in the story from going hungry. This made me wonder if faerie food lore perhaps primarily stemmed from food difficulties. Much of the folklore I encountered while researching seemed to be cautionary in some way.

I was glad, though, to find some hopeful tales involving food with both generous humans and faeries alike. Perhaps sharing a meal with the faeries wouldn’t end badly—so long as the meal was eaten on this side of the veil.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Don’t forget to submit your winter tradition to me if you’d like to participate. Thanks in advance!

Share Your Winter Tradition

This past month has been a busy one. I had the opportunity to attend two writing-related events, which were a lot of fun. But my car broke down at one of them, which was not so fun, lol. Luckily, my husband could pick me up, and we were able to have the car towed. It’s been three weeks (they’re waiting for a part that’s on backorder), so I’ve been driving a loaner in the meantime.

Because there’s an age restriction on the loaner, our daughter is unable to drive it. So I’ve been chauffeuring her and her friends around to various events, like the homecoming dance and a comedy show in Los Angeles. A friend of mine came with us to LA, and she and I explored The Biltmore Los Angeles while my daughter and her friend watched their show. It was so interesting to explore this historic hotel with all of its Hollywood connections.

Behind the Scenes: Novel Revision and Two Writing-Related Events

If you’re a new subscriber—welcome! I’m so glad that you’ve joined us. :)

As a quick update on where I am with the novel I’m working on, I have finished the story-level revision of the manuscript. This involved assessing and improving characters and their arcs, strengthening the folklore I’ve included, and tackling some worldbuilding issues. I’ve now begun scene-level revising, and I’m excited to be interacting with the novel on more of a writing level again.

As I mentioned above, I attended two writing-related events this past month. One was a book launch party for Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s new short story collection, Pool Fishing. It was held at a local restaurant, so my husband tagged along. I was able to chat a little with Barbara and visit with some other writers. It was a fun evening that included an interview with Barbara, a reading from her book, some live music, and cake!

I also attended a panel discussion on Bi+ Narratives in Film & TV presented by Rewrite the BiLine. It was a very interesting and important discussion—heartfelt and honest. And I met several other fiction writers there, which was great! If you want to learn more about the event and see photos from it, click on the Instagram post below.

Exploring Folklore: Nos Galan Gaeaf (a Traditional Night of the Supernatural)

This is the time of year when many people (including my family) start preparing for Halloween. Our daughter is currently deciding on her costume and making plans with friends. And soon we will decorate the house and buy candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters when they knock on the door the evening of October 31.

But in the Welsh calendar, October 31 is known as Nos Galan Gaeaf (Winter’s Eve, but also All Hallows’ Eve or Hallowe’en). Nos Galan Gaeaf was once celebrated throughout Wales. As a boundary between seasons, it signaled the end of summer and ushered in the beginning of winter. And while it included traditional customs, food, and games, it was also considered to be a night of ghosts, spirits, and bogies.

I won’t get too into the weeds about the origins of Nos Galan Gaeaf, as there seems to be some uncertainty about it. In “Nos Galan Gaeaf: the traditional Welsh celebration being eclipsed by modern Halloween,” Simon Rodway explains that while there are medieval references to Nos Galan Gaeaf, it is only through modern writings that we have descriptions of Nos Galan Gaeaf customs.

Rodway also notes that “Gaelic-speaking places (Ireland, Gaelic Scotland and the Isle of Man) celebrated, at this time, a festival called Samhain.” Yet he states that “… while Welsh is also a Celtic language, there is no evidence for Samhain having been celebrated in Wales – so, it [Samhain] could well be a Gaelic rather than a Celtic institution.”

In light of this, we’ll explore some of the beliefs and traditions of Nos Galan Gaeaf without trying to pin down how or why they originated. Let’s begin with … ghosts and bogies!

Ghosts and Bogies on Stiles

As I mentioned above, Nos Galan Gaeaf served as a seasonal boundary between summer and winter. Boundaries often hold significance when looking at them through a folkloric lens. Whether it be a physical boundary like a stile between fields or more of a transition, as in from day to night or from one season to the next, boundaries represent a space where the supernatural could enter into our existence.

Delyth Badder and Mark Norman note in The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts that Nos Galan Gaeaf was considered a particularly excellent night for spotting ghosts. It was an evening when bogies, ghosts, and spirits perched on stiles, ready to frighten folks passing by. Badder and Norman explain that bogies on stiles were even found in nursery rhymes, and they give the following example:

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Mae heno’n nos Glangaea’,
A bwci ar bob camfa

Tonight is Hallowe’en, with a bogey on every stile

Nursery rhymes like this may have served a purpose in scaring children into respecting their parents’ wishes, like not going out of the house alone on Nos Galan Gaeaf. But ghosts and bogies were not the only fright you might have come across that night. Indeed there were two other specific, folkloric apparitions that were associated with Nos Galan Gaeaf: the Hwch Ddu Gwta (Tailless Black Sow) and the Ladi Wen (White Lady).

The Hwch Ddu Gwta (Tailless Black Sow) and the Ladi Wen (White Lady)

The Hwch Ddu Gwta (Tailless Black Sow) was a folkloric creature found mainly in the traditions of North Wales. Badder and Norman describe her as “a devil in the form of a black pig.” She induced fear not only in children, but in adults as well on Nos Galan Gaeaf. And apparently in Caergybi (Holyhead), there existed a variation of the Hwch Ddu Gwta which had “a tongue of flames.”

In Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, John Rhŷs includes a rhyme of the Hwch Ddu Gwta:

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Hwch ddu gwta
Ar bob camfa
Yn nyddu a chardio
Bob nos Gʻlangaea’.

A cutty [tailless] black sow
On every stile,
Spinning and carding
Every Allhallows’ Eve [Nos Galan Gaeaf].

I find this juxtaposition of the frightening Hwch Ddu Gwta engaged in everyday activities, like spinning and carding, to be fascinating. It reminds me of a horror movie villain, who goes about their day running errands or performing daily tasks, but at night is running amok.

Another apparition often seen in Wales around Nos Galan Gaeaf was the Ladi Wen (White Lady). There are a great many stories of the Ladi Wen as she was commonly seen in Britain and Ireland throughout the year, but we’ll only look briefly at this Welsh, Nos Galan Gaeaf version. She, too, has a rhyme about her, which Badder and Norman cite:

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Nos Glangaea’, twco ‘fala’,
Pwy sy’n dod ma’s i chwara’?
Ladi wen ar ben y pren
Yn naddu coes ymbrelo.

Hallowe’en, bobbing for apples, who’s coming out to play? A Ladi wen atop the tree, whittling an umbrella handle.

Apparently, while the Ladi Wen was perceived to be a ghost or bogie, Badder and Norman explain that she was often depicted as “a peaceful and serene spirit unless provoked or annoyed.” In their book they include a description of her from Thomas Christopher Evans’ (Cadrawd) essay, “The Folklore of Glamorgan”:

The Ladi Wen or White Lady, was a gentle, silent, melancholy sort of spectre, generally haunting some lonely spot, a field, a style, a cross road; and in no way to be dreaded, poor creature! Her appearance was always sudden—a bright vision, clothed in white, with glossy coal-black locks hanging over her shoulders, with a pale and care-worn face, and having an expression of intense pain.

In some tales of the Ladi Wen, the spectre is linked to a particular place in the landscape. In others, the apparition is associated with buried treasure.

Some Nos Galan Gaeaf Traditions: Bonfires and Stwmp Naw Rhyw (Mash of Nine Sorts)

One of the oldest traditions of Nos Galan Gaeaf was the lighting of bonfires at night. In his book, John Rhŷs includes a description of how the traditional bonfire could also incorporate in a fortune-telling aspect as well as the Hwch Ddu Gwta. Rhŷs writes:

Besides fuel, each person present used to throw into the fire a small stone, with a mark whereby he should know it again. If he succeeded in finding the stone on the morrow, the year would be a lucky one for him, but the contrary if he failed to recover it. Those who assisted at the making of the bonfire watched until the flames were out, and then somebody would raise the usual cry, when each ran away for his life, lest he should be found last. This cry, which is a sort of equivalent, well known over Carnarvonshire, of the English saying, ‘The devil take the hindmost,’ was in the Welsh of that county—

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Yr hwch ddu gwta
A gipio’r ola’;

that is to say, ‘May the black sow without a tail seize the hindmost.’

According to Simon Rodway, the fires were a form of protection. In his article he explains: “Close to the fires, people would be safe from wandering spirits, but the return home could be a fraught business.” He’s alluding, of course, to the Hwch Ddu Gwta and the Ladi Wen, who might be lurking somewhere in the dark night.

Another tradition that served multiple purposes was a food dish called stwmp naw rhyw (mash of nine sorts). In Welsh Folk Customs, Trefor M. Owen lists the nine ingredients: “potatoes, carrots, turnips, peas, parsnips, leeks, pepper, salt, and a sufficient quantity of new milk to make it of the proper consistency.” It sounds tasty to me—like a jazzed up version of mashed potatoes.

But eating stwmp naw rhyw wasn’t its only purpose. It also formed the basis of a divination game. Owen explains that after the mash was made, a wedding ring would be hidden within it. It was said that whoever found the ring in their portion of the mash would be the next to be married.

Fortune-telling games and divination practices were commonly found in the traditions surrounding Nos Galan Gaeaf. So I thought it’d be fun to take a look at a few more of them.

Divination on Nos Galan Gaeaf

In addition to the wedding ring in the mash tradition, Trefor M. Owen also mentions another food-related form of fortune-telling performed on Nos Galan Gaeaf. While folks used apples to play different games, like bobbing for apples, they also used them for divination.

After carefully peeling an apple without cracking the skin, the curious person would toss the apple skin over their shoulder. Owen explains that the shape of the skin would be examined, and “… it was thought that the letter of the alphabet which it most resembled would be the initial letter of one’s future partner in marriage.”

Another form of divination involved placing different types of substances in three basins. Owen describes how in the Llandysul area, three bowls would be filled: “… one vessel would contain soil, another water containing sediment (dŵr trwbwl), and the third clean water.” The person wanting to know their future would be blindfolded and instructed to place their hands into one of the bowls.

Matching the order of the bowls presented above, Owen lists what the fortune would be depending on which bowl the participant touched: “The first signified death before marriage, the second marriage followed by much trouble, and the third success throughout one’s life.”

I came across several variations on this divination practice. Trefor M. Owen offers a second version of the custom, explaining that if the bowls held “clean water, dirty water and nothing, respectively,” then the “first foretold widowhood, the second marriage, and the third bachelorhood or spinsterhood.”

And in Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, Elias Owen presents a slightly different preparation and interpretation of this fortune-telling practice. The bowls would be set up with the first containing clear spring water, the second muddy water, and the third empty. Then a young lady wearing a blindfold would touch one of the basins. Elias Owen gives the interpretation in the following way:

She who placed her hand on the clear spring water was to marry a bachelor, whilst the one who touched the basin with muddy water was to wed a widower, and should the empty basin be touched it foretold that for that person a life of single blessedness was in store.

In researching for this post, I discovered that Nos Galan Gaeaf was a night of superstition and divination, especially surrounding marriage and death. Trefor M. Owen suggests that because this night of the year was filled with the supernatural, it made sense to believe that these spirits might aid in foretelling the future.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: What is your favorite Halloween or Nos Galan Gaeaf tradition?

Since my last letter, we've been experiencing what I'd describe as “pre-autumn” weather here in SoCal. It was hot, then we had a week of cooler weather, and now it's warm again. I love autumn, so I was excited for the week of cool breezes. I was able to go on some local walks and see desert cottontails and mule deer.

When it was really hot near my home (which is inland), I went to the beach to walk—twice with my daughter and once with a friend. It was fun to see new sights and smell the ocean air.

Behind the Scenes: Cow Inspiration

I've always been fascinated by cows. When I was a kid, we would visit my aunt and uncle’s ranch in Oregon for a few weeks each summer. They raised cattle, and I loved to walk out in the fields to look at the cows. On one trip, I went walking along the road that bordered the ranch. My uncle was down in the field with one of the cows, but he saw me and hollered for me to come down the embankment to the field.

He sounded urgent, so I hustled. When I reached him, I discovered that the cow was in labor. She was very close to birthing her calf. It was exciting to watch, and if I remember correctly, the birth went smoothly. My uncle let me name the calf, and I decided upon “Violet” because her eyes seemed to be a purple-blue at birth.

Perhaps because my memories of these summers have stayed with me, cows play a role in both the short story and the novel I’m working on. And they have inspired the topic for this month’s folklore section!

Exploring Folklore: The Dun Cow and Other “Cows of Abundance” in the British Isles

In the British Isles, there are many legends and tales of a magical cow that produces seemingly limitless amounts of milk. Often she is considered to be a heavenly cow, but sometimes she is described as a faerie cow.

Her name changes depending on the location, but her stories share many similarities. In some places in England she is known as the Dun Cow, but in Shropshire she is called the White Cow. In Wales there are tales of Y Fuwch Frech and Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn. And in Ireland, this mythological cow is known as Glas Ghaibhleann.

I find these legends interesting because they explore the interplay of human behavior, the cow and her nourishing milk, and the effect of greed. I thought we’d look at some of the different regional stories featuring this magical cow, then end with an early medieval tale about her.

The Dun Cow of Kirkham

From Lancashire comes a legend of a very large dun cow that once roamed the moors. She was a generous cow, and she shared her milk with all who approached her.

According to John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, authors of Lancashire Legends: Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c. With an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract on the Lancashire Witches, &c. &c., this “wonderful cow” consistently filled the milk pail, no matter the size, and always to the brim. Her ample milk supply became well known, and people came from all over Lancashire seeking a full pail.

But one day, a witch arrived to milk the cow. Instead of a milk pail, though, the witch used a sieve. Harland and Wilkinson explain that while the witch milked the cow all day, and “the milk flowed in rich and copious streams,” by night the sieve remained empty. In the end, the cow’s mighty effort to fill the sieve (which by its nature cannot be filled), resulted in her death.

As a sort of memorial to the Dun Cow, one of her ribs was placed over the door of an old farmhouse (known as the “Old Rib”) in the parish of Kirkham. Not only did the rib serve as a reminder of this magical cow, but it also alluded to her famed size. Harland and Wilkinson write: “… the rib in its pristine proportions must have been ‘very like a whale,’ as Polonius says—at least, a whale's jaw-bone.”

The White Cow

The story of the White Cow takes place in the moorland in the west of Shropshire during a time of famine. To survive, the people in the area depended on a faerie cow (pure white in her coloring), which came to Corndon Hill at morning and night in order for people to milk her.

Much like the Dun Cow, the White Cow always had plentiful milk no matter how many people milked her and regardless of the type of pail they brought. However, Charlotte Sophia Burne, editor of Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, explains that there was one caveat: “… there was always enough for all, so long as every one that came only took one pailful.”

