Woven from the ancient fabric that is the landscape of the West Midlands and passed down through the generations, these stories from a modern county with a rich and varied history are brought together by local storyteller Cath Edwards. Here are mysterious tales and local legends. Here are witches and noodleheads, ghosts and magpies, mines and wishing trees. Retold in an engaging style, and stylishly illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.
In places, Shropshire has traditional patchwork fields and hedgerows; in others, small villages and market towns with black and white half-timbered buildings. But it also has places that are still wild - hills where heather and bracken cling to the rocks while peewits call overhead and strange rock formations just to the sky, casting their shadows over the countryside below. The thirty stories in this new collection have grown out of the county's diverse landscapes: tales of the strange and macabre; memories of magic and other worlds; proud recollections of folk history; stories to make you smile, sigh and shiver. Moulded by the land, weather and generations of tongues wagging, these traditional tales are full of Shropshire wit and wisdom, and will be enjoyed time and again. Honoured in the 'Storytelling Collections' at the Storytelling World Awards - See more at: http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/shropshire-folk-tales.html#sthash.un5jLcDV.dpuf
Old Warwickshire, the ancient heart of England, encompassed many iconic historic sites. Coventry, Rugby, Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon and Birmingham, among others, all had tales to tell. Equally fascinating are the stories of the people, the virtuous and the villainous, who lived in the greenwoods and rolling hills of this celebrated county. Here are the folk tales passed from teller to listener over centuries, and the legends of the region's famous sons and daughters. From Lady Godiva and Dick Turpin, to the murderous Foxcote Feud and Coventry's claim to Saint George, storyteller Cath Edwards retells these tales and more with verve, vitality and vivid original illustrations.
12 classic English fairy tales and their history, from tales of dragons to Robin Hood. Folk tales and legends are an intrinsic part of English national culture. In his book, Rosalind Kerven has revived the best English fairy tales for a new generation. These are stories of giants, dragons, fairies and Arthurian Romance. Together, they form a perfect introduction to the different types of traditional stories and their place in English oral and written heritage. Each tale is linked with a specific place or county in England: 'The Dragon Castle' from Northumberland, 'The Girl Snatched By Fairies' from County Durham, 'The Princess and the Fool' from Kent and 'The Dark Moon' from Lincolnshire. The book also includes notes on each story: the history and where it came from, its development and short summaries of many related or similar stories.
Worcestershire is a county of contrasts, with one face turned to the modern buzz of Birmingham and the other turned towards the quiet rural landscape of the West Country. Its folk tales reflect this dichotomy, with some stories based in the fears and superstitions of village life, and others evolving from the strains and pressures of a new industrial reality. From battles of the Civil War to witchcraft trials, Worcestershire is steeped in history – and almost every village has some dark tale of magical events to tell. Ordinary folk from all walks of life mix with devils, ogres and ghosts. Even the holy community is not safe – vengeance, infidelity and murder loom large in the county’s religious history. Complemented by beautiful illustrations, Worcestershire Folk Tales is crammed with these myths, legends and mysterious yarns. David Phelps has worked as an oral storyteller since 2005, being much inspired by his grandmother’s tales of Worcestershire’s folklore. He is a member of both the Folklore Society and the Society for Storytelling, and is the author of Herefordshire Folk Tales and Haunted Hereford.
“The only known detailed account in existence of the small radar units who played a key part in the Western Desert Campaign . . . Highly recommended” (Military Modelcraft International). War’s Nomads is an evocative account of one man’s experience of life in a mobile radar unit after the battle of El Alamein as Rommel’s Afrika Korps was relentlessly pursued across the desert through Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia by the Eighth Army. After Fred Grice was called up in 1941, he kept two journals of his experiences. The first deals with waiting to embark after initial training, the journey to the battle zone, and the privations of a low-ranking AC. Daily life onboard a ship is vividly brought to life with details of routine, the cramped conditions, the banter and hobbies used to pass the time by the troops, and the luxurious-by-contrast existence of the officers. The second gives a detailed account of the activities of Unit 606, a radar crew that follows just behind the battlefront. 606 provided radio-detection for the advanced landing grounds being used by RAF fighter-bomber squadrons, because these landing strips, in turn, were the target of the German Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force attacks. It was a tiny unit, never more than ten men, frequently operating for protracted periods in complete isolation. Fred Grice’s account lyrically evokes the landscape and the often tense and dangerous environment they operated in, pitching the reader into the experience of traveling with the unit in a three-ton truck, finding ingenious solutions to lack of rations and living space, even commandeering an abandoned boat to relax in the sea, while constantly needing to be alert to dodge air attacks. Along with these colorful first-person accounts, War’s Nomads includes an authoritative introduction explaining the background to the military events of the Western Desert campaign, and the purpose of 606’s mission, which Grice for security reasons could not talk about: to get to a selection of the two hundred or so landing grounds in the desert with all speed—and then defend them against air attack by using a light warning radar set developed to go operational within an hour.
This collection of Newfoundland folk narratives, first published in 1996, grew out of extensive fieldwork in folk culture in the province. The intention was to collect as broad a spectrum of traditional material as possible, and Folktales of Newfoundland is notable not only for the number and quality of its narratives, but also for the format in which they are presented. A special transcription system conveys to the reader the accents and rhythms of each performance, and the endnote to each tale features an analysis of the narrator’s language. In addition, Newfoundland has preserved many aspects of English and Irish folk tradition, some of which are no longer active in the countries of their origin. Working from the premise that traditions virtually unknown in England might still survive in active form in Newfoundland, the researchers set out to discover if this was in fact the case.
These lively and entertaining folk tales from one of Britain's most fascinating counties are vividly retold by local storyteller The Journey Man. Their origins lost in the oral tradition, these thirty stories from Staffordshire reflect the wisdom (and eccentricities) of the county and its people.Staffordshire has a rich and diverse collection of tales, from the stories of some of Britain’s most famous mythical heroes, to tales of demons, dragons, boggarts and brownies. These stories, illustrated with twenty-five line drawings, bring alive the landscape of the county’s moorlands, forests and fertile plains.The Journey Man is a professional storyteller who has been telling stories across the world for over twenty years.
This collection of Newfoundland folk narratives, first published in 1996, grew out of extensive fieldwork in folk culture in the province. The intention was to collect as broad a spectrum of traditional material as possible, and Folktales of Newfoundland is notable not only for the number and quality of its narratives, but also for the format in which they are presented. A special transcription system conveys to the reader the accents and rhythms of each performance, and the endnote to each tale features an analysis of the narrator’s language. In addition, Newfoundland has preserved many aspects of English and Irish folk tradition, some of which are no longer active in the countries of their origin. Working from the premise that traditions virtually unknown in England might still survive in active form in Newfoundland, the researchers set out to discover if this was in fact the case.
