Spooner, Tregagle of Trevorder

There follows a taster for Higson, South Manchester Supernatural (978-1-8380969-0-8) This is southern Manchester as you have never seen it before. We have: shape-changing ghosts; cow-levitating Boggarts; child-murdering Jenny Greenteeth; the tree-haunting Nut Nan; Dicky, a railway-destroying skull; din-making Clap Cans; border-guarding Pad Feet; and, beware, above all, Raura Peena the last fairy of Saddleworth. All this in a hundred-and-three pages, in the Pwca Ghost, Witch and Fairy Pamphlet series. The author, John Higson (1825-1871) wrote, from the 1850s, a series of supernatural sketches of Gorton (where he was born and grew up), Droylsden (where he lived), Lees (where he died), Saddleworth (where he walked) and other areas he visited, including Preston and Derbyshire. Born to a poor family, raised without an education, Higson became, through hard-work and talent one of the most exciting Lancashire folklore writers of his generation, and got to be friends with some of the most influential county authors of his day. However, because Higson never brought his folklore work together in a single volume his supernatural prose (and two songs) have been lost in obscure and, in some cases, forgotten publications. For the first time now his folklore compositions, from fifteen different articles and books, are gathered together in the hope of giving Higson (and the supernatural world he inhabited) the attention they so richly deserve. Also included: a short biography and William E. A. Axon’s ‘Hartshead Boggart’ (a tribute to Higson from a friend).

Lien Gwerin: A Journal of Cornish Folklore Number 8, 2024

This is an abridged chapter for a planned sequel to my book, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (Exeter 2018). Cornish revivalist, R. Morton Nance (1873-1959), celebrated this remarkable seventeenth century Cornish-language folktale, a manifestation of type ATU 910B (Aarne-Thompson-Uther 910B 'The Observance of the Master's Precepts'). He concluded that as the indigenous language of Cornwall faded, so too did most folklore. Nance dismissed nineteenth century versions as poor renditions of this original. Analysis here demonstrates the folktale's survival, even as language shifted to English. Nance's conclusion that folklore died with language was incorrect.

‘Folklore Collection in the English Counties, c. 1850-1950’, Tradition Today 11 (2022), 47-69

Contents and a sample of the introduction to The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and Other Social Supernatural Beings (Exeter University Press, 2024), editor with Davide Ermacora

Cornish Studies, Second Series, 2013

A widely distributed story, common in Europe and represented in the early folklore collections from Cornwall, draws on an array of popular beliefs and motifs. The tale involves a young, devoted couple who are separated. The man dies, but his betrothed does not receive the news. The woman receives a night-time visit from his spectre, and he invites her to join him on his horse. They charge across the landscape, and near the end of their journey as dawn approaches, the woman realizes that she is riding with the animated corpse of her lover. In most variants, she is able to escape, but she often dies shortly after the incident. NOTE: This article is now incorporated in a changed form into the author's book, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (University of Exeter Pres, 2018).

The Cottingley Fairy Photographs: New Approaches to Fairies, Fakes and Folklore, 2024

It is true that all these pages can be found online, but the development of Roby's Traditions is complicated and my failure to understand this has bedevilled my work on Lancashire folklore over the years. So they are gathered together in one place. You'll find here: A) The four volumes of Traditions that were published in 1829 (2) and 1831 (2). B) Some later prefaces and introductions to subsequent editions C) The biography from the posthumous Remains published by Roby’s widow and three ‘traditional’ stories that were included there, but not in Roby's early works.

The following notes are all based on newspaper and magazine reports from the last third of the nineteenth century. These are ephemeral pieces that have been overlooked by folklorists, but which give some precious glimpses of the last generations of fairy belief in the West Riding.

PhD Thesis, 2020

This thesis charts the shift in the scholarly treatment of fairies within the work of the Folklore Society (FLS) and its members, from its foundation in 1878 until World War Two. During this period the fairies' cultural position shifted from being a subject of intense interest in Victorian adult art and literature to becoming a whimsical being which dominated children's fairy-tale illustrations. During this era the FLS itself also experienced a waning cultural influence. A prominent Society before 1900, the FLS increasingly dwindled as folklore failed to gain a foothold in universities, key founding members died and the Society faced financial pressures. Concurrently folklore scholars became disinterested in children's book fairies. Both the FLS and fairies experienced a correlating, and somewhat mutually causal, decline in cultural prestige by the early twentieth century. The FLS's fairy scholarship provides the perfect space for exploring the changing cultural position of fairies and folkloristics in Britain during this era.