Most folks were fine with being limited to a single pail of milk, save one—an old woman named Mitchell, who was considered to be a witch and full of spite. In this story, Mitchell milks the magical cow dry with a sieve, but the cow doesn’t die. Instead, she disappears.

Mitchell, though, was believed to have been punished for her actions. It was thought that perhaps she was turned to stone, then placed on the hillside with other upright stones surrounding her. But Burne relates another variant of the tale:

The witch is sometimes said to have been buried in the middle of the circle of stones, which was raised around her to 'keep her in,' i. e. to prevent her from 'coming again' as a ghost.

This location came to be called “Mitchell's Fold,” and Burnes does warn that “It's best not to meddle with such places.”

Y Fuwch Frech (The Freckled Cow)

I wanted to briefly touch on the story of Y Fuwch Frech (The Freckled Cow). Again, she was a mystical cow said to dwell in mountain land between Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr and Clawdd Newydd in Wales. Her story is very similar to that of the Dun Cow and the White Cow—she had plentiful milk that she would give to any person who asked regardless of the vessel size. But after a witch came with a sieve to milk her dry, the cow immediately left. At this point, her tale connects to another folkloric creature—the afanc.

It was said that Y Fuwch Frech was the mother of two oxen that killed the afanc, a Welsh river monster. As the tradition goes, once her milk had been run dry by the witch, Y Fuwch Frech left straight for a lake in the parish of Cerrig-y-drudion, followed by the two oxen she had borne. She bellowed the entire way, and once the three of them reached the lake, they entered it and submerged themselves in the water, never to be seen again.

Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn (The Stray Cow)

I first came across this story in Elias Owen's book, Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales. I wanted to include this tale because it links to the Welsh faerie tradition and follows a different storyline than what we’ve seen so far. Also, the antagonist is a greedy farmer rather than a witch, and I found that intriguing.

The tale is set in the region of Llyn Barfog, which is a mountain lake. According to the story, it is an area where the Gwragedd Annwn (faerie lake maidens) often appeared. Dressed in green, they were seen accompanied by their hounds (Cŵn Annwn) and cattle, which were “milk-white” in color.

One day, an old farmer captured one of the faerie cows and added her to his herd. This mystical cow, like the other magical cows, gave generously of herself and her milk. The story in Owen’s book describes her many gifts:

Never was there such a cow, never were there such calves, never such milk and butter, or cheese; and the fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn, the stray cow, was soon spread abroad through that central part of Wales ….

The farmer grew wealthy and took for granted the generous favors he’d received from the faerie cow. Instead, he worried the cow would soon become too old, so “he fattened her for the butcher.” When the fateful day arrived, the butcher and all of the neighbors came to the farm. The tale describes the scene in vivid detail:

… the butcher … baring his arm, he struck the blow—not now fatal, for before even a hair [on the cow] had been injured, his arm was paralysed, the knife dropped from his hand, and the whole company was electrified by a piercing cry that awakened an echo in a dozen hills, and made the welkin ring again; and lo and behold ! the whole assemblage saw a female figure, clad in green, with uplifted arms, standing on one of the rocks overhanging Llyn Barfog, and heard her calling with a voice loud as thunder ….

Immediately, the faerie cow and several generations of her progeny ran off toward the faerie lake maiden who had called to them. The farmer chased after them, but to no avail. He watched as the lake maiden and all of the cows “disappeared beneath the dark waters of the lake, leaving only the yellow water-lily to mark the spot where they vanished.”

The loss of the faerie cow and her offspring (as well as the income derived from them) served as punishment for the farmer. In the end, his greed and pride left him more impoverished than he had been before he’d captured Y Fuwch Gyfeiliorn.

Glas Ghaibhleann

Glas Ghaibhleann is an Irish mythic cow that gave an abundant supply of cream when milked. Usually she is considered divine, but sometimes she is presented as a faerie cow. Often described as a white cow with green spots, there are a variety of tales about her plentiful milk and ability to traverse large distances in a day. Like many of the other cows we’ve looked at, Glas Ghaibhleann gave milk freely to anyone who asked, regardless of the pail or vessel they brought.

In the article “Calamity Meat and Cows of Abundance: Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Irish Folklore,” Patricia Monaghan explains that in the stories of Glas Ghaibhleann, human greed is typically the cause for the loss of the cow. There are legends where people pen her in so that they alone may benefit from her milk supply. Depending on the story, the magical cow either escaped, was freed, or “abandoned humanity out of disgust.” In other tales, an unkind individual would try to milk the cow dry into a sieve or even into a natural cavity in the ground. In these cases the cow “disappeared from earth.”

In her article, Monaghan describes the overarching pattern of the legends of the “Glas” (her abbreviated name for the cow):

The meta-narrative of the tales of the Glas … [show] nature as abundantly generous but ready to withdraw should people not act respectfully. The Glas stories show the entire human race punished for the behaviour of a single person, or a few greedy ones.

Book of the Dun Cow

I wanted to conclude with a brief mention of a medieval Irish legend about a Dun Cow with an abundant milk supply. In On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age, Bruce Holsinger describes how in the Book of Lismore (a manuscript created in the late 15th century), there are several stories about St. Ciarán (a sixth-century saint). Holsinger writes:

When it came time for Ciarán to leave his home for schooling, he selected a cow from the herd. The animal went with him to Clonard, site of a monastery where Ciarán received his first formal education. There the cow’s milk sustained the entire monastery along with the households and guests of the institution’s visitors.

When St. Ciarán left the monastery to begin evangelizing, he left the cow there to help sustain the monastery. Eventually the cow died, and its hide was brought to Clonmacnoise as a sacred relic. Holsinger explains that it was believed “… if you were lucky enough to die while resting on the cow’s hide, you were promised eternal life.”

And yet, Holsinger reveals that is not the end of the tale. St. Ciarán and his cow make another appearance in the Book of Lismore, in a text called the Tromdámh Guaire. In this story, St. Ciarán writes down the text of the epic narrative, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, on the hide of his deceased dun cow. Holsinger writes:

St. Ciarán’s miraculous cow provides the very parchment folios on which the text of the Táin is written. The book that Ciarán creates from his cow’s hide will be known ever afterward as the Lebor na hUidhre, or Book of the Dun Cow.

According to the Royal Irish Academy, the Book of the Dun Cow is the “earliest surviving manuscript with literature written in Irish.” I found images of the book online, but they are under copyright. However, I did find this short video of the Book of Lismore in case you wanted to get a feel for what it looks like.

I hope you enjoyed reading about these magical cows as much as I did while researching the topic. As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Is there an animal that inspires you? I’d love to know. Feel free to reply or comment to share your thoughts. :)

We have entered back-to-school season as of last week here in the Moran household. Our daughter began her senior year of high school a week ago. And last weekend, we helped our son move back up to his college apartment—it will be his third year of study at the university. It was probably the easiest move back/start to school thus far, so that was nice.

Behind the Scenes: Ensuring Consistency While Revising and a Book Launch Party

With respect to the novel I’ve been revising, I’ve now finished strengthening the folkloric aspects of the manuscript. I’ve been working to ensure that I’m consistent in the way I’m portraying the faeries and folkloric creatures, as well as the folklore that I’ve woven in. Now that I’ve completed that, I have a few other worldbuilding issues I need to tackle for consistency and clarity.

A few weeks ago, I attended a book launch party put on by the SCWA (Southern California Writers Association). They were celebrating their new anthology, California Is a State of Mind. Charmaine Wakefield, a writer from the writing group I’m a member of, has a short story included in the anthology. It’s a ghostly love story, and I had the opportunity to be a beta reader for it, so I was especially excited that her work was selected. Congrats Charmaine!

Exploring Folklore: How Work Songs Improved Daily Life in Ireland and Scotland

During the nineteenth century, folk songs were a vital part of daily life in Ireland and Scotland. Integrated into both work and play, songs eased the burden of chores and encouraged social interaction within a community.

In Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A Collection of 842 Irish Airs and Songs Hitherto Unpublished, P. W. Joyce describes how folk music permeated his early life in County Limerick in the 1830s:

My home in Glenosheen, in the heart of the Ballyhoura Mountains, was a home of music and song: they were in the air of the valley; you heard them everywhere—sung, played, whistled; and they were mixed up with the people’s pastimes, occupations, and daily life.

I found his description relatable, as I had grown up surrounded by music of all types. We sang traditional songs in elementary school, which introduced me to folk music. I took piano lessons and learned to play classical music. My dad played guitar and sang old songs to my brother and I. My mom would play records on weekend afternoons. And whenever I had to do chores, I would listen to music to help pass the time.

As I began researching folk songs for this post, I soon came across work songs, which were sung while performing tasks or work. I was struck not only by the variety of tasks that included songs as part of the completion of the work, but also by the way the songs brought cheer and a sense of community.

If you also like to listen to music or sing while you work or do chores, then hopefully you’ll find the information in this letter as interesting as I did while researching it. And you may even discover a new way to incorporate music into your daily tasks. :)

Songs for Daily Work in Ireland and Scotland

P. W. Joyce not only documented Irish folk music, but he also published books in the areas of history, folklore, language, and literature. In his book, A Social History of Ancient Ireland: Treating of the Government, Military System, and Law; Religion, Learning, and Art; Trades, Industries, and Commerce; Manners, Customs, and Domestic Life, of the Ancient Irish People, Vol. 1, he writes that Irish music included what he refers to as “occupation-tunes.”1

These “occupation-tunes” were songs that included lyrics and a melody that suited the work they were being sung to. They might have a special rhythm that went along with a specific task, or they might simply be associated with a particular occupation.

Joyce also notes that there is a strong connection between Ireland and Scotland when it comes to music. He explains that both Scottish and Welsh harpers learned from Irish harpers. He goes on to write:

It is not correct to separate and contrast the music of Ireland and that of Scotland as if they belonged to two different races. They are in reality an emanation direct from the heart of one Celtic people; ….

With this in mind, I will include examples of work songs from both Ireland and Scotland. And because of the link he mentions above with Wales (also a Celtic nation!), and the fact that I love all things Welsh, I will mention a few examples from there as well.

Rhythmic Task-Related Songs

Work songs that employed a rhythm to synchronize with the work itself were very common in Ireland and Scotland. For example in A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Joyce mentions “a ‘Smith's Song,’ the notes of which imitate the sound of the hammers on the anvil.” Other tasks often accompanied by rhythmic songs included milking, churning butter, spinning, and rowing boats.

While researching, I came across an interesting article and video that describe Scottish waulking songs. These tunes were sung by women while they worked to shrink the cloth (tweed), a task known as waulking. Francis Collinson, in “Scottish Folkmusic: An Historical Survey,” describes how the song mingled with the work:

A group of about eight women sit round a table and pound the wet cloth on the table with their hands in time to the music of the song, with a series of movements which sends the cloth sun-wise round the table. It is this pounding which shrinks the cloth. The song is led by a soloist or leader who sings the verses of the poem; then the chorus joins in with a curious kind of nonsense refrain which keeps the music going and allows the leader to draw breath for the next verse, so that there is no break in the rhythm.

If you’re interested to see this in action or learn more about waulking, this video gives a good example.

Songs to Soothe Animals During Work

Some work songs helped to reassure the animals involved with certain tasks to stay calm and focused. There were songs to help with herding and driving cattle, as well as for milking and plowing.

In A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Joyce relates how they were used during milking in Ireland and Scotland. He writes, “These milking-songs were slow and plaintive, something like the nurse-tunes, and had the effect of soothing the cows and of making them submit more gently to be milked.”

He also describes how when “… ploughmen were at their work, they whistled a peculiarly wild, slow, and sad strain, which had as powerful an effect in soothing the horses at their hard work as the milking-songs had on the cows.” I find this kind of lovely, the idea of using soothing tunes to encourage animals to help with work tasks.

On the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales website, I discovered a collection of folk songs with lyrics and recordings. The recordings are in Welsh, but you can toggle the lyrics between English and Cymraeg (Welsh) with the language choice at the top of the page. They include a work song that Welsh ox-drivers would use to gently “urge oxen at work.” If you’d like, you can listen to it here.

Group Dialogue Work Songs

Spinning, knitting, and sewing were tasks that were often performed in a group while gathering at one member’s home. In an earlier newsletter, I explored the noson weu (knitting night), a social tradition in rural Wales that combined knitting, song, and story.

In Ireland, there was a similar tradition, which included the singing of dialogue songs by women while they spun, knit, or sewed. Essentially, the way the dialogue song worked was that one woman would begin a musical conversation, another woman would reply, and the rest of the group would provide a chorus. As the verses were often extemporaneous, the chorus section would give the two dialogue singers a moment to prepare their response.

The subject matter of these dialogue songs would often be in praise/dispraise of different young men. As you might think, the songs could get personal, but insults were taken in stride as part of the musical game.

In “Functions of Irish Song in the Nineteenth Century,” Breandán Ó Madagáin notes that these songs were meant to be fun, “relieving the monotony of the work.” And while they seem similar to waulking songs, they weren’t used so much to keep a rhythm as they were to help pass the time.

Lullabies and Faeries

Now, as you most likely know, I am a fan of faerie folklore. So it wouldn’t be a proper post if I didn’t include any faerie lore! :) Needless to say, I was pleased to discover that not only were lullabies considered work songs, but in Ireland they might have also served a supernatural purpose. In “Functions of Irish Song in the Nineteenth Century,” Ó Madagáin explains:

Lullabies were commonly used in the nineteenth century and their obvious function is frequently referred to: Joyce had 'seen children lulled to sleep hundreds of times with such lullabies.' Internal evidence, however, may suggest that the lullaby had another function as well, of a supernatural nature. There is remarkably frequent reference in the extant lullabies to the world of the sí or fairy, and to the power of the 'good people' to abduct mortals, whether adult or infant.

He further explains that in some of the lullabies, there are lyrics that might be used to banish a faerie such as, “Gabh amach a bhóbabha [Get out fairy].” He also wonders if perhaps these types of lullabies were believed to serve as a charm to protect a child from faerie abduction.

Work Songs Helped to “Lighten the Labor” and Build Community

While work songs could have many functions, Ó Madagáin points out that the main purpose of work songs was to make work feel more cheerful, often by employing humor in the tune. It was an easy and fun way to bring amusement to daily chores and tasks.

Singing also helped members of a society to build community and enrich their social lives. Additionally, work songs offered individuals and groups an outlet for artistic expression and feelings of emotion while engaging with the necessary responsibilities of daily life.

I can see now why the nights when my daughter puts on a music playlist so that we can sing and dance while we wash dishes feel fun and lighter than when I’m washing them alone and in silence. Or when I meet other writers at a coffee shop that plays music I enjoy—it not only lightens the work, but it enables me to write in community.

I wish you a music-filled day! As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: If you know someone fascinated by folklore, feel free to forward this email to them. :)

Last week, I took a day trip up to Los Angeles with my son, one of his friends, and my daughter. We primarily went to visit the Getty Center, although we also stopped at The Grove to eat and shop.

