To think more should be made of our local myths, folklore and traditions

[Feelingathomenow]

Britain, and indeed the whole of the western world, seems to be becoming increasingly divided. Political ideologies v political ideology, Religion against religion, race against race, sex against sex.

For a society to be strong, it needs common values, common beliefs and common rituals. It needs shared stories we can relate to and make reference to.

This is where myths and traditions have always played a vital part. Britain is full of local stories that people have all eagerly shared, stories everyone knew that brought people together. story telling is so very important to humanity and always has been. Traditions where everyone played their part either as participator or spectator, either way it brought a community together, these kinds of rituals have proven benefits for all.

People in Devon and Cornwall always knew about the pixies and people round here often blame/thank the Pixies for good/bad luck. We have the Tar barrels every November which provides a focus for people, newer traditions referencing the old, like the pirate festival, celebrations around the landing of William of Orange etc. People talk about hairy hands grabbing the steering wheel of your car on a certain road, people know about Kitty Jays grave where fresh flowers appear on the grave of a suicide victim buried at cross roads even if your back is turned for a second or the Devil riding out across the moors with his hell hounds.

Many of these myths and legends have made it into some of the most popular stories, The hell hounds on Dartmoor made it into the hounds of the Baskerville (thanks to Doyle’s coach driver (a mr Baskerville) when he visited Dartmoor.obviously the Fantastic JK Rowling has introduced Dobies and Boggarts to children far beyond Scotland/East of England respectively. People across the world read these stories

So should we be talking about these things more, esp in schools to give common stories of Britain (or wherever you live) not so tied to the big religions or political ideologies, things that do however, fulfil the need for common stories and rituals based in the landscape of where people live? Should more be done to encourage everyone to take part in local traditions to bring communities together? Also interested to hear of any local legends/traditions etc.

Are you a member of the Fortean Forum? It's the sort of thing that gets discussed to infinity over there...

@Potatoewithawonkyeye

I think this may be the site you mentioned called Arthurs Stone. It wasnt split in two but has very visible damage. One of the photo captions says its also known as Maen Ceti, Gower, Wales.

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=425&all=1&noglimit=1

Aha, yes, it is the right one

historypoints.org/index.php?page=arthurs-stone-or-maen-ceti-gower

I'm Irish originally with family roots in the depths of the West of Ireland and the English obliviousness to this stuff really strikes me. But I think 'white English' culture is very rootless generally i.e. Irish people tend to have a strong sense of local / regional (county say) identity and most English people just don't.

@BlankTimes AH WOW! thank you so so much for the links! What an interesting read! Appreciate you!

I think it's still true in certain areas of England, Cornwall has already been mentioned as a place with a strong identity. It is also still true of Westmorland; the village where I lived for 20 years had an annual Rushbearing ceremony which was a procession through the village and up the lane to the church. The young girls wore floral crowns and the boys carried rushes which were then left in the church until the following year. It was a very big event in the village; the procession with a band, then refreshments at the local manor house. There was also a lot of pride in the Westmorland dialect with the sheep counting rhymes (yan, tan, tethera...) and traditional tales.

Liverpool also still has a strong cultural identity and a pride in its seafaring and trading history.

I do feel that certain people find it impossible to be objective or take any interest in things that are not fashionable within what they see as their socio-economic group. They tend to follow the same interests with regard to music genres, literature, cinema and food and never look beyond that. To have a passion for folk music, traditions and old tales does not fit the modern narrative so it becomes easier to sneer at it than to admit that it holds any value culturally.

@CoffeeCantata that's fascinating about the Puck Roads - makes complete sense.

My grandmother was always talking about Puck when I was small. How if something went missing or was broken it was always Puck. She was from North London and was born in the 1920s.

