# A Guide To English Folklore

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 1 Oct 2026, 1 h 41 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75116794/a_guide_to_english_folklore_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3

Journey into the mysterious world of English folklore and discover the legends, spirits, magical creatures, customs, and traditional beliefs that have shaped England's cultural history for centuries. From ancient forests and windswept villages to medieval castles and quiet country lanes, this episode explores the stories that generations of English communities passed down through the centuries. Meet some of the most fascinating figures and creatures of English tradition, including Robin Hood, the Green Man, black dogs, boggarts, brownies, fairies, witches, ghosts, and other supernatural beings. Explore stories of haunted places, enchanted forests, mysterious travelers, cursed objects, prophetic dreams, and strange encounters that became part of England's rich folklore. Discover how English folklore developed from a mixture of older traditions and later influences. Explore the legacy of Anglo-Saxon beliefs, Celtic traditions, Norse influences, medieval Christianity, local customs, and popular superstition. Learn how older beliefs were adapted, reinterpreted, or incorporated into Christian society while continuing to survive in rural communities. This episode also explores the customs and traditions that once shaped everyday life. Discover the folklore surrounding seasonal celebrations, May Day, harvest festivals, Christmas traditions, weddings, funerals, births, farming, weather predictions, healing practices, and protective rituals. Explore how ordinary people used folklore to make sense of the natural world and events they could not easily explain. Beyond the famous legends, discover the extraordinary regional diversity of English folklore. Traditions from Yorkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Lancashire, East Anglia, the Midlands, and other parts of England often developed their own distinctive characters, creatures, stories, and customs. Many of these traditions survived through oral storytelling before eventually being recorded by folklorists and antiquarians. Drawing on medieval literature, folklore collections, oral traditions, historical writings, local records, artwork, archaeological evidence, and modern scholarship, this episode separates traditional English beliefs from later inventions, literary adaptations, and modern popular culture. Narrated with a calm, human voice, this immersive journey is perfect for history enthusiasts, folklore lovers, English history fans, mythology listeners, relaxation, or listening before sleep. Settle in and discover the strange, magical, and sometimes haunting folklore of England.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Centuries of social practice, belief systems and collective memory. It's
[0:07] Speaker 1: English folklore. It's vibrant, it's complex, and it comes from
[0:13] Speaker 1: a deep cultural heritage. We can find its roots all
[0:18] Speaker 1: the way back in the ancient pagan traditions, and of
[0:22] Speaker 1: course it was shaped further by the later Christian milieu.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Traditional English folklore gifts us a diverse array of mythical creatures,
[0:31] Speaker 1: legendary figures, festive rituals, and of course, a few enduring
[0:37] Speaker 1: superstitions even to our modern day. But beyond mere stories
[0:41] Speaker 1: and quaint customs, folklore in general provides us with a
[0:46] Speaker 1: deeper insight into the cultural consciousness of these historical societies.
[0:53] Speaker 1: It shows us their fears, their values, their hopes. and
[0:57] Speaker 1: ways of interpreting the natural and supernatural worlds. And so today,
[1:04] Speaker 1: continuing our series on folklore, we go on an exploration
[1:08] Speaker 1: to England, from fairies and household spirits to legendary heroes,
[1:15] Speaker 1: and even at the end a bit of magical practice.
[1:20] Speaker 1: It walks a blurry line between history and myth, and
[1:24] Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing. After all, it's all
[1:28] Speaker 1: a bit of fun. Don't you think? Well, obviously you do.