I always enjoy visiting the Getty as it offers a range of art (from medieval to contemporary), plus it has unique architecture and beautiful gardens. And the views! You can see so much of LA from where the museum is perched on the hillside. Here are a few photos. :)

Behind the Scenes: Strengthening the Folklore

Because of … well, life … I didn’t get to do as much creative writing this past month as I had wanted to do. I did work a bit on strengthening the folklore in the novel I’m revising. I want to be consistent with the way I’m portraying the faeries and folkloric creatures, as well as the folklore that I’ve woven in. I’ve been documenting the folklore I’m using and then checking my manuscript against that. When needed, I’ve made revisions to clarify or be more consistent in my novel.

Exploring Folklore: Collecting Folklore Wasn't Always Easy for the Early Folklorists

One of the first books of folklore that I added to my collection was Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx by John Rhŷs. It is a two-volume study, and toward the end of the book (in volume 2) Rhŷs includes a chapter called “Difficulties of the Folklorist.” In it he describes challenges he often faced while collecting folklore and while writing his book.

I have always found this section of Rhŷs’ book intriguing, so I read through it again, taking notes. I then looked through other collections of British and Celtic folklore published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to see if they covered any of the same themes as Rhŷs. I discovered that many folklorists discussed similar topics and feelings, often in the prefaces or introductions to their books.

So I thought we might take a behind-the-scenes look at early folklore work to learn about some of the challenges folklorists encountered and how they overcame them.

A Strong Focus on Collecting Folklore

One of the primary goals of folklorists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was gathering as much folklore as possible. John Rhŷs highlights the importance of this in his book and explains why the collection of folklore is valuable:

… we want all our folklore and superstitions duly recorded and rescued from the yawning gulf of oblivion, into which they are rapidly and irretrievably dropping year by year, as the oldest inhabitant passes away.

Other collectors of folklore shared similar concerns. In Lancashire Legends: Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c. With an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract on the Lancashire Witches, &c. &c. by John Harland and Thomas Turner Wilkinson, the first paragraph of the preface is devoted to the worry that “popular legends and traditions are rapidly disappearing from the fireside literature.” Several reasons for this are offered:

Some of them pass away with the ancient mansions to which they were attached ; others die out with the individuals who were wont to repeat them orally to their descendants ; and not a few have become modified by the changes which have taken place in our social relationships to each other. Elementary education, also, is doing its work slowly, but surely, and with the spread of correct information amongst the masses, much of our popular superstition will cease to exist.

By gathering and recording folklore, tales, traditions, and legends, folklorists hoped to preserve this information in a scholarly manner for future generations. Additionally, these folklore collections often pertain to a specific group of people, county, or country, as folk traditions often vary with location.

I did notice that folklorists interested in collecting folklore tried to keep their focus on gathering and documenting. They occasionally share observations, but they seem content to leave the making of comparisons and determining meaning to other scholars who specialize in comparative folklore.

Methods of Collecting Folklore

Several methods of collecting folklore were available to the early folklorist, including oral interviews, exchange of letters, and other books of folklore. But while these methods may seem straightforward, they often came with challenges.

In his book, John Rhŷs emphasizes that it was important to him to accurately record information given to him by interviewees without altering the language. Even if the spelling or grammar wasn’t perfect, he felt it best to keep the informant’s language as close to the way it was given to him as possible.

Along the same lines Elias Owen, author of Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, states that while most of the information he gathered from oral interviews was shared with him in Welsh, he tried to be a faithful translator. He explains that he has provided literal translations “without embellishments or additions of any kind whatsoever.”

There also was a clear preference to obtaining folklore from people rather than other books. In The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, W. Y. Evans Wentz explains that he desired to better understand “what the Celtic people think of fairies,” not what scholars thought of faeries. Celtic people were the authority on the subject. However, to do so required much more effort. To speak with people, folklorists often traveled on foot or by horse to collect folklore.

Evans Wentz traveled in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, the Isle of Man, and Cornwall in order to gather folklore first hand. He writes:

Many of the most remote parts of these lands were visited; and often there was no other plan to adopt, or any method better, or more natural, than to walk day after day from one straw-thatched cottage to another, living on the simple wholesome food of the peasants. Sometimes there was the picturesque mountain-road to climb, sometimes the route lay through marshy peat-lands, or across a rolling grass-covered country; and with each change of landscape came some new thought and some new impression of the Celtic life, or perhaps some new description of a fairy.

As someone who loves to walk and think about folklore, this fascinated me. He explains that he traveled for over three years, and that it had a profound effect on him.

Challenges Encountered While Interviewing People

In his book, John Rhŷs mentions that when it came to speaking with or writing to individuals in order to collect stories and folklore, he “had difficulties in abundance to encounter.” Some folks were rather shy to talk on the subject. Others worried that they might be portrayed in a negative manner. He also explains that for a variety of reasons, folklore was not always taken seriously. As a result, people who were familiar with superstitions and traditions were afraid to share their knowledge for fear of being ridiculed.

The folklorists did have a few strategies available to them to offset these challenges. Elias Owen notes that while he preferred to acknowledge the names of his informants in his book, he always respected their privacy if they asked to be anonymous in print.

And John Rhŷs and W. Y. Evans Wentz appeared to be rather skilled at making people comfortable in opening up to talk about faeries and folklore. They had a similar approach, perhaps because Evans Wentz studied under Rhŷs for a year before he began traveling through Celtic countries to gather folklore. Evans Wentz gives a lovely example of this in his book:

Our next witness is Bridget O’Conner, a near neighbour to Patrick Waters, in Cloontipruckilish [my educated guess is that this is a misspelling of Cloontyprughlish]. When I approached her neat little cottage she was cutting sweet-pea blossoms with a pair of scissors, and as I stopped to tell her how pretty a garden she had, she searched out the finest white bloom she could find and gave it to me. After we had talked a little while about America and Ireland, she said I must come in and rest a few minutes, and so I did; and it was not long before we were talking about fairies: ….

Evans Wentz additionally felt he was particularly suited for interviewing Celtic people in that he was partly Celtic by blood, but born in America. He felt this gave him a unique perspective and “privileged” access to the Celtic world.

Determining Fact From Fiction

Several of the folklorists mentioned a frustration they had occasionally encountered when examining other works of folklore. In their pursuit of authentic folklore, they did not hold with careless writers who wrote about folklore in a “hopeless fashion.” John Rhŷs gives several examples of poorly presented folklore which include not understanding the Welsh language enough to translate accurately and not giving specific names of natural features (like names of lakes).

Rhŷs also describes an occasion where an author combined stories and legends to make a new folktale. While this might be condoned in fiction writing, it is not acceptable practice if the story is being touted as a true folktale.

John Harland and Thomas Turner Wilkinson also bring up this topic. They mention an author who apparently invented some traditions and erroneously assigned a tradition to the wrong locale. This prompted them to declare that in their book “… the popular legend in every case has been sought to be preserved, without any attempt to add the slightest embellishment, much less to rear a superstructure of invented fiction upon the crumbling foundations of a genuine tradition.”

This is something that I’ve come across in my own research. When I was taking notes for my post on the birds of Rhiannon, I encountered some folklore about the birds that had been widely quoted and upheld by early scholars, but was later determined to be fabricated and not authentic medieval folklore. I was glad to learn of this inaccuracy before accidentally using inauthentic folklore in my piece.

Efforts to Defend and Support the Study of Folklore

In the later portion of the nineteenth century, folklore began growing in interest, but it still hadn’t found solid footing. Folklore studies had only begun in the early nineteenth century, and it was considered a young subject working to earn its place within the scholarly community. Consequently, publishers were sometimes hesitant to publish folklorists’ collections. I was surprised to discover that several of these authors used a subscription model in order to generate interest and secure a publisher.

Similar to how modern authors might use Kickstarter to crowdfund a book, folklorists would gather subscribers so that the publisher would be assured of a certain amount of sales. In this way publishers would be more apt to take on a folklore title. The subscribers’ names would often appear in the book as a way of thanking them. Elias Owen explains in the preface of his book:

Before undertaking the publishing of the work, it was necessary to obtain a sufficient number of subscribers to secure the publishers from loss. Upwards of two hundred ladies and gentlemen gave their names to the author, and the work of publication was commenced. The names of the subscribers appear at the end of the book, and the writer thanks them one and all for their kind support. It is more than probable that the work would never have been published had it not been for their kind assistance.

This type of subscription model was needed for both Owen’s and Harland and Wilkinson’s books. Evans Wentz notes, though, that by the time his book was published in 1911, there had “come about a complete reversal of scholarly opinion” with respect to folklore. Rhŷs, too, does not mention a need for subscribers. Indeed, during the twentieth century folklore studies became recognized as a discipline, like history or anthropology, which most likely reduced the need to obtain subscribers.

As I wrote and revised this post, I realized that many of the challenges faced by folklorists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries still resonate today. I’m sure modern researchers in the social sciences might relate to the efforts of these early folklorists.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Do you enjoy visiting museums, too? Do you have a favorite one? I’d love to know. :)

Leave a comment

A few weekends ago my husband, daughter, and I went to the Upland Lemon Festival, which according to their website, originally started as a “way of celebrating the city’s citrus industry origins.” We ate jumbo corn dogs (so big that I could only eat a little over half!), drank lemonades, and walked around the historic downtown. We found a stage with a cover band playing 90s music, so we sang along and danced. It was a fun way to start our summer here in SoCal!

Behind the Scenes: You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

Marianne, a friend from writing group, recently lent me a book of Irish folklore. (Thanks, Marianne!) It’s called The Leprechaun’s Kingdom: The World of Banshees, Fairies, Giants, Monsters, Mermaids, Phoukas, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Many Others by Peter Haining. While the cover suggests that it might contain children’s stories, it is more of an illustrated folklore encyclopedia of Irish faeries and the supernatural.

Haining gives notes and details on different faeries and supernatural creatures, then provides accompanying art and stories to “evoke the wonder.” Exactly what I like! He pulls mainly from books of Irish folklore, fairy tales, and literature for his textual information, but the art comes from “many and diverse Irish sources.”

After reading through it, I decided to use it as a launchpad to explore Irish faerie folklore, then share what I learned as this month’s folklore topic. So without further ado, let’s get started. :)

Exploring Folklore: An Introduction to Irish Faerie Folklore

In general, faerie folklore is quite complex and nuanced. And Irish faerie folklore seems similar to that of Wales (the Tylwyth Teg) and to Scotland (Seelie and Unseelie Courts). But as I looked through a few books on the topic, I discovered that the Irish faeries have a well-documented history and structure that I found fascinating.

As I will be mainly summarizing information that I researched for this post, I thought I’d just list the books I gathered notes from here, then simply refer to the author’s name when referencing their work:

• The Leprechaun’s Kingdom: The World of Banshees, Fairies, Giants, Monsters, Mermaids, Phoukas, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Many Others by Peter Haining

• Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms & Superstitions of Ireland: With Sketches of the Irish Past by Lady Wilde

• An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures by Katharine Briggs

Please note that this post will be more of an overview on the subject of Irish faeries. We’ll look first at their mythological history, then we’ll examine Irish faerie structure, and finally we’ll look at a few specific examples of Irish faeries.

The Firbolgs and the Tuatha Dé Danann

According to Celtic mythology, the first two groups of people to inhabit Ireland were the Firbolgs and the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Firbolgs arrived in Ireland first, and Lady Wilde speculates that they were a culture of shepherds and agriculturalists. Peter Haining describes the Firbolgs as “large, grotesque creatures,” while Katharine Briggs calls them “giant-like” and compares them to the Titans of Greece. But while they are portrayed as a bit rough around the edges, they still seem to be viewed as a strong and magical people.

However, when the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived in Ireland, they engaged the Firbolgs in several battles. Briggs explains that after the Tuatha Dé Danann conquered and drove out the Firbolgs, the Firbolgs became the first faerie people of Ireland. The Firbolgs went into hiding, and Haining notes that as faeries, they took on a smaller stature, but they had the ability to shift their shape.

In the meantime, the Tuatha Dé Danann settled in more comfortably into Ireland. Wilde describes them as “… great necromancers, skilled in all magic, and excellent in all the arts as builders, poets, and musicians.” She also relates that they were very knowledgeable about herbs and their properties. But perhaps most notable were the horses the Tuatha Dé Danann raised. Wilde includes a vivid description of them in her book:

And the breed of horses they reared could not be surpassed in the world—fleet as the wind, with the arched neck and the broad chest and the quivering nostril, and the large eye that showed they were made of fire and flame, and not of dull, heavy earth. And the Tuatha made stables for them in the great caves of the hills, and they were shod with silver and had golden bridles, ….

The Tuatha Dé Danann ruled Ireland until they were conquered by a new group of people—the Milesians. Briggs writes that the Tuatha Dé Danann were “forced to take refuge under the grassy hills or in lands beneath the waters.” Like the Firbolgs, the Tuatha Dé Danann also became a faerie people. In time these faeries became known as the Daoine Sídhe.

Before we learn about the Daoine Sídhe, though, I wanted to briefly look at Irish faerie structure. It seems to be a little different than the Scottish Seelie Court (good faeries) and Unseelie Court (bad faeries), which is popular in faerie fantasy fiction and role-playing games.

Trooping Faeries (Including Heroic Faeries) and Solitary Faeries

The Irish faeries are generally divided into two camps: the trooping faeries and the solitary faeries. Haining describes the trooping faeries in this way:

… [Trooping faeries] congregate in groups, dress in green, can be of varying sizes, and are mostly friendly disposed towards human beings. They are also said to love Hurling matches!

Briggs offers a similar portrayal, but she points out that the trooping faeries could be dangerous or sinister, depending on the group. She also notes that in addition to hurling, these faeries were “particularly fond of faction fights.”

Included with the trooping faeries are the heroic faeries. Briggs explains that the heroic faeries were the beautiful, faerie knights and ladies found in the medieval romances. In Celtic tales, they were generally human size and aristocratic in nature. They enjoyed similar interests as human aristocrats, such as hunting, music, dancing, playing chess, and riding in procession (known as the faerie rade). The heroic faeries included the Daoine Sídhe of Ireland and the Seelie Court of Scotland.

Not surprisingly, the solitary faeries tended to keep to themselves. They did share some similar characteristics with each other, though. Solitary faeries often dressed in red and were considered to be “malignant or ominous creatures.” In Ireland, the most well-known solitary faeries include the Leprechaun, the Far Darrig, and the Cluricaune.

The Daoine Sídhe

As I mentioned above, the Daoine Sídhe were heroic (trooping) faeries who enjoyed aristocratic pastimes. And while it was often believed that they were the faerie people that emerged from the conquered Tuatha Dé Danann, both Briggs and Haining offer up a second origin story for them. They explain that another tradition suggests that the Daoine Sídhe were fallen angels. Haining quotes from an old saying, indicating that these fallen angels were “not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost.”

