Doon Hill, from Aberfoyle Kirkyard gates I first blogged about Robert Kirk and Aberfoyle in 2010 and I have been hoping to return ever since. My original plans were unfortunately cancelled due to the pandemic, but nothing could keep me away this time! I only planned to reread my notebooks before my visit, but quickly fell down the research rabbit hole, and now I present to you a new updated blog post, Robert Kirk revisited. It's a rather long post, but I hope it will be of use to anyone researching Robert Kirk, or anyone who is curious to know more about this most intriguing man. THE LIFE ..read more

My post today tells of a curious tale I came across completely by chance whilst holidaying near the Cairngorms in Scotland. I would say it's not often I book holiday accommodation only to discover there's a fairy site a 5 minute walk away... but this seems to be happening surprisingly often! This tale takes us to a beautiful forested area east of the Cairngorms, near the village of Logie Coldstone. According to Epitaphs & inscriptions from burial grounds & old buildings in the north-east of Scotland, by Jervise (1875) the fairies once lived in the Seely Howe, a hollow in the Carue Hil ..read more

Many many years ago in the North Yorkshire village of Skinningrove, or Skenegrave as it was once known, a most unusual and newsworthy event took place. A sea man, or merman, was captured by the fishermen of the village and kept for many weeks before escaping back into the sea! I first read of the sea man of Skinningrove in Graves' The History of Cleveland (1808) and Ord's The History and Antiquities of Cleveland (1845), and they both give the source of the tale as the Cotton manuscripts, a collection once owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631), and now held in the British Library. With ..read more

Bridge at Beck Meetings After a year and a half of hiding in the house avoiding Covid, and not reading nearly as many books as I had intended to, I've had my covid vaccines and the world is finally starting to feel like a safer place again. Last week I ventured out to the Whitby area on a careful and cautious socially distanced holiday that involved a lot of early morning wanderings before the car parks filled up, and a lot of Yorkshire banoffee ice cream in Runswick Bay!  This post will focus on fairy sites and sightings of the Whitby area, for lack of a better geographical description ..read more

(Photo by Chris Heaton, Geography.org.uk) Today I blog to bring to you the story of Old Pam! It's been a while since I visited anywhere new due to the current Covid situation, so i've been taking a break from my blog, but with plans up ahead to visit Yorkshire I've been dipping my toes back into the folklore research pool! Sometimes the smallest little snippet of folklore can take you on surprising journeys and today was one of those days. Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, Parkinson (1888) tells: "'Our Lady Wells,' that is wells dedicated to the virgin, are numerous in the country. One at Thr ..read more

(Image from Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle) "See saw; Margery Daw Sold her bed and lay upon straw; She sold her straw, and lay upon hay, Piskies came and carr'd her away." - Notes and Queries, Series 1, Volume 11, Couch (1855) A recent query about pixies in the Fairy Folklore Facebook Group reminded me that I still hadn’t gotten around to writing a blog post about Cornish folklore! I visited in 2013 but for some reason never got around to blogging about it, which I apologise for profusely as the Piskies certainly deserve a mention. The fairy folk of Cornwall are still very much ..read more

Todays blog post is about a wonderful tree I've been wanting to visit for a very long time, the Elfin Oak in Kensington Gardens, London! This very special hollowed trunk of an oak tree is decorated all over with the most beautiful sculptures of little faery folk and animals, including elves, fairies, birds, and more. According to the Royal Parks website it was originally designed by Ivor Innes in 1930 and is made from the trunk of an ancient oak tree from Richmond Park. It was given to The Royal Parks by Lady Fortescue in response to an appeal to improve facilities in the Royal Parks. It is we ..read more

"'Stuff and fabrication!' said the Rabbit picking up another acorn and balancing it on the very tip of his pink nose. 'Nobody believes in fairies nowadays.'" I'm sure you've heard of Alice's adventures in Wonderland... but did you know that Alice also visited Fairyland? In a later book written by Brenda Girvin and illustrated by Lindsay Cable (first published 1916), Alice traveled around England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and Ireland meeting folkloric creatures, from Waterhorses to Red Caps, Boggarts to Duergars, and Trows to the Wag-at-the-Wa! I first picked up this book as Alice in ..read more

The Three Fairies Sculpture, The Rollright Stones This year I decided to take a break from Scottish folklore and research an area completely new to me, the Cotswolds. I soon discovered there are plenty of supernatural tales of ghosts witches devils and black dogs, but the fairies seem to have covered their tiny little tracks well and left few tales of their adventures behind for us unfortunately! Katharine Briggs, in her Folklore of the Cotswolds (1974), reassures us that they were perhaps once more active: “Fairies and domestic spirits, which must have been pretty active in that region, hav ..read more

Folklore from the Cairngorms, including: Fairy Sweethearts, Green Fairy Dogs, Kelpies, Brownies, and Well Spirits  The birds are singing, the leaves are unfurling, could Spring finally be here? It's definitely a wonderful time to go wandering in search of fairies, and lucky me, I’ve just returned from a holiday in the beautiful Cairngorms of Scotland! Although little is spoken of fairy folklore in this area, a bit of digging turned up more folklore than I was expecting, including some wonderfully magical and very unusual stories. In days long ago, “almost every large common was said t ..read more