All the talk of Puck has prompted me to think of Pucks Glen in Argyllshire, Scotland. It is a truly magical forest walk with waterfalls, rivers, bridges and wildlife. It is very much a fairytale landscape and there are myths about fairy folk e.g Poca Ban the resident mischievous spirit who disguises itself as a ball of wool and rolls around the glen looking for people to trip up! Ghillie Dhu, who wears clothes of leaves and moss to camouflage into the glen.

The Outer Hebrides is a truly beautiful and unique place to visit also, for the landscapes but for the spirituality and essence of the place - myths and legends at every turn. I went to the Callanais Standing Stones for summer solstice which was a wonderful experience. So much rich culture and history and magic to be found throughout the thread.

No - but I'll investigate it!

I've got a big collection of old books about folklore, archaeology, landscape history and place-names etc.

Sounds lovely!

In a similar vein, I don't know if you know the medieval quest poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? A mysterious 'green chapel' features in it. Experts on Middle English managed to pin down the poet (anonymous) as someone living in the N/W of England - my home ground - and by various clues were able to identify the site of the green chapel as a cleft in the rocks of the Peak District known as Lud's Chapel - it's completely covered in moss and lichen, and a very mysterious place indeed. I find this so fascinating! That medieval poet must have know it and visited it, and immortalised it in his poem (linked to the Arthurian legends).

Oh wow - another example of a folk-belief surviving into modern times. These things die very hard, I think, because they really do speak to human experience - in any era. It's easy to understand how people in the past, without our scientific knowledge, would have believed that an entity was tricking or confusing them.

I think the concept of a 'bogeyman' is also linked to the same linguistic root which gives Puck, Bug, Bugane and lots of other similar words which denote a mischievous or even sinister being.

Another aspect of folklore which is important to me is - it should make us respect people in the past. Though I'm a very rational person, I don't like it when people in the past are dismissed as superstitious fools, or patronised. They were just as intelligent (or stupid) as we are, but didn't have our scientific knowledge and used what they observed in nature to make sense of their world. Of course, if you don't know about astronomy, you would fear that in the depths of winter, the sun and the spring might never return. So you made your sacrifice, or carried out your ceremonies - and it did return, so you kept on doing that because you believed your actions had 'worked'.

I think, if you dismiss folklore completely, it's probably because you have lost a connection with the natural world. And that's worrying on so many levels!

Oh wow that’s really interesting can remember doing that poem in English Language A level

Thanks for those recommendations. I’m on a slightly different path which often shares a space with paganism but there does seem to be a real uptick in interest in western alternative spirituality

I’m sorry but it’s still not making sense. I don’t think anyone has tried to exclude anyone, the purpose of the post is to say how inclusive folklore is!

Neil Olivers Hauntings book talks about both the Outer Hebrides and Lud's Chapel with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Absolutely spot on with the regional and local identity being missing in England.

It's a while since I visited the Republic of Ireland, but one of the things that intrigued me at first was that in a small village, there would be the Irish flag chalked on the road and pavements with someone's name above it. There would be Irish flags on poles in gardens or hung on houses with the same name added, there would be posters on lampposts with the name and messages of support.
I had to ask in a shop and found that the named person was representing Ireland at a national level in sport.
I'd never seen anything like that and was absolutely awed by the support so visibly expressed by friends and neighbours.

Also, if there was an event in a village, it was very well supported with enthusiasm.

I think the sense of community was fabulous and the people were so friendly. When dd was young and we were in a cafe, other customers, especially middle aged ladies would approach us and chat, tell us about the area, places of interest and wish us well.

There are ancient sites in abundance, many on private land so you cannot explore, but many others where access is free or there's a small charge. I remember being at one in particular, set in a stunning rural location that had nothing in view or earshot of today's world and realising that I was looking at the same view that it's builders had seen 5,000+ years ago and I was hearing the same sounds.

Michael Dames' Mythical Ireland is a great read if you want to discover the landscape with its mythology and folk customs.