In her book, Lady Wilde eloquently describes the culture of the Daoine Sídhe—they were courtly and lived in palaces in mountain caves or under hills, they could change their form, they were immortal “until the last day comes,” and through magic they obtained lovely things … including people. Wilde writes that the Daoine Sídhe often carried off beautiful mortal children and woman.

When a child was taken, the Daoine Sídhe would leave a changeling in its place. Generally, the mortal child was raised with the faeries in one of the palaces and wedded to a faerie once they reached adulthood. Similarly, a mortal woman might be taken for marriage with a faerie. Wilde also describes the children born from a faerie and mortal union. She writes:

The children of such marriages have a strange mystic nature, and generally become famous in music and song. But they are passionate, revengeful, and not easy to live with. Every one knows them to be of the Sidhe … by their beautiful eyes and their bold, reckless temperament.

I found this description fascinating—I haven’t come across much folklore regarding grown children born from a faerie and mortal marriage.

Lady Wilde also gives a darker reason why the Daoine Sídhe might steal mortal women and children. It was sometimes believed that the faeries were required to pay a tithe to the Devil every seven years and may have used mortals for that purpose.

The Cluricaune, the Far Darrig, and the Leprechaun

I thought we’d finish up by looking at a few solitary faeries. According to Haining, the Cluricaune is “an old, withered little man who delights in spending his time getting drunk in wine cellars!” Not only did he enjoy partaking of the household alcohol at his leisure, but he would frighten off any person who came to the cellar to do the same without the permission of the master of the house. Apparently he could get so carried away, that the family would move out—but care needed to be taken in order to keep him from sneaking into a wine barrel and secretly moving with them.

The Far Darrig was another solitary faerie who was full of darker mischief. In some ways he shares traits with hobgoblins, but he is described to be more gruesome with his pranks. Both Haining and Briggs describe similar stories of the “Far Darrig in Donegal.” Briggs summarizes the tale in this way:

… [it] is a version of ‘The Story-Teller at a Loss’, in which a man who fails to produce a story on request suffers a succession of macabre experiences which prove to be illusions designed to provide him with material for a story.

Hmm, seems very Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone to me. ;) Haining also makes note of the Far Darrig’s ability to alter his voice. At times it might sound like waves, birdsong, or angelic music. The Far Darrig is strongly associated with the color red. His commonly described attire includes a red coat and cap. And the term Far Darrig (Fear Dearg, in Irish) means “Red Man.”

I feel like the most well-known of the Irish solitary faeries is the Leprechaun. The Leprechaun was generally considered to be a faerie shoemaker, and Haining explains that in most traditional tales he is portrayed working on a single shoe. He was a mischievous faerie who enjoyed pranks, but he also knew where hidden treasure was buried. It behooved a person to believe in the Leprechaun, for if he liked you, he might take you to the spot where the pot of gold was buried. But Lady Wilde warns that the Leprechaun also had a dangerous side:

… the Leprehauns can be bitterly malicious if they are offended, and one should be very cautious in dealing with them, and always treat them with great civility, or they will take revenge and never reveal the secret of the hidden gold.

I hope you enjoyed learning about Irish faeries with me! Thanks again to Marianne for lending Peter Haining’s book to me.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: I recently listened to an interesting interview on Tracy Nicholas’ podcast, the Folkloring Podcast. She spoke with Neil Byrne about Fey Earth, a tabletop role-playing game he’s developing. He’s worked hard to research European folklore in order to incorporate authentic folklore as opposed to simply depicting faerie denizens as they appear in popular culture. Here’s a link in case you’d like to listen to the interview.

Listen to Interview

It’s been a lively month in the Moran household! I recently took our daughter to check out a nearby university—she’s a junior in high school and starting to think about college. Last week she took her AP tests and attended junior prom. Our son has been looking for a summer job, so he came down from college several times to interview. He recently learned that he got the job—yay! He had finals last week, then we helped him move home for summer break. And I’ve been trying to stick to my writing and walking routine as much as possible with the kids’ comings and goings. :)

Behind the Scenes: Revising and Rewriting

I’ve made some progress on revising my folklore-inspired novel. I’ve been assessing character arcs for all of my major characters, and it’s been an interesting process. By focusing on one character at a time, I was able to make note of some inconsistencies that I’d overlooked when simply reading the novel straight through.

Now that I’ve finished that, I’ve begun filling in some blanks with my characters. There were some in need of last names and physical descriptions, so I added those. I also feel like two of my characters would benefit from swapping genders, so that will be the next thing I work on.

In addition, I’ve been rewriting a short story, which is a retelling of a folktale. There are two plot lines that intertwine, and I feel like one has not been effective enough. So I’ve been working to flesh out a new idea and rewrite those sections.

Exploring Folklore: Unpacking Ophelia's Folkloric Remark in Hamlet

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, this month I want to explore a folktale referenced by the character Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is a follow-on to the owl folklore and the story of Blodeuwedd, which we looked at last month. If you’re new to my newsletter—welcome! Click here to read last month’s post on owl folklore.

If you aren’t familiar with Hamlet, it was first published in 1603, but most modern editions use a combination of text from two later versions published in 1604 and 1623. It is a murder and revenge tragedy, in which Shakespeare explores topics like sexuality, gender, religion, death, and betrayal while simultaneously examining the psychological health of his characters.

But today, our focus isn’t the whole play—rather just a line spoken by Ophelia as her mental health begins to decline.

“They Say the Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter”

In act 4, scene 5 of Hamlet, Queen Gertrude receives news that Ophelia’s mental health is deteriorating. Ophelia enters the scene shortly after, singing bits of old songs. King Claudius greets her, and Ophelia answers him by saying:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Well, God dild [yield, i.e., reward] you. They say the owl was a
baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are but
know not what we may be. God be at your table. (4.5.47-9)

From a folklore standpoint, we are most interested in Ophelia’s statement of, “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.” In this she is referring to a folktale where Christ enters a baker’s shop in search of bread.

The original source of the folktale is a little murky, but I found essentially the same version in both Folk-Lore of Shakespeare by T. F. Thiselton Dyer and A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, Incorporating the F. J. Norton Collection by Katharine M. Briggs, so I’m going with it. :) I’m quoting the tale from Thiselton Dyer’s book:

Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size, whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, ‘Heugh, heugh, heugh!’ which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that bird for her wickedness.

Thiselton Dyer notes that while this was a common Gloucestershire tale, there also existed a version of the story in Herefordshire where a faerie enters the baker’s shop instead of Christ.

In my research, I have learned that this folktale falls under the tale type ATU 751A, “The Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker.” (A tale type is a recurring plot pattern, which folklorists and scholars use to study and compare folklore narratives.) This particular tale type was found in many different regions in Europe, as well as in a few places in Asia, the US, and South America.

The tale type basically follows the folktale included above with slight variations depending on the region. For example, instead of a baker’s daughter, it might be a farmwife. And there is a range of birds and other animals the woman might be transformed into rather than an owl—she might be changed into a woodpecker, a raven, a bee, or even a tortoise, just to name a few.

And just as there are variations on the tale itself, I have found that there are many different interpretations of why Ophelia might remark that “the owl was a baker’s daughter.”

Reflecting on England's Medieval Catholic Past and the Reformation

In “Ophelia’s ‘Old Lauds’: Madness and Hagiography in Hamlet,” Alison A. Chapman argues that as Ophelia’s mental health declines, she begins alluding to medieval Catholicism and “other pre-Reformation religious folklore.” This includes the story of the baker’s daughter. Chapman explains:

This story is characteristic of medieval religion not only in what the Reformation would later deem its superstitious, extrabiblical element (especially the girl's transmogrification) but also in its anachronistic depiction of Christ walking into what seems to be a medieval European shop.

For the medieval Catholic, the story would have been seen as literal, where Christ really walks into a baker’s shop, warm and filled with the scent of freshly baked bread. Thus, if read on a literal level, the story reflects Ophelia’s state of mind. Chapman notes that “… the baker's daughter transformed into an owl resembles Ophelia transformed by madness.”

If the folktale is examined through a post-Reformation lens, it might be interpreted in light of spirituality. With the Reformation came the idea of a more spiritual communication with Christ through prayer (as opposed to the concept that you might encounter him in daily life). Chapman writes:

In failing to meet Christ's need for bread, she [the baker’s daughter] has also rejected his offer of spiritual union, and thus she becomes transformed into an owl, a bird associated with darkness and evil.

As we learned in last month’s post, the owl was seen as an ill-omen in British folklore. Chapman notes that the choices the baker’s daughter makes in the story results in a serious consequence—her transformation into an owl. Similarly, by referencing this folktale, Ophelia may be revealing regret over her own decisions and circumstances, which have contributed to the deterioration of her mental health.

Virginity Versus Sensuality

I found a different take on Ophelia’s reference to the baker’s daughter in “The Owl and the Baker’s Daughter: A Note on Hamlet IV. v. 42-43” by Robert Tracy. While many scholars and folklorists (as well as my print edition of Hamlet) point to the folktale to explain what Ophelia is alluding to, Tracy offers an alternative viewpoint.

In the play, Ophelia’s sexuality is a frequent topic of discussion during conversations with her father, brother, and Hamlet. Tracy argues that Ophelia’s line regarding the owl and the baker’s daughter reflects this. He observes: “If the owl suggests one of Ophelia's concerns, virginity, the ‘baker's daughter’ suggests another, sensuality and harlotry.”

He explains that the owl, beyond being a portent of bad luck and death, was also “a symbol of virginity.” He further notes that for “Elizabethans, bakers' daughters were prostitutes.” Apparently, this interrelationship between bakeries and prostitution comes from ancient Rome.

In his article, Tracy suggests that “Ophelia is commenting on appearance and reality” with respect to female sexuality. Most of the old songs she sings during this scene (before and after the owl and baker’s daughter line) explore “virginity and its sacrifice to sensual love.” Tracy proposes that the decline of her mental health is due in part to the stress of trying to reconcile these two very different models of female behavior with respect to sex.

A Foreshadowing of Ophelia’s Death

Just two scenes after Ophelia references the baker’s daughter tale, we learn of her death from Queen Gertrude. Gertrude explains that Ophelia has drowned, having “Fell in the weeping brook” (4.7.200).

In light of this, the folktale of the baker’s daughter might also be seen as a foreshadowing of Ophelia’s own death. As I discussed in my previous post on British owl folklore, owls were often considered to be death portents. Robert Tracy notes this in his paper; however, he connects the owl as a death omen to Ophelia’s thoughts of her father’s recent death.

But if we look at the tale of the baker’s daughter in a parallel light to the story of Blodeuwedd, we might also interpret their transformation into owls as symbolic of their deaths. In last month’s post I wrote:

Blodeuwedd’s transformation into an owl links the bird to death once more. John Rhŷs, in Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, explains that for both Blodeuwedd and Lleu [her husband], when they are changed into birds, it is considered to be their deaths.

In the preface to his book, Thiselton Dyer explains that Shakespeare had “an intimate acquaintance with the folk-lore of bygone days.” While I could not ascertain if Shakespeare would have known Blodeuwedd’s story, Thiselton Dyer does note that Shakespeare was familiar with the idea of the transmigration of souls. (This is the concept that after death the soul passes into another being, including animals.) He writes: “Shakespeare has several references to the old superstitious belief in the transmigration of souls, traces of which may still be found in the reverence paid to the robin, the wren, and other birds.” He then cites the story of the baker’s daughter as an example.

So on two levels the folktale might serve as a foreshadowing of death—through the owl’s folkloric associations and through the young woman’s transformation into an owl.

Hamlet Offers Many Interpretations

In Michael Neill’s “A Modern Perspective: Hamlet,” he notes that not only is Hamlet a revenge drama and psychological study, but it is also “a prolonged meditation on death.” How we resonate with the play and characters depends on how we respond to these different layers while bringing in our own knowledge and experience.

As a result, the play, the characters, and even a single line can offer many interpretations. I’ve always been fascinated by Hamlet. It’s a play that provides mystery and riddles, and seems to ignite the imagination. Neill writes:

… [Hamlet] has developed a reputation as the most intellectually puzzling of his plays, and it has already attracted more commentary than any other work in English except the Bible. Even today, when criticism stresses the importance of the reader’s role in “constructing” the texts of the past, there is something astonishing about Hamlet’s capacity to accommodate the most bafflingly different readings.

I’d love to hear if you have a different view on Ophelia’s reference to the folktale of the baker’s daughter. :)

Leave a comment

And if you’d like to read more about Shakespeare and folklore, I have an earlier post that explores Puck (who comes from faerie folklore) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Barb DeLong, an author in my writing group, just released the second book in her romantasy series! It’s called The Keeper’s Code. Congrats, Barb! If you enjoy fantasy romance, you should check out her books.

I hope this letter finds you well. If you are new to my newsletter—welcome!

It’s been a busy month since my last post. Two weeks ago, our son came home from college to visit during his spring break. It’s always fun to see him and catch up! And now this week is our daughter’s spring break (she’s in high school). Because their breaks were not aligned this year, we couldn’t plan a trip, so we’ve just been spending these weeks near home. And both of the kids have gone walking with me, so that’s been nice. :)

Also, about three weeks ago, my husband had to travel on business for a week. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but in addition to his day job, my husband has an online business (GearBlocks) that offers a bike storage solution. So our daughter and I took care of it while he was on his trip. In general my husband runs most of the day-to-day business, our daughter helps by packing orders, and I deliver the orders to the post office and other package delivery companies every morning. Our son is away at college, but he has helped out with marketing and media in the past. It’s been a family effort!

Behind the Scenes: I Attended the AWP Conference & Bookfair

I did take a day for myself, though, and attended the Saturday session of the AWP Conference & Bookfair in Los Angeles. (AWP originally stood for Associated Writing Programs, but they later changed the name of the organization, and now it is the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.) After listening to panel discussions on fiction craft/professional development, I walked around the bookfair where publications, universities, and other exhibitors had booths. One of the highlights for me was that Cardiff University (Wales) had a booth, and I had fun talking folklore and practicing Welsh pronunciation with their representatives. And they gave me a welshcake, which was delicious! :)

Exploring Folklore: Owl Folklore, Blodeuwedd, and the Concept of Transformation

When I began researching this topic, I initially planned to explore owl folklore as a way to discuss a folktale referenced by the character Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But once I started taking notes, I discovered that I what I wished to share with you would be too much for a single post. So I’ve decided on a two-month owl folklore theme. This month we’ll explore British folklore related to the owl and the story of Blodeuwedd. That way we’ll have better context for when we examine the folktale alluded to by Ophelia in next month’s letter.

Roman Influence on Owl Folklore in Britain

Owl folklore in Britain seems to stem from Roman beliefs and literature. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, in his work Folk-Lore of Shakespeare, explains that from early on Roman writers depicted the owl as “a bird of ill-omen.” He gives several examples:

… Pliny [Pliny the Elder] tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of them [an owl] strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil [sic] describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid, too, constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; ….