[1:35] Speaker 1: Otherwise you wouldn't be here. And on that note, it
[1:39] Speaker 1: is my time to give you the customary welcome to
[1:41] Speaker 1: the channel. So, welcome to the channel. It's good to
[1:47] Speaker 1: have you here again if you're returning. But if you're new,
[1:51] Speaker 1: there is a button called subscribe. And if you click it,
[1:56] Speaker 1: you'll get plenty more videos like this. Now, I would
[2:00] Speaker 1: like to remind you that this video and the entire
[2:03] Speaker 1: channel is proudly ad-free. Certainly an intense point of personal
[2:09] Speaker 1: pride for us here at the channel. And this is
[2:11] Speaker 1: made possible due to the generous support of those on Patreon,
[2:15] Speaker 1: YouTube memberships, the occasional donation, and those who chose to
[2:20] Speaker 1: check out the merch store. Perhaps even out of a
[2:23] Speaker 1: little bit of curiosity. Now, with all that being said,
[2:26] Speaker 1: and customary welcomes out of the way, good manners as
[2:30] Speaker 1: it is, let's all relax, begin whatever task you're busying
[2:35] Speaker 1: yourself with, or perhaps close your eyes, and we go
[2:39] Speaker 1: back to England. So, where do we even begin? Well,
[2:48] Speaker 1: let's begin by saying a fundamental point, that English folklore
[2:53] Speaker 1: springs from a confluence of cultural streams. You see, long
[2:59] Speaker 1: before England as we know it, existing as a unified realm,
[3:05] Speaker 1: the land's inhabitants from the Celtic Britons to Anglo-Saxon and
[3:10] Speaker 1: Norse settlers, well, they all spun their own myths and
[3:13] Speaker 1: folk tales, each influenced by their own unique cultures. Many
[3:20] Speaker 1: ancient Celtic legends survived Christianization by blending into local lore,
[3:25] Speaker 1: or perhaps being recorded by medieval writers. For example, let's
[3:32] Speaker 1: take the pretty quintessential legend of King Arthur. It has
[3:37] Speaker 1: its roots in early Welsh and Breton traditions, long before
[3:41] Speaker 1: it blossomed in the 12th century literature. Medieval chroniclers noted
[3:46] Speaker 1: that Britons widely believed that Arthur never truly died, and
[3:51] Speaker 1: would one day... return, a kind of messianic hero, sleeping
[3:59] Speaker 1: in Avalon, until Britain's hour of dire need called him
[4:04] Speaker 1: up from the grave. Well, this hope was first recorded
[4:10] Speaker 1: by William of Malmesbury in 1125, who remarked, quote, Arthur's
[4:16] Speaker 1: grave is nowhere seen, whence antiquity of fables are still
[4:22] Speaker 1: claims that he will return. Well, a motive like that,
[4:26] Speaker 1: a once and future hero, it reveals how folklore could
[4:31] Speaker 1: preserve pre-Norman Britannic legends under the veneer of a Latin chronicle,
[4:38] Speaker 1: of course. If you're interested in the full reading of
[4:44] Speaker 1: the legends of King Arthur, I've done quite a long
[4:47] Speaker 1: video on it. I think it goes for about nine hours.
[4:51] Speaker 1: outside of the realm of folklore and history. Well, not
[4:54] Speaker 1: of folklore, but you can listen to the full reading
[4:57] Speaker 1: in the readings playlist. Now, moving on. With Anglo-Saxon settlement,
[5:03] Speaker 1: that is the 5th to 6th centuries, we had these
[5:06] Speaker 1: new layers of folklore coming into the mix. As for
[5:10] Speaker 1: the Anglo-Saxons, they bought their Germanic gods like Woden and Thunor.
[5:17] Speaker 1: You might recognize the names. new renderings of Odin and Thor.
[5:23] Speaker 1: But they also bore their heroic sagas and the belief
[5:27] Speaker 1: in elves and giants. Although Christian missionaries did convert the
[5:33] Speaker 1: Anglo-Saxons by the 7th century, traces of the old faith persisted.
[5:39] Speaker 1: And of course, we find them in the confines of folklore.
[5:44] Speaker 1: In fact, the Anglo-Saxon charms written in Old English show
[5:49] Speaker 1: pagan elements surviving within Christian prayer. One healing charm actually
[5:56] Speaker 1: invokes Woden himself in a remedy against poison, showing how
[6:01] Speaker 1: folk medicine quickly kept the names of ancient gods alive,
[6:06] Speaker 1: just in case. You may as well have another deity
[6:09] Speaker 1: on your side, especially when the poison's going deeper and
[6:13] Speaker 1: deeper into the veins. Another old English charm advises to
[6:17] Speaker 1: do What to do, rather, if a horse is offscotten. Now,
[6:24] Speaker 1: this word, offscotten, is quite unique. It actually means struck
[6:29] Speaker 1: by an arrow shot by an elf. Interesting word, that's
[6:35] Speaker 1: for sure. Perhaps not so used in our modern vernacular. Well,
[6:40] Speaker 1: it prescribes a herbal salve and magic words to cure
[6:45] Speaker 1: a mysterious lameness. blamed on invisible elf darts. But this
[6:53] Speaker 1: very concept of elf-shot in Anglo-Saxon belief shows that elves
[6:59] Speaker 1: were feared as real and very malignant beings who could
[7:04] Speaker 1: inflict harm. One of these early texts showed that the
[7:09] Speaker 1: merger of pagan folk belief with Christian prayer had become
[7:12] Speaker 1: a hallmark of medieval English folk traditions. A good way
[7:17] Speaker 1: to preserve things albeit changing them around to the sensibilities
[7:22] Speaker 1: of the time. Now, during the Middle Ages, English folklore
[7:27] Speaker 1: continued to evolve through oral tradition and also written literature.