It’s an interesting thought. I wonder if there’s a link between living in melting pots of large cities making you lose identity and whether this identity is a necessity for community. Obviously this lack of belonging has wide spread implications for mental health and isolation.,

This is true in my experience. I lived in England for 30 years before moving to Scotland, but I only ever lived in big cities. Incidentally my parents actually live in your neck of the woods (they moved there in retirement) and they do find a greater sense of community - they love hearing all the local stories and myths and legends too.

I think that is a factor. Cornwall is still largely rural, Westmorland (which I mention upthread) very much so. If you look at the Eden Valley there are no cities; the biggest town is Penrith. This area still retains tradition and dialect.
England as a whole is very urbanised but I don't agree that local and regional identity is missing, it is there, you just need to search it out.

DP &. I claim unabashed nerdiness. We want to know why the local villages & towns are laid out as they are, what the local natural resources were and how they shaped the towns and the people. We want to investigate the tracks of older roads and pilgrim paths, the origins of place names, the geological forces that shaped this landscape.
The people who I love to be around are the ones that make you take notice of the world around you.
I can't understand why people wouldn't learn about where they are, but I am a bit of a nosey bugger.😁

I thought I would have a search to see if cities create myths now. The first thing that came up was the “Wintervale myth” in Birmingham.

Now this was one o remember well and had inadvertently taken part in its creation in fact. I had just moved to Birmingham and “Wintervale” arrived. Now in the subsequent years there’s been much discussion on what this was? Those who came up with the concept have steadfastly claimed it was never about “rebranding Christmas” so as not to offend, it was inclusively marketing a number of events in the city in the winter months. Yet I can remember much horrified discussion in offices and pubs at the time about how Christianity was being attacked, whether you could send Christmas cards to clients, could we wish each other a merry Christmas or indeed have a Christmas party? Suddenly mentioning “Christmas” was an act of rebellion. Is against the PC brigade” It didn’t really matter what was intended by the council, that wasn’t really the myth creator, the myth creation was how people reacted to it. This created a reality, albeit based on what the council said never existed”

And I think this is what myths are, how humans react to and interpret their world, and this in turn shows us what is important to them, it’s social history. Despite the thoughts of Victorian gentlemen, people really haven’t changed that much and we can learn a lot about ourselves in the present and the past through myths, we learn what’s important, often myths have a “goody and baddy” we learn what qualities are seen as good/bad, happy and sad. What’s the “right” way to behave in our culture. What is our “shared history”.

So why did people react to “Wintervale” like that. Why was there such a visceral rejection of what was apparently a councils budget saving marketing strategy? What long lasting impact did it have? What was so important to people that they felt was under threat? How did they react to keep themselves safe from that threat?

Myths are so fascinating and can teach us so much about where we have come from and therefore where we are going.

True, and fairy tales too, some of the original versions are quite dark.
I had a rewrite of the three little pigs where the wolf was an environmentalist and the 3 pigs were evil property developers and he had good reasons for blowing their houses down.....times change.😁

We do still have legends eg King Arthur and Merlin. Part of the problem though is that the se where I grew up is such a melting pot (not just overseas I'm talking about but from around the U.K.) traditions get diluted. I now live in the sw and people are more into this sort of thing, druids, crystals etc are just normal

That in turn got me thinking how much we need myths. We make sense of the world around us and within us through stories. Humans are story tellers through and through. Each night we make sense of the world around us through stories, our dreams. Our memories are largely false as we create our own little stories as a waking dream about what we have experienced. We need our imaginations to make sense of the world. Myths, fables and folklore feed this imagination. Imagination, as vital to humanity as the sun, Yet for the past 250 years or so we’ve seen the importance of myths, folklore being undermined by measurement, quantification, objectivity by the myth of rationality, Humans, with their emotions, their story telling, their dreams were never wholly rational creatures. By taking away the importance of myths, of the imagination it’s denying people part of who they are.

Absolutely this, hello fellow SW incomer.