Thiselton Dyer speculates that the owl’s appearance, its sometimes unsettling calls, and nocturnal activity may have contributed to these beliefs. He also shares an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary (published in 1594) that links the owl to folklore. For the Latin word strix, he quotes from the dictionary:

Strix, a scritche owle [screech-owl]; an unluckie kind of bird (as they of olde time said) which sucked out the blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the favour of children; an hagge or fairie.

What an “unluckie” definition for the screech-owl! As a bird lover, it troubles me to think that owls were associated with bad luck, vampiric tendencies, witches, and faeries. But I do find the parenthetical aside of “as they of olde time said” amusing because here I am in 2025 reading this in a book written in 1884, which is referencing a dictionary entry from 1594, which is referring to “olde” times.

Owls Were Considered a Portent of Bad Luck and Death

The British owl folklore that emerged from these Roman beliefs was often linked to death portents and bad luck. An owl seen at a baby’s birth was thought to bring misfortune. Additionally, it was believed that owl calls heard near a house foretold ill luck or even death. In Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, Elias Owen shares that this belief has even made its way to rhyme:

Os y ddylluan ddaw i'r fro,
    Lle byddo rhywun afiach
Dod yno i ddweyd y mae'n ddinâd,
    Na chaiff adferiad mwyach.
If an owl comes to those parts,
    Where some one sick is lying,
She comes to say without a doubt,
    That that sick one is dying.

Most of the folklore I encountered linked the “dismal” call or screech of the owl to death portents. We have great horned owls in the area where I live, and their “hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo” call is fairly gentle. But the Woodland Trust’s article, “How to Identify UK Owl Calls” by Charlotte Varela, explains that “a barn owl call is a shrill screeching sound, which has earned the owl the nickname ‘screech owl.’” The post also includes audio of the barn owl if you’d like to hear its call.

Owls and Faeries

Owls were also connected to the faeries, as alluded to in the definition of the Latin word strix. This association seems quite strong in Welsh folklore. Similar to strix, the Welsh word ŵyll reveals ties to owls and faerie folklore. In the thesis “Y Tylwyth Teg: An Analysis of a Literary Motif,” Angelika Heike Rüdiger offers a mostly translated definition of ŵyll from Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (the University of Wales Dictionary of the Welsh Language). I have added a few definitions in brackets to further clarify. Rüdiger writes:

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC) offers ‘ellyll [goblin, elf, faerie], gwrach (‘witch’), un o’r tylwyth teg’ [one of the faeries], but also ‘tylluan (wen)’ (‘(screech) owl’) and ‘drychiolaeth’ (‘apparition, ghost, spectre, phantom’) as synonyms of ‘ŵyll’.

In this we can see that the word ŵyll applies to both the screech owl and denizens of faerie, as well as to the supernatural. Rüdiger also points out that the screech owl is linked to Gwyn ap Nudd (the king of the faeries) by the medieval Welsh poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym:

In many of his poems Dafydd ap Gwilym talks in a jocular way about situations which are inconvenient for him, and in these poems he refers to Annwn [the Welsh otherworld] or Gwyn ap Nudd, or the Welsh fairies as acting mischievously. In ‘Y Dylluan’ (‘The Owl’), an owl keeps him from sleeping by hooting and screeching at night, so that Dafydd says that ‘Edn i Wyn ap Nudd ydiw’ (‘it is Gwyn ap Nudd’s bird’) ….

I read an English translation of this poem through the DafyddApGwilym.net website (Swansea University), and it is a scathing portrayal of the the poor owl. But perhaps it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, like a roast? In addition to the Gwyn ap Nudd reference, the poem also includes the line: “Annos cŵn y nos a wna” (“it [the owl] incites the dogs of the night”). The website offers a note on this stating that it might be a reference to the dogs of Annwn (Cŵn Annwn), and in this way, further links the owl to the otherworld. (You can learn more about Cŵn Annwn in this earlier post of mine.)

Blodeuwedd: A Maiden Transformed Into an Owl

In “The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi” (a tale in the Mabinogion), we meet a beautiful maiden originally named Blodeuedd. But she was not an ordinary maiden—she was created from flowers to be the wife of Lleu by two men with magic: Math and Gwydion. In Sioned Davies’ translation of the Mabinogion, it reads:

Then they [Math and Gwydion] took the flowers of the oak, and the flowers of the broom, and the flowers of the meadowsweet, and from those they conjured up the fairest and most beautiful maiden that anyone had ever seen. And they baptized her in the way they did at that time, and named her Blodeuedd [meaning “flowers”].

But Blodeuedd did not seem to love her husband, Lleu. Instead, she fell for another man, and together they planned the death of her husband. When her lover struck Lleu with a poisoned spear, “Lleu flew up in the form of an eagle and gave a horrible scream.” Gwydion punished Blodeuedd by transforming her into an owl and declared:

“And because of the shame you have brought upon Lleu Llaw Gyffes, you will never dare show your face in daylight for fear of all the birds. And all the birds will be hostile towards you. And it shall be in their nature to strike you and molest you wherever they find you. You shall not lose your name, however, but shall always be called Blodeuwedd.”

In a note, Davies explains that the addition of the “w” in her name changes the meaning from “Blodeuedd (‘flowers’) to Blodeuwedd (‘flower-face’), to reflect the image of the owl.”

Blodeuwedd’s transformation into an owl links the bird to death once more. John Rhŷs, in Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, explains that for both Blodeuwedd and Lleu, when they are changed into birds, it is considered to be their deaths. Through a lengthy philosophic discourse Rhŷs describes several stories of shape-shifting characters and explores some druidic beliefs, then seems to reach the following conclusion:

So we may perhaps venture to suppose that the druids … believed in the transmigration of souls, including that from the human to an animal form and the reverse.

In his book, Elias Owen also explores the idea of the transmigration of souls (the concept that after death the soul passes into another being, including animals). He notes that tales where people are transformed into animals “… prove that people believed that such transitions were in life possible, and they had only to go a step further and apply the same faith to the soul, and we arrive at the transmigration of souls.”

While the idea of transforming into a new form is quite common in folktales, I wasn’t able to determine definitively if it indicated a belief in the transmigration of souls. Perhaps these types stories instead reveal an interest in characters who endured regardless of form. It seems open to interpretation.

Blodeuwedd’s transformation into an owl has recently been beautifully illustrated by Adam Simpson as part of a new set of commemorative stamps (Myths and Legends) issued by the Royal Mail. , a Welsh newsletter writer I know, brought this article to my attention, which has some great photographs of the collection. Thanks, Gareth! (His newsletter, Popped, explores the history and legacy of film.)

I hope you enjoyed this month’s letter! Learning about British owl folklore, Blodeuwedd’s story, and the idea of transformation should set us up nicely for next month’s topic: a folktale referenced by the character Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (link below).

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Which of the new Myths and Legends stamps was your favorite?

This month is the second anniversary of my newsletter, Notes on Writing Folklore-Inspired Fiction! I’m grateful to you all for reading my letters and learning along with me for the past two years. Thanks so much!

This last month has been a rainy one here in Southern California. I love that the rain is sinking in and starting to add new, green growth to our hills. I’ve been sneaking out for walks between rainstorms, and it’s been refreshing.

Behind the Scenes: How I Came to Folklore

I’ve been thinking about why folklore resonates with me and wondering what jump-started my interest in it. As a child, my maternal grandmother gave me two books that really captured my imagination. One book was an anthology of fairy tales and folktales, and the other included poems, rhymes, fables, stories, and songs. I remember reading through them repeatedly over the years. In my eighth grade English class, we were tasked to memorize and recite a story for the class. I chose “The Little Match-Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen.

While in college I majored in English and minored in Spanish (a Folklore degree wasn’t offered by the university). But the choices I made when selecting general education classes reflected my interest in social sciences as well. In addition to literature and language classes, I took courses in anthropology, geography, and sociology.

My interest in folklore was reignited when I began working on my novel. As I brainstormed ideas for plot points, I discovered the changeling legend. Researching this legend not only rekindled my interest in folklore and folktales, but it also provided me with a way to connect with my English ancestry. My father's family came to the US from England in the 1800s. (Fun fact: our surname [my maiden name] was originally spelled Pollicott after two small hamlets called Upper/Lower Pollicott. But in the US, our name came to be spelled Pollycutt.)

It’s interesting how something can percolate inside you for years, then emerge once you’ve added in all of the needed ingredients.

Exploring Folklore: Four-Leaf Clover Uses in Faerie Folklore and Love Divination

If this topic feels a little familiar to you, that's because I have dealt with it briefly before in my very first newsletter. But that post was on the short side in length and always felt incomplete. So, I decided to do a bit more research and expand it. Without further ado, let’s learn about four-leaf clover folklore!

Central to the plot of a short story that I’ve been revising is a four-leaf clover found by the main character after searching through a clover patch. I can remember sitting in the grass as a child, sifting through clover leaves and blossoms, hunting for a magical four-leaf clover with which I could make a wish. Yet, through my research for the story, I’ve learned that granting wishes was not the only folkloric use of a four-leaf clover. They also were utilized to see through faerie glamour, as tokens of good fortune, and in love divination.

As a quick aside, the term “four-leaf clover” seems to be the current use in dictionaries, and it will be what I use. However, I encountered “four-leaved clover” and “four-leafed clover” in both British and American sources, so when I quote from them, I will use their spellings. I searched for the etymology of the term, but I could not determine the reason for the different spellings.

Piercing Glamour With a Four-Leaf Clover

The folklorist Katharine Briggs explains in her reference work, An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, that the primary purpose of a four-leaf clover was to enable the person carrying it to see through glamour. Glamour was an enchantment cast by a faerie or witch that manipulated how “… things were perceived or not perceived as the enchanter wished.”

With a four-leaf clover, a mortal could see faeries and their environments as they truly were, piercing through the glamour that gave a false impression of reality. In many stories and folktales, the plucking and carrying of a four-leaf clover was unintentional and yielded a surprise viewing of faeries. For example, the tale “The Four-Leaved Clover,” found in Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall by Robert Hunt, describes a dairymaid’s accidental encounter with faeries:

One midsummer's day in the evening, the maid was later than usual milking, as she had been down to Penberth to the games. The stars were beginning to blink when she finished her task. Daisey was the last cow milked, and the bucket was so full she could scarcely lift it to her head. Before rising from the milking-stool, the maid plucked up a handful of grass and clover to put in the head of her hat, that she might carry the bucket the steadier. She had no sooner placed the hat on her head, than she saw hundreds and thousands of Small People [faeries] swarming in all directions about the cow, and dipping their hands into the milk, taking it out on the clover blossoms and sucking them.

Within the grass and clover she used to steady her bucket, the dairymaid had unknowingly plucked a four-leaf clover, enabling her to suddenly see the faeries that had been there all along while she had milked the cow.

Faerie Ointment Granted Faerie Sight

In addition to using four-leaf clovers directly to see through faerie glamour, Briggs also describes a faerie ointment “made of sprigs of four-leafed clover.” When this ointment was wiped on the eyes, it broke through glamour and invisibility spells, essentially granting faerie sight.

There are many tales in which a human woman cares for or assists in the birth of a half-faerie/half-human child. In order for the child to see the faerie parent and faerie world, the human midwife or caretaker must “anoint” the child’s eyes with the ointment. Often she accidentally wipes her own eyes in the process (but sometimes on purpose!), thereby giving herself faerie sight.

In this way, the faerie ointment and four-leaf clovers acted as a protection for mortals against faeries. They could see and understand that they were in the presence of faeries. But often this was only a perceived protection. Breaking a glamour spell and revealing what the faerie was trying to hide often resulted in a consequence imposed by the faerie on the person who broke the spell. Briggs explains:

Once a human eye has been touched by the ointment it can penetrate fairy disguises, and this power is only removed by a blast of fairy breath or the more vindictive blinding of the seeing eye, as occurs in one of the midwife to the fairies stories.

So with a single breath, a faerie could remove faerie sight, leaving the mortal with only their human sight. This was a mild response, which seemed to be administered to those who had inadvertently used the ointment on themselves. The harsher punishment of blinding, which obviously removes both faerie and human sight, comes from a tale where a woman applies the ointment on purpose.

Wishing on a Four-Leaf Clover

Granting wishes was a secondary use of a four-leaf clover in faerie folklore. The mortal who found a four-leaf clover could use it to make a wish. Just as I had longed to do as a child! But interestingly, while researching the idea of wishing on a four-leaf clover, I didn’t really come across stories of folks hoping to better themselves or obtain a material object. Rather the wishes were for the return of a child who had been stolen by the faeries.

In an earlier newsletter I explored the topic of changelings and the widespread belief that faeries desired human children and often took them from their parents. (For more on this topic, see my post on changelings.) Parents would employ a variety of methods to encourage the faeries to return their true child to them, some of them quite drastic.

But in the case of four-leaf clovers, I found gentler stories of children being returned with the help of this rare version of the plant. In the tale “Amelia and the Dwarfs,” from the book The Brownies and Other Tales by Juliana Horatia Ewing, Amelia is taken from her parents by the faeries because of her bad behavior, and a stock is left in her place. (Note: Ewing uses dwarf and faerie interchangeably in the story.) A human woman who is also trapped there by the faeries as their servant explains to Amelia that she has been “… a peevish, selfish, wilful, useless, and ill-mannered little miss, ….”

So Amelia learns how to wash and mend her frocks, as well as heat up scraps of food, in order to please the faeries and be sent home. However, the woman helping her isn’t so sure that will be enough. Now that Amelia is so helpful and capable, the faeries might want to keep her around. But the woman offers her a solution:

… “your only chance is this. If ever, when dancing in the meadows [with the faeries], you can find a four-leaved clover, hold it in your hand, and wish to be at home. Then no one can stop you.”

After several rounds of dancing in the meadow and searching, Amelia finally discovers a four-leaf clover. She holds it over her head and declares, “I want to go home!” Immediately she is returned to her very own bed.

In a similar vein, I found a bit of four-leaf clover folklore in W. Y. Evans Wentz’s, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. He shares portions of an interview he had with a Mr. Henry Maddern in Penzance (Cornwall). Mr Maddern described the country pixies as “a wicked sort,” who stole human children, leaving one of their own behind. He further explained that “… the true child could only be got back by laying a four-leaf clover on the changeling.”

Although Mr. Maddern does not explicitly state that the person placing the clover on the changeling also must make a wish, to me it feels like that was the intent—the hope that the four-leaf clover would ensure the return of the human child.

Good Omen and Love Divination

Interpreting four-leaf clovers as an auspicious sign for both luck and love is an area where British and American folklore overlap. So I’m including examples from both regions.

In Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders by William Henderson, he observes: “A pod containing only one pea is equally auspicious, and so is a four-leaved clover or an even ash-leaf.” (An “even” ash leaf is one with an even number of leaflets.) He also quotes lines from a “privately-printed collection of North Country Folk-Lore” that associate the four-leaf clover with finding love:

Find even ash or four-leaved clover,

An' you'll see your true love before the day's over.

