Paul Watson’s Likes tagged “Folklore”
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Paul Watson liked This green and growing earth
Every year, on the first Monday of May, the people of Hastings parade a man made of leaves through the streets of their town. The leaf-man spins and dances all day, wearing a crown of flowers and followed by his drummers and musicians. The people all wear green. They put garlands of leaves and flowers in their hair. Eventually, the leaf-man is taken to the top of a hill overlooking the sea, where he is slaughtered in front of the townsfolk. This ritual is a piece of hoary old seasonal magic, rooted deep in the green fields of England, and it’s been going on for a very long time. Longer than I’ve been alive, in fact. It dates back all the way to 1983.
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Paul Watson liked Chapter 45. The Corn-Mother and the Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe.
Analogies to the Corn-mother or Barley-mother of ancient Greece have been collected in great abundance by W. Mannhardt from the folk-lore of modern Europe. The following may serve as specimens.
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Paul Watson liked Wolves in the Wolds: Late Capitalism, the English Eerie, and the Wyrd Case of ‘Old Stinker’ the Hull Werewolf'
This essay started life as a paper for the Manchester Gothic Festival and was adapted for the Supernatural Cities Conference in Limerick 2017. It is now destined for a special OGOM edition of Gothic Studies, 'Wolves, Werewolves and Wilderness' to be published in the spring of 2018.