Martha Warren Beckwith offers similar folklore in her article, “Signs and Superstitions Collected from American College Girls.” From her interviews with forty-five college girls (of mostly European ancestry) she describes a love divination belief from the young women that resonates with what Henderson provided above:

164. If you find a four-leafed clover, you will marry the next man you meet.

Beckwith also outlines a more extensive belief system of luck related to a four-leaf clover. (In her article, she has numbered all of the signs/superstitions—186 in all. An asterisk means that the sign/superstition was recorded more than once but less than five times.) With respect to the four-leaf clover and luck, she lists the following:

*75. (a) It is good luck to find a four-leafed clover; bad luck, if you give it away.

* (b) It is bad luck to take a four-leafed clover that some one else has found; good luck, to take a five-leafed clover.

76. It is bad luck to find a five-leafed clover, but can be averted if you give it away.

I hadn’t known of the belief that bad luck could incur if you gave away your four-leaf clover. Also, have you ever found a five-leaf clover? I think I’ve only found four-leaf ones, and very few at that. According to the Guinness World Records, Yoshiharu Watanabe (Japan), grew a record-breaking 63-leaf clover in 2024!

I thought I’d close with a poem on the subject of luck, love, and a four-leaf clover. I found it in the November 1893 issue of The New England Magazine.

Luck
by Abbie Farwell Brown

I sought a four-leaved clover,—
    The grass was gemmed with dew,—
I searched the meadow over
To find a four-leaved clover;
I was a lucky rover,—
    You sought the charm-grass, too,
And seeking luck and clover
    I found it—finding you.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: I’m curious—how did you become interested in folklore? Feel free to leave a comment or reply to this email and let me know. :)

Leave a comment

The past month was a pretty quiet one for me. I came down with a two-week cold, which kept me mostly at home. But I was fairly functional (aside from a lot of coughing), so I could still work at the computer. Which was good because in addition to working on my novel and this newsletter, I also had a personal project to accomplish: my valentine holiday cards. Over the years, as the kiddos got older and busier, my holiday cards kept getting pushed back. I’ve always had a soft spot for Valentine’s Day—I enjoy exchanging cards and candy. So since 2010, I have leaned into this and have embraced it as my holiday card time. :)

Behind the Scenes: Where I’m at With the Novel I’m Working On

But first, I wanted to take a moment to extend a heartfelt, “Thank you!” to you all for reading the newsletter and learning along with me! It means so much to me.

I have finished reading through the second draft of the folklore-inspired novel I’m working on. And I’m pleased to report that it is cohesive and coherent. :) Yay! While it’s not perfect—I took notes on many items to fix—I am excited to start editing the novel.

Exploring Folklore: Plot Highlights and Narrative Techniques of “The Celtic Dragon Myth”

As someone who is writing fiction, I’m particularly interested in story and therefore fascinated by folktales. While researching dragons for my last newsletter, I came across an interesting book, The Celtic Dragon Myth, by John Francis Campbell and translated with an introduction by George Henderson. It contains several texts related to the theme of heroes battling water monsters. Intrigued, I’ve been reading through the book and taking notes. I thought it would be fun to explore the book together—as a folktale adventure of our own.

Some Background on The Celtic Dragon Myth

The book’s title, The Celtic Dragon Myth, is a little misleading because it contains several texts within it, one of them also having the title, “The Celtic Dragon Myth.” (I know—confusing!) I’ll use italics for the book title and quotes for the story. The tale of “The Celtic Dragon Myth” will be our main focus, and not only does it include a dragon, but also giants, a mermaid, and shape-shifting heroes. While The Celtic Dragon Myth is credited to John Francis Campbell, it was actually published in 1911 by George Henderson, as Campbell had died in 1885.

In the book’s introduction, Henderson explains that Campbell viewed “The Celtic Dragon Myth” as “… one of the most important of myths, and the most difficult to deal with.” It stemmed from a series of stories from the Highlands and Isles, but Campbell had also read similar tales in other languages, such as Swedish, German, French, Italian, English, as well as versions in Russian. It seems that Campbell was drawn to the dragon myth as a result of a recurring story pattern that he’d discovered in all of the different versions of the tale.

“The Celtic Dragon Myth” tale seems somewhat unique to me in its form. It’s a compilation of multiple folktales (from fifteen different Irish and Scottish sources) translated and rendered into a single narrative by Campbell. It reads a bit like a novella, and I haven't really come across anything like it before in my research.

The book also includes the Gaelic text of two folktales (that form part of the larger narrative of “The Celtic Dragon Myth”), as well as two stories of Fraoch, a Connaught hero. One of the Fraoch stories is a translation by Henderson of the ninth-century, medieval Irish text Táin Bó Fraích (Cattle-Raid of Froech), which he titles “The Geste of Fraoch.” The other tale of Fraoch is material from the Book of the Dean of Lismore, a sixteenth-century text, which Henderson calls “The Death of Fraoch.” Henderson explains that he has included these stories as they are quite “old and important” examples of contests with water monsters.

Because “The Celtic Dragon Myth” is roughly a 100-page tale, I felt that it was too long to simply recount in a summarized fashion. So instead, I thought we could follow highlights of the plot while looking at some of the narrative techniques used in the tale.

Be warned, spoilers lie ahead. If you wish to download the PDF of the book and read it first, please feel free to do so. My newsletter will be here waiting for you once you’re ready. :) Otherwise, let’s dive in!

We Begin With a Smith (Who Is Also a Fisherman) and a Mermaid

The tale first introduces us to an old smith who lived by the sea with “… an old wife, an old mare, and an old dog for company.” They had no children, and the smith often went out in the evening to fish (usually without much luck).

Most of the action in this first part of the story takes place during twilight, which an especially suitable time of day for seeing faeries and other supernatural creatures. Thus, one evening the smith went fishing, and “just at the mouth of night,” a mermaid emerged next to his boat and asked if he’d got any fish. The smith told her that he hadn’t.

So the mermaid proposed a bargain—if he will give her his first son once he’s three years old, she’ll ensure that he catches plenty of fish. Well, since the smith hadn’t any sons, he thought this was an excellent agreement.

I love the phrasing, “mouth of night,” which according to the notes section of the book was “… the common Gaelic equivalent for a nightfall.” This personification of the night having a mouth also operates as a bit of foreshadowing. Later in the tale, the mermaid swallows up one of the main characters alive! (Fun folklore fact: some mermaids in early Celtic descriptions were very large, like over 100 feet in length.)

A Fishy Prophecy and the Number Three

After his encounter with the mermaid, the smith began fishing daily. For several days, he caught only a single fish at twilight, but it was a talking fish who repeatedly convinced the smith to let him go. However, the smith and his wife were very hungry, and on the third day, he broke the bad news to the fish that he would be keeping him.

With his final words, the fish gave the smith very detailed instructions on how to split, cook, eat, and dispose of him. The fish then foretold what would happen if the directions were followed:

“Thy wife will bear three sons.

“Thy mare will cast three foals.

“Thy dog will litter three whelps. …

“Three trees will sprout where the bones are buried, and they will be in leaf and budding, in sap and growing, summer and winter, spring and autumn, every day for ever, so long as the clan shall live.

“They will droop or wither or die as they do.”

Not only does this prophecy foreshadow future plot points, but it also highlights the number three, which features strongly in many folktale narratives. In the article “Folktales in Newfoundland Oral Tradition: Structure, Style, and Performance,” J. D. A. Widdowson explains:

… they [folktales] typically feature a hero, … who overcomes opposition and obstacles that are usually grouped into sets of three quests, tests, or trials, often doing so by magical means, and who usually wins out in the end.

As we’ll see, the number three will continue to appear throughout “The Celtic Dragon Myth.” Indeed, the three sons were born and grew up, with the smith managing to keep the eldest from the mermaid.

But soon the time came when the young men “would all three start and try their fortune.” The smith warned his eldest son to avoid the seashore due to the bargain made with the mermaid. Then the sons set off on three separate paths, promising to meet up again “in a year and a day.”

In Which the Eldest Son Battles Giants and a Dragon

The eldest son traveled until he reached a castle and there he “took service with the king’s herd.” Placed in charge of the cows, he immediately disobeyed the king’s herd and took the cattle to a forbidden area that had wonderful grass, but as it turned out, belonged to a giant.

This launched the young man into a series of challenges: slaying three giants (each with seven heads) and their mother (of two) / wife (of one). There is quite a bit of repetition in these challenges, both in plot and language. In each round, he fought the giant until he felt “he was far from friends and near his foes.”

However, the lad discovered he could transform into different animals and slay the giants and their mother/wife. Twice he embodied a wolf, but for the third giant he became “a wolf and a hawk and a fox all at once.” He took the form of a hawk to battle the mother/wife.

Bennison Gray addresses this concept of repeating incidents within a single work of folk literature in the article, “Repetition in Oral Literature.” Gray explains that repetition is widespread in folk literature because it is an oral literature and “… repetition is a direct consequence of their oral nature.”

While “The Celtic Dragon Myth” is written down in a book, several of the folktales it stems from were told to Campbell orally. The tale utilizes repetition throughout, and it aids in building tension.

After successfully defeating all of the giants, the eldest son spoke with the king’s herd, who told him a bit of news:

“The great “Biast” [dragon] is coming out of the sea to take away the king’s daughter, and unless he gets her the whole realm will be ravaged.”

The young man feigned disinterest, but the next morning he left early to fight the dragon. In this set of challenges, he must defeat a three-headed dragon, one head at at time.

This is probably my favorite part of the entire folktale. While these scenes are built in repetition as were the battles with the giants, they are more complicated, layered, and nuanced. There’s humor, deception in the form of a hero who lies and an impostor hero, suspense, and a bit of gore (the true hero is identified by a small collection of body parts cut off of him before each battle.)

Apparently, this complexity is not unique to this folktale. In “‘The Celtic Dragon Myth’ Revisited,” which was a talk given by Joseph Nagy at the Celtic Colloquium at the University of Edinburgh, he explains that dragon folktales often include complex narratives. Additionally, the slaying of the dragon isn’t always straightforward. He says:

The hero rarely has the opportunity to enjoy his triumph right away—typically in instances of ATU 300 [The Dragon-Slayer tale-type], he is beaten to the punch by an anti-hero who tells a false story of what happened and presents himself as the dragon-slayer.

In “The Celtic Dragon Myth,” this impostor, or anti-hero, exists as a “cock-eyed, carrotty-headed cook,” who attempted to take credit for the dragon slaying. But once the eldest son was revealed as the true champion, he and the princess married, and the cook was hanged for his trickery.

The Mermaid Returns to Make Good on the Bargain

After the couple had been married awhile, the princess had a longing for dulse seaweed and asked the eldest son, her husband, to go with her to the seashore to look for some. The lad had forgotten that he’d promised his father to stay away from the sea. Suddenly the mermaid appeared:

… the mermaid rose and made a rush, and seized the lad and shouted :

“It is many a day since you were promised to me, and now I have you perforce,” and then she swallowed him up alive.

The princess ran for her harp, then returned to the seashore with it and began playing. The mermaid reappeared and the princess paused her tune. The mermaid asked her to continue, but the princess refused to play until she saw that her husband was alive. “So the mermaid opened her great mouth and gaped, and showed the lad’s head, and the king’s daughter knew that he was alive.” They go back and forth several times until the lad was able to escape. In retaliation, the mermaid snatched up the princess and took her.

The lad learned from a knowledgeable counselor at the castle that he would have to take the mermaid’s life in order to get his bride back:

“The mermaid’s life,” said the counsellor, “is not in her, and it is easy to take. It is in an egg, which is in a fish, which is in a duck, which is in a ram, which is in a wood, under a house on an island, in a lake.”

Hmm, I’m not so sure that this challenge is “easy.” But the eldest son worked backward from the lake, finding each item/animal in reverse order, transforming into a wolf, a falcon, and a fox and enlisting the help of an otter.

Once he had the egg, the mermaid appeared in the lake, begging him not to break the egg. The mermaid opened her mouth and the princess “sprang” out. Holding his wife’s hand, “… he crushed the egg with his foot against the stones, and the mermaid was a heap on the rocks.”

Part of me wishes “The Celtic Dragon Myth” ended here with death of mermaid and the couple’s reunion. I have always liked circular narratives. They feel cohesive, yet they can still reveal growth and change. Author Leslye Penelope recently sent out a newsletter post entitled “Scene Mastery & Sticking the Landing,” which further explains:

One powerful technique for ending well is to create a counterpoint or full-circle moment—mirroring or bookending the opening scene in some way. This often creates a deeply satisfying effect for readers.

This may explain why I enjoyed the eldest son’s storyline the best. By beginning and ending with the mermaid, I felt like the story had come full circle.

The Brothers Reunite (Sort Of)

At this point, the tale follows the second and third sons’ stories. They, too, had the ability to transform into different animals. With “courage, cunning, and patience” they succeeded at their own adventures involving fighting an army and another giant. And in the end, both married princesses.

Now it was time for the three brothers to embark on their final adventure. In a Medusa-meets-Bluebeard set of scenes, the brothers took turns fighting a creature that transformed men “into pillars of stone.” In this, the youngest brother prevailed against the creature during the third battle and revived all of the men with a “balsam for bringing to life again.”

But wild jealousy consumed the eldest brother when he learned that his wife had shared a bed with the youngest brother the night before. (Although it may have been chaste night, as the text reads, “… he laid a cold sword between them.”) The eldest turned his sword on the youngest brother and quickly beheaded him.

I’ll be honest, I did not see this plot twist coming. I had assumed that all three would return home again as champions. But while it seemed a little out of character for the eldest son, folktales often include sudden and unexpected events with little fanfare.

The tale wraps up quickly at this point. The old smith saw that the third tree had fallen (as a result of his son’s death), fulfilling the fish’s prophecy. The two older brothers returned to their parents and “put them in a castle by themselves.” (I’m not sure why.) And while the eldest son and his wife lived happily, it is unknown what happened to the second brother.

Thanks for going on this adventure with me! I’d like to end with a quote of encouragement for storytellers and artists from the introduction of the book, The Celtic Dragon Myth. Henderson writes:

There are dragons still to be slain. May the recital of an old tale kindle the mind to new adventures. Here are materials for poets and painters. It is we who are living now. Let us mould them to express ourselves. The ancients have expressed themselves through similar tales ; nor will we fulfil ourselves by entirely disregarding our ancestral past and our wealth of complex tradition.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: If you know someone fascinated by folklore and folktales, feel free to forward this email to them. :) Thanks!

My heart goes out to the residents of Los Angeles. We live only an hour or so south, and we have a cousin and a friend who have evacuated due to the terrible fires. If you or your loved ones have been affected by this tragedy, please know that I am keeping you in my thoughts.

Since I last wrote to you, we traveled to Arizona during the holidays to visit with family. We enjoyed eating delicious meals, listening to family stories from the past, and hiking a portion of the Arizona Trail (near Picketpost Mountain).

Behind the Scenes: Smaug—A Dragon From Folklore

This month in the folklore section we’ll be exploring dragons. My first exposure to a dragon drawn from folklore was most likely Smaug, the red-golden dragon in J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit. I remember being fascinated by his size, his jewel-encrusted underbelly, and the enormous treasure he guarded. Although he is a fictional creation, the inspiration for Smaug comes from Scandinavian folklore.

I laughed when I saw that I had labeled the book with my name twice. (Pollycutt is my maiden name.) I guess I wanted to make extra sure that anyone who borrowed the book would know who it belonged to. 😉 I think I was around twelve years old when I received and first read the book. Do you have a favorite dragon?

Exploring Folklore: British and Celtic Dragons

Dragons have a lengthy history in folklore and literature. While their origin is uncertain, stories of dragons exist in many places in the world, both in the West and the East. And tales can be found in ancient, medieval, and contemporary literature alike. To keep with the theme of my newsletter, though, our focus will be on British and Celtic dragons.

This month we’ll look at the traits of dragons and discover a few legends about them. While researching, I came across an interesting book, The Celtic Dragon Myth by John Francis Campbell, translated with an introduction by George Henderson. It has more than just dragons, though, and I thought it would be fun to explore it next month.

Characteristics of Dragons and Worms

“Dragon” and “worm” are often used interchangeably to describe these scaly creatures. Icy Sedgwick offers a nice explanation about these terms in her post, “Dragons in Folklore: The Lambton Worm and the Laidly Worm”:

The word ‘worm’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘wyrm’. This was a generic word and covered everything from Beowulf’s dragon to scorpions and snakes (Thompson 2014). It also came from the Old Norse word ‘ormr’ (Moon 2015). Over time, ‘worm’ and ‘dragon’ ceased being synonyms. Now, we’re more familiar with dragons, and worms are something you’d find in the garden.

British and Celtic dragon folklore stems from a Scandinavian influence. Many of these dragons are called worms and have slightly different characteristics than dragons. Katharine Briggs explains in her book, An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, that worms are “… wingless, generally very long, with a poisonous rather than a fiery breath and self-joining.” Yet in many ways worms are very similar to winged and fiery dragons. She writes:

Both are scaly, both haunt wells or pools, both are avid for maidens and particularly princesses, both are treasure-hoarders and are extremely hard to kill.

She also notes that in tales from the Scottish Highlands, worms are often found in rivers or the sea.

In a talk given by Joseph Nagy on “‘The Celtic Dragon Myth’ Revisited,” he explores a few more characteristics of dragons. He describes a dragon as “… a hybrid—part serpent, sometimes part fish or bird or terrestrial animal, and part sui generis.” And he adds that dragons “… are generated by and highly susceptible to transformation.” For example, they may start their life as a small larva or snake and change to a dragon over time or under certain circumstances.

Let’s look at some specific examples to see these characteristics in action.

Gwiber, a Flying Serpent

In many districts in Wales, there was once a tradition of flying serpents known as the gwiber. In Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, Elias Owen relates the origin of the gwiber. He explains that these creatures were once snakes, but “… by having drunk the milk of a woman, and by having eaten of bread consecrated for the Holy Communion, became transformed into winged serpents or dragons.” Like other dragons, a gwiber would attack people and devastate the countryside.

Owen includes a legend about a gwiber from a Mr. Hancock as described in his “History of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant” (published in Montgomeryshire Collections). In order to prevent a particular gwiber in Montgomeryshire from continuing to attack the area, a stone pillar was raised as a sort of weapon. Mr. Hancock explains how the pillar was used:

The stone was draped with scarlet cloth, to allure and excite the creature to a furor, scarlet being a colour most intolerably hateful and provoking to it. It was studded with iron spikes, that the reptile might wound or kill itself by beating itself against it. Its destruction, it is alleged, was effected by this artifice.

Apparently, the gwiber was thought to have two hiding places in Montgomeryshire, both known as Nant-y-Wiber. One was in Penygarnedd and the other in the parish of Llansilin. The stone pillar was believed to be in the gwiber’s direct line of flight between its two lairs.

The Dragon of Wantley

The Dragon of Wantley is a legend that includes a fiery dragon, a strong champion, and a maiden. Katharine Briggs offers a version of the tale, which was originally published by an anonymous author as a ballad. She begins in this manner:

This dragon was the terror of all the countryside. He had forty-four iron teeth, and a long sting in his tail, besides his strong rough hide and fearful wings.

He ate trees and cattle, and once he ate three young children at one meal. Fire breathed from his nostrils, and for long no man dared come near him.

As the legend goes, a knight of great strength, named More of More Hall, lived near the dragon’s den. The local people came to More Hall with tears of sadness and desperation, asking the knight for his help. If he would but slay the dragon, they would give him all of their worldly goods.

But More didn’t want their belongings. His only request was that a black-haired maiden of sixteen anoint him the night before and dress him in his armor in the morning to prepare him to fight the dragon. He then sought out a smith in Sheffield to make him a suit of armor.

The armor was set with steel spikes all over—on the front and back, on the arms and legs. Some spikes were five or six inches long! The ballad claims that the knight looked like a giant hedgehog and frightened all the local animals.

In the end, More used his wit rather than his strength to prevail. He climbed down into a well, and when the dragon bent to drink from it, the knight struck him in the face. A great battle ensued for “for two days and a night,” but neither one wounded the other.

Finally, the dragon attacked as if he would lift More high into the air, but the knight kicked him in the back, driving one of the iron spikes deep into the dragon’s flesh. The dragon spun and groaned, cried and moaned, then “… collapsed into a helpless heap, and died.”

The legend of the Dragon of Wantley interested me because not only does it display elements of dragon myth, but it also has inspired multiple literary creations, including the anonymous ballad, a novel, and even an opera!

The Lambton Worm

Similar to the Dragon of Wantley, the legend of the Lambton Worm embodies dragon folklore and has had a large cultural impact. It has given rise to a song, literature, film, and (wait for it) an opera! Until researching this topic, I hadn't realized that dragon-based operas existed. :)

William Henderson, in his Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, explains how this legend has become deep rooted in County Durham:

The Lambton Worm, partly from the romantic character of its history, partly because it relates to a family of note in the county, seems to have taken deep hold of the popular mind in Durham, and it is peculiarly fortunate in a chronicler. … Sir Cuthbert Sharpe … collected every particular respecting this Worm from old residents in the neighbourhood of Lambton, and placed the whole in the Bishoprick Garland, a collection of legends, songs, ballads, &c., relating to the county of Durham.

Henderson includes the legend in his book, but I was also able to locate the Bishoprick Garland. As the story is similar and quite long in both books, I’ll condense it into more of a summary.

One Sunday, the young heir of Lambton went fishing in the River Wear, instead of spending the day in solemn observance. He was not having much luck, and after shouting out curses in disappointment, he finally felt a tug at the line. But to his great dismay, he’d only caught a worm of unseemly appearance. So he flung it into a nearby well.

The worm grew and grew, and at some point no longer fit in the well. It took to resting coiled on a rock in the River Wear during the day and “twining” itself around a hill at night. It grew so large that it could wrap itself around the hill three times with its length.

The worm began terrorizing the area, drinking the cows’ milk and devouring lambs. With the young heir of Lambton off fighting in a war at this point, the old lord and household of Lambton Hall attempted to pacify the worm by offering it milk in a trough daily. And many knights came to fight it off, but without success, as the worm had the ability to reunite itself after being cut.

After seven years, the heir of Lambton returned to find the lands destroyed and the people overwhelmed. After seeing the worm for himself and learning that none had yet destroyed it, he consulted a wise woman to see what should be done.

She told him that he was the one who’d brought the worm forth to devastate the countryside. She advised him to cover his armor with spearheads and bring his sword to fight the worm on the rock in the river. She ended the discussion by making him vow to kill the first living thing he encountered after slaying the worm. If he didn’t, then no lord of Lambton would die in bed for nine generations.

So the heir of Lambton dressed in his spiky armor and went out to the rock. And much like a constrictor, the worm wrapped itself around the knight, essentially wounding itself against the heir’s armor. As the worm bled and lost strength, the knight gained the upper hand and cut the worm in two with his sword. The swift river water swept part of the worm away—keeping it from reuniting itself—and the worm was slain.

Victorious, the heir returned home and gave a blast to his bugle, the signal to the household to let loose a hound (a pre-arranged sacrifice to keep his vow). But his father rushed out to embrace him instead. He couldn’t bring himself to harm his own father, so he blew on the bugle again. The hound emerged, and he slayed it, but it was in vain. He’d broken the vow he’d made. Consequently, for nine generations, no lord of Lambton would die in his bed.

If you’re wondering if the curse came to pass, Henderson notes that while the exact date of the legend is uncertain, it is believed that the heir in the tale was Sir John Lambton, knight of Rhodes. He explains further:

Now nine ascending generations, from a certain Henry Lambton, Esq. M.P. would exactly reach to Sir John Lambton, knight of Rhodes; and it was to that Henry Lambton that the old people of the neighbourhood used to look with great curiosity, marvelling whether the curse would “hold good to the end.” He died in his carriage, crossing the new bridge of Lambton, on the 26th of June, 1761; and popular tradition is clear and unanimous in maintaining that, during the period of the curse, no lord of Lambton ever died in his bed.

Dragon Folklore is Often Local

While legends provide a way to learn about the characteristics of dragons in general, many of the tales I came across were linked to specific areas or a particular, local champion. Icy Sedgwick explains more about this in her post:

The stories become fables, praising the ability of the community to deal with a problem without recourse to outside help. They also embed the story within the local landscape, creating explanations for landmarks or strange features.

This seems to be true of the gwiber, the Dragon of Wantley, and the Lambton Worm. In each legend, it is the resourcefulness of the local champion or community which conquers the dragon.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: In case you missed my last newsletter on faerie folktales that relate to the craft of spinning, here’s a link to read it.

I hope you all are well! My husband and I were a bit under the weather this past month. At this point, though, I feel pretty much back to normal. I went on a walk last weekend and even spotted a deer.

As we journey through the holiday season and approach the new year, I wish you peace and good health. And I look forward to writing to you again in 2025!

Behind the Scenes: Writing-Related Wins of 2024

So often I feel like I’m doing the same thing each day, and it can be hard to see progress. So I find it fun at the end of the year to look back through the months to see what I have done.

I’m very excited to have recently finished the second draft of the folklore-inspired novel I’ve been working on. It often felt like I was working on it at a pace of a few hundred words at time, so to have reached 81,000 words is meaningful to me. I’m currently rereading the novel and taking editorial notes on what I’ll need to tackle in revision.

Each month I researched, wrote, and sent out this monthly newsletter. Thank you all for reading and learning about folklore along with me! I’m so grateful for your support. :)

I had the opportunity to be a guest reader for the Stories from the Hearth podcast, which is produced by The Folklore Podcast. It was such fun to read and record two folktales: "The Fairy Widower" and "The Spectre Bridegroom."

Additionally, I collaborated with Nina Veteto and wrote a guest post on spring folklore for her newsletter, Flora & Forage.

Finally, I attended/participated in some local literary events such as the Mission Viejo Poetry + Art Collaborative, WordFest OC, and weekly write-ins with other members of O.C. Writers.

Exploring Folklore: Spinning With the Faeries

When choosing a folklore topic each month, I find that inspiration comes from many sources. Sometimes it stems from something I read in a folklore book or journal article. Or perhaps I might encounter something of note while performing research for my creative writing. But this time, the internet browser suggested an article to me that I found intriguing.

The article drew connections between faerie folktales and the craft of spinning. I was familiar with spinning as an element in fairy tales, like “Rumpelstiltskin,” but I did not know much from a folklore perspective. I also knew that faeries were considered to live in a similar fashion to mortals, practicing a variety of crafts and trades. So I decided to look further into spinning as it relates to faerie folklore within a European scope, but with specific examples from the British Isles.

A Brief History of Spinning

As I gathered resources on the topic, I soon realized that it was helpful knowing a bit of the history of spinning. In his article “Spinning with Fate: Rumpelstiltskin and the Decline of Female Productivity,” Jack Zipes includes some historical information regarding spinning in society. He writes:

From the early formation of grazing societies up to the nineteenth century, women participated in almost all the work that concerned the spinning. They took care of the animals and helped plant the flax; they cleaned and prepared the wool and roasted, broke, and hatcheled the flax. They did practically all the spinning.

In addition to producing a useful product that could be sold, spinning also provided for social opportunities. Women working in spinning rooms during the day would be joined by men and boys in the evening. Then, all types of cultural activities might ensue—sharing a meal, singing and dancing, or telling stories.

But in 1764, James Hargreaves invented the spinning machine. Consequently, during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the independent craft of spinning by women gradually transferred to factories full of spinning machines run by men. This change in roles not only affected spinning production, but also how spinning was regarded by Western society. This is reflected in the folktales told about spinners, which we’ll explore shortly.

Spinning Was Also a Faerie Craft

Like mortals, faeries were believed to be skilled in many crafts and trades. It was thought that they lived a sort of parallel life to humans: they worked to meet their own needs, but also helped mortals by teaching them skills or performing work for them.

One of the crafts faeries were most famous for was spinning, and there are many folktales that describe their skill. I also came across two faeries that served as a “patroness of spinning.” Katharine Briggs describes them in her book, An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. Probably the more well known patron faerie of spinning was Habetrot, who came from the border area between England and Scotland. Briggs explains that she is more than just a folktale character:

… Habetrot was really believed to be the patroness of spinners, and it was seriously held that a shirt made by her was a sovereign remedy for all sorts of diseases.

Briggs also mentions a water faerie from the Hebrides named Loireag, who was also considered a patroness of spinning. Loireag seemed to be a little less friendly than Habetrot, though, and would be upset by women who didn’t follow proper procedures.

So what types of faerie folktales explore spinning? Let’s look at a few examples from the British Isles.

Faerie Folktales That Combine Spinning With a Warning

Some Irish faerie folktales appear to offer reminders that it’s best not stay up too late spinning. In these types of tales, a woman is interrupted from her spinning by faeries who have come to spin as well. The sudden appearance of the faeries serves as a warning to the woman that it is late, and the woman quickly goes to bed. In the article, “‘We knew she was a fairy when we saw her:’ How Irish folklore around spinning instructed women artisans,” Brandi Goddard explains:

Despite the helpful nature of the fairies, this folktale is a warning for the spinner to ensure she is getting enough rest at the end of a long day.

Goddard asserts that folktales like these might have been told in order to encourage desired behaviors and pass down helpful daily routines to the next generation. In a similar vein, I also discovered a story which links spinning to the importance of good manners. It is included in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans Wentz and comes from the Isle of Skye (Scotland).

This tale describes the consequences of refusing faerie hospitality. Two women were walking and thought they heard the sounds of churning coming from under a small, nearby hill. One of the women remarked how she was thirsty for some buttermilk. A faerie quickly brought her a bowlful, but the woman declined and within moments was imprisoned under the hill by the faerie. The only way to earn her freedom was to eat “a chest full of meal” and spin “a great bag of wool.” However, the meal and wool did not diminish even as she ate and spun. Another prisoner shared with her the trick of wetting the left eye with saliva every morning. The woman followed the advice, which enabled her to complete the tasks. But while she did gain her freedom, the faerie cursed the other prisoner, keeping him captive forever.

As I discussed in an earlier post on faerie morality, faeries did not hesitate to administer punishments to mortals who behaved in a manner they disapproved of. Indeed, refusing the offer of the faerie’s buttermilk proved to garner a swift consequence of imprisonment and (almost) impossible tasks. But if we follow Brandi Goddard’s reasoning, then this tale too, can be viewed as a warning not to refuse hospitality when it is offered.

Spinning, Marriage, and Faerie Folktales

Some faerie folktales seem to imply that women who excelled at spinning would marry well. In his article, Jack Zipes explains the primary throughline of these types of folktales:

The major theme from beginning to end, … is spinning as a creative and productive act, important for the women to control, for spinning will decide her fate.

He points out that this was a reflection of the real desire of many women in the past to self-identify as industrious spinners. I found several examples of these types of tales in Katharine Briggs’ book. It seems that they were common throughout Europe.

In the English faerie folktale, “Tom Tit Tot,” it is the mother who sees value in spinning. As the mother sat by her door spinning, she sang of her daughter who was more interested in eating pies. (Five pies to be exact!) But just then the king came down the street, and she quickly changed her song to announce that her daughter had spun five skeins that day.

Impressed, the king offered to marry the daughter on the condition that during the last month of the year, she must spin five skeins every day, or he would kill her. The mother thought it was an excellent match and agreed to the bargain. But when the last month arrived, the king took the daughter to a room with a spinning wheel and demanded that she keep her end of the agreement.

Frightened, the young woman realized she didn’t even know how to spin! But a faerie with a long tail (which twirls a great amount in the story) appeared and offered to help her. Each morning the faerie would get the flax from her and each night would bring it back spun. In return, she would try to guess the faerie’s name before the month ended. The faerie warned her though, “… if you hain't guessed it afore the month's up, yew shall be mine.”

With this new bargain in place, she received five skeins a day from the faerie and was kept free from bodily harm from her husband, the king. On the second-to-last day of the month, she by chance learned the faerie’s name from the king (who overheard the faerie singing in a chalk pit). In the final moment, she guessed the faerie’s name—Tom Tit Tot—and the faerie flew off with a shriek. We aren’t told what happened with her and the king—we are left to wonder what will transpire in the last month of the next year, and whether the daughter will learn to spin so well on her own.

Faerie Folktales as a Reflection of Social Attitudes Toward Spinning

Another folktale from Briggs’ book that pursues the idea that excellent spinning would lead to marriage is the story of Habetrot. What is interesting, though, is that this tale also seems to overtly reveal changing attitudes toward spinning.

The story takes place in Selkirkshire (Scotland), and like in “Tom Tit Tot” the daughter preferred to do other things (in this case roam the countryside and gather flowers) rather than spin. But the mother wanted her to be an industrious spinner. One day, the mother “… lost patience, gave her daughter a sound whipping, threw down seven heads of lint in front of her, and told her that they must all be spun up into yarn within three days, or it would be the worse for her.”

In this story, the daughter does know how to spin, but not very well. She tried her best, but ended up with only blisters and lumpy thread. Upset, she cried herself to sleep. The next morning she wandered around the countryside, then sat near a stream and cried some more. When she finally looked up, she saw an old woman “… plying her spindle busily and pulling out her thread with a lip that seemed made for that very purpose.” (From a quick internet search, it appears that flax should kept wet while being spun, and saliva was often used.) Unbeknownst to the daughter, this woman was the faerie, Habetrot.

Habetrot offered to help the daughter with the spinning and took the lint from her. With the assistance of other faeries, Habetrot spun seven skeins of yarn, then gave them to the young woman. In this tale, the only bargain made is that Habetrot asked the daughter not to tell her mother who spun the yarn (and the faerie ignored the young woman when asked her name). It was late when the daughter arrived home with the yarn, and she was hungry, so she ate seven black puddings (blood sausages).

In the morning, the mother discovered both the beautiful yarn and the missing black puddings. Similar to the mother in “Tom Tit Tot,” she rushed out of the house and sang about how her daughter had spun seven and eaten seven. A young laird was riding along and overheard her. He stopped, admired the skeins of yarn, and then asked the daughter to be his wife.

While the daughter was glad to marry the laird, she was concerned about all of the spinning he wanted her to do. So she consulted Habetrot, who told her not to worry, but to bring the laird to meet her. When the laird met Habetrot and the other faeries, and saw how their lips had changed from years of spinning, he decided that his bride would no longer spin. Instead, it was agreed that “… every head of lint that grew on their land went to old Habetrot to spin.”

While both the “Tom Tit Tot” and “Habetrot” folktales explore the belief that an excellent spinner would be desired and would marry well, there is a secondary observation about spinning that these two stories seem to be making. In both, the daughters want to avoid spinning, even though their mothers want them to be productive spinners. Jack Zipes explains these opposing values:

Here spinning is denigrated either as exhausting work or work that can lead to disfigurement. Though it may lead to marriage, spinning is not regarded with much esteem, reflecting the change in social attitudes toward the metier.

Eventually, even the word spinster evolved in meaning. Originally, it was a term added to the name of a woman to denote her occupation. But as time went on, it included a new definition: an unmarried woman.

Yet as I researched for this post, I discovered many videos, blogs, and magazines produced by people who are working to keep the craft of spinning relevant in our current society. Not only do many consider it relaxing and creative work, but I also see that folks enjoy the historical nature of spinning as well.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: If you enjoy social media, you can now find me on Bluesky in addition to Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Are you a lover of trees, by chance? I am! Here in Southern California, where we are now fully into autumn, many trees are changing colors with the season. My favorite is the California sycamore (Platanus racemosa). The wilderness area near our home where I like to walk is heavily wooded with sycamore trees, as well as oak trees. And in the regional park adjacent to the wilderness area, there are many pine and eucalyptus trees. I often pause along my walk to look at their leaves, search for birds nestled in their branches, or simply stand in the shade they provide. Do you have a favorite tree? I’d love to know what it is. :)

Behind the Scenes: Reading My Novel Manuscript and WordFest OC

Since my last letter, I’ve begun reading through my novel manuscript and taking editorial notes. I’ve also read through various blogs/newsletters and spoken to writing friends for ideas on how to approach revising a novel. The consensus recommends to focus on a high-level, story edit first, then perform a scene-by-scene edit, with line editing at the end. This makes sense to me as well, so once I’m done reading through the manuscript as a whole, I’ll start examining my story and character arcs.

I also had the opportunity to attend WordFest OC, which in their words was a “literary festival featuring poetry reading, storytelling, spoken word performances, panel discussions, writing workshops, and more!” O.C. Writers (the writing group I belong to) had a table there as well. I attended a couple of sessions and hung out at the table in between. It was a lot of fun!

Exploring Folklore: Sycamore Tree Folklore and Customs

I’m so grateful that you’ve taken a moment from your busy day to explore folklore with me. Thank you! And if you’re new to the newsletter—welcome!

Because many trees have folklore associated with them, I started wondering about my favorite tree, the sycamore. Was there any British folklore surrounding it? I discovered that while the sycamore tree is not native to the UK—it is believed to have been introduced by the Romans or during the Tudor era (1500s)—it has played a role in some faerie folklore, as well as in traditional customs and crafts. (Note: The sycamore tree I’ll be referring to in this folklore section is Acer pseudoplatanus, which bears a resemblance to the California sycamore, but is not the same tree.)

Faeries and Sycamores

With respect to faerie folklore, I came across two instances involving the sycamore tree. In the article “The Conjuror in Montgomeryshire” by Dr. W. LL. Davies, he takes a detour from his discussion on conjurers (soothsayers) in order to discuss some other Welsh folklore from the area. He writes:

I have failed to get, locally at any rate, much about the belief in fairies, although one farmer casually told me that sycamore trees near a farm kept away the fairies and prevented them from spoiling the milk.

This seems to suggest that the sycamore was considered to have a protective quality, which doesn’t surprise me. Many trees, including rowan and ash, were believed to serve as protection against faeries or mischievous spirits.

Additionally, I discovered a folktale in Wirt Sikes book, British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions, which also links the sycamore tree to faeries. The story was told to him by a farmer’s wife, and it’s short enough that I’ve included the entire tale:

Shon ap Shenkin was a young man who lived hard by Pant Shon Shenkin. As he was going afield early one fine summer's morning he heard a little bird singing, in a most enchanting strain, on a tree close by his path. Allured by the melody he sat down under the tree until the music ceased, when he arose and looked about him. What was his surprise at observing that the tree, which was green and full of life when he sat down, was now withered and barkless! Filled with astonishment he returned to the farmhouse which he had left, as he supposed, a few minutes before; but it also was changed, grown older, and covered with ivy. In the doorway stood an old man whom he had never before seen; he at once asked the old man what he wanted there. ‘What do I want here?’ ejaculated the old man, reddening angrily; ‘that's a pretty question! Who are you that dare to insult me in my own house?’ ‘In your own house? How is this? where's my father and mother, whom I left here a few minutes since, whilst I have been listening to the charming music under yon tree, which, when I rose, was withered and leafless?’ ‘Under the tree!—music! what's your name?’ ‘Shon ap Shenkin.’ ‘Alas, poor Shon, and is this indeed you!’ cried the old man. ‘I often heard my grandfather, your father, speak of you, and long did he bewail your absence. Fruitless inquiries were made for you; but old Catti Maddock of Brechfa said you were under the power of the fairies, and would not be released until the last sap of that sycamore tree would be dried up. Embrace me, my dear uncle, for you are my uncle—embrace your nephew.’ With this the old man extended his arms, but before the two men could embrace, poor Shon ap Shenkin crumbled into dust on the doorstep.

I find it intriguing that the sycamore tree almost acts like an hourglass in this tale, marking time through its sap. While this sycamore did not directly protect Shon ap Shenkin from the faeries—he was trapped by their music for a lengthy time—it did serve as a method for escaping them once its sap had dried up.

Sikes also draws a connection from this story to the birds of Rhiannon, a topic which we explored in a earlier post. The birds of Rhiannon had the ability to spellbind their listeners while time passed. In the tale of Shon ap Shenkin, he thinks he hears birdsong, but “old Catti Maddock of Brechfa” claims that he was under faerie control. The faerie music operates in the same manner as that of the birds of Rhiannon—years pass while he believes only minutes have gone by.

A Sycamore as a Coin-Tree

Sycamores have also been used in tree-related customs in the British Isles. For example, there is a custom of inserting coins into the bark of trees—generally of fallen trees, logs, or stumps. These trees are known as coin-trees. Ceri Houlbrook explains in her article, “The Mutability of Meaning: Contextualizing the Cumbrian Coin-Tree,” that while coin-trees only came into existence in the late nineteenth century, the custom has already evolved quite a bit.

The very first coin-tree (an oak on Isle Maree in Loch Maree within Scotland) was originally associated with healing. This was likely due to the fact that both coins and trees have been considered to be curative. Houlbrook theorizes that as the years passed, a reduction in the demand for folk remedies resulted in a change in the custom. The underlying hope behind the coin offering evolved from desiring cures to making wishes come true. This is also reflected in other names for the coin-tree that have come into use: “wishing-tree” and “good-luck tree.”

While researching, I came across a photograph of a sycamore being used as a coin-tree on the National Library of Ireland’s website. (If you click the thumbnail of the photo on the library’s site, it will enlarge.) It is near the town of Mountrath, Co Laois, Ireland. In trying to learn more information about it, I discovered that Houlbrook also wrote her thesis on the subject of coin-trees (“Coining the Coin-Tree: Contextualising a Contemporary British Custom”), which includes a case study on this particular tree. She explains that coins were driven into this living sycamore for luck and to manifest wishes. Due to the large volume of inserted coins, and visitors “taking pieces of the tree as souvenirs,” the tree decayed and fell in 1994. However, there is now a young sycamore growing in the place of the original tree. Houlbrook describes how the coin-tree tradition continues on with the new tree:

The custom subsequently transferred to a younger replacement. Despite the unfortunate fate of the original Clonenagh tree, and the fact that the information plaque [at the site of the tree] requests visitors to ‘refrain from inserting any metal into the tree’, 92 coins have already been embedded into the young sycamore [as observed in 2012]…

In her writings about coin-trees, Houlbrook observes that they serve as a good example of how folklore, traditions, and folktales can change over time. They are not rooted securely in place, and traditional customs might be reinterpreted as years pass.

Sycamore Wood and British Crafts

In addition to its contribution to faerie folklore and the coin-tree custom, the sycamore tree has also lent its timber to many British crafts. Sycamore wood is hard, strong, and well-suited for carving. It has been used to make kitchenware, furniture, and wooden soles for clogs. In Wales, there is a tradition of carving a lovespoon (often from sycamore wood) to give to a romantic interest. (I wrote about this in an earlier newsletter, which you can read here if you’d like.)

I also discovered that sycamores were used in Cornish May Day celebrations to make whistles. Robert Hunt describes this tradition in his book, Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall:

The branches of the sycamore were especially cut for the purpose of making the “May music.” This was done by cutting a circle through the bark to the wood a few inches from the end of the branch. The bark was wetted and carefully beaten until it was loosened and could be slid off from the wood. The wood was cut angularly at the end, so as to form a mouth-piece, and a slit was made in both the bark and the wood, so that when the bark was replaced a whistle was formed.

From what I could gather, once “a sufficient number of May whistles” were made, then the May Day celebration was truly underway.

The Sycamore Gap Tree

I wanted to conclude with perhaps the most famous sycamore tree in the UK—the Sycamore Gap tree. Planted in the late 1800s next to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, it became a landmark where visitors would share special moments under its leafy branches. It was also featured in the 1991 film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which starred Kevin Costner. And in 2016, it won the English Tree of the Year award in the Woodland Trust's competition.

Sadly, though, it was chopped down in an act of vandalism in September 2023. There is a bit of hopeful news, though. The BBC article, “Sycamore Gap tree: The story so far” by Chris Robinson, notes that “new life had sprung from rescued seeds and twigs of the Sycamore Gap tree” and “new shoots have emerged from the stump” offering up hope that the tree will live on in some manner.

As ever, thank you for subscribing and reading.

All the best,

Steph

PS: Do you have a favorite tree? If you do, reply to this email and let me know about it. Or you can leave a comment. :)

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