[7:32] Speaker 1: The Norman conquest of 1066 added French feudal culture to
[7:37] Speaker 1: the mix. But as for the common folk, well, they
[7:41] Speaker 1: weren't around the upper classes that much to be influenced
[7:45] Speaker 1: by that. So, They clung to their old stories, even
[7:50] Speaker 1: as minstrels at court adopted some into new romances. Medieval
[7:56] Speaker 1: writers sometimes captured genuine folklore in quite an incidental manner.
[8:02] Speaker 1: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Uregum Britanniae in 1136 preserved the
[8:08] Speaker 1: giant slaying legends of Corineus, a compilation of Trojan Brutus,
[8:15] Speaker 1: who wrestled the Cornish giant Gog Magog, and held him
[8:18] Speaker 1: off a cliff. Geoffrey claimed a cliff in Devon was
[8:23] Speaker 1: still called Giant's Leap, in memory of this mythic battle.
[8:31] Speaker 1: It's tales like this, oral legends about giants, that were
[8:36] Speaker 1: circulating in Britain, and eventually found their way into more
[8:41] Speaker 1: learned circles and texts. Likewise, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for
[8:47] Speaker 1: the year 793, describing portents before the Viking raid on Lindisfarne,
[8:53] Speaker 1: notes that whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying
[8:59] Speaker 1: in the air. Well, if there is a dramatic image,
[9:05] Speaker 1: an ill omen, that's certainly it. And this one in particular.
[9:10] Speaker 1: the fiery dragons streaking across the skies of Northumbria. It
[9:16] Speaker 1: shows how people interpreted comets or auroras, all through a
[9:20] Speaker 1: folkloric lens. Some Anglo-Saxons may have truly feared that these
[9:26] Speaker 1: were real dragons presaging doom, while others perhaps just viewed
[9:32] Speaker 1: them as symbolic. But in any case, the Chronicle preserves
[9:37] Speaker 1: a bit of early medieval sky lore, Through such records,
[9:42] Speaker 1: we can certainly see how folklore formed an explanatory framework
[9:46] Speaker 1: for the unknown. It blends supernatural and natural phenomenon into
[9:51] Speaker 1: a more meaningful narrative. Of course, we must remember that
[9:55] Speaker 1: people were confined by the knowledge and science of the time.
[10:00] Speaker 1: so you had to make sense of things somehow. Now,
[10:06] Speaker 1: what about Chaucer? Well, by his time in the late
[10:10] Speaker 1: 14th century, Educated English society was quite aware of the
[10:16] Speaker 1: tension between lingering folk belief and the official religion. The
[10:22] Speaker 1: Canterbury Tales, Jaws' main work. In this he rightly observes
[10:27] Speaker 1: that the land was, quote, filled with fairies in the
[10:32] Speaker 1: ancient days of King Arthur. But now no one sees
[10:37] Speaker 1: the elves because, quote, the holy friars... Blessing the halls
[10:42] Speaker 1: and chambers have driven them out. Now, this tongue-in-cheek remark,
[10:48] Speaker 1: which is actually from the Wife of Bath's Tale prologue,
[10:52] Speaker 1: shows that the medieval people believed in elves and fairies,
[10:55] Speaker 1: yet they also knew that the church was a viewer
[10:58] Speaker 1: that such things were either gone or never existed. But,
[11:04] Speaker 1: of course, we can also view this as an allegory.
[11:07] Speaker 1: When they say that The church and all of the
[11:10] Speaker 1: rest have driven them out. Are we to believe this
[11:14] Speaker 1: in a literal sense? Or are we to believe that
[11:18] Speaker 1: they've been driven out of the collective imagination, driven out
[11:21] Speaker 1: of the mind of the people, this kind of thing?
[11:26] Speaker 1: We can take it in a few different ways, and
[11:29] Speaker 1: I'll leave that up to you. But despite clerical disapproval,
[11:35] Speaker 1: belief in fairies... and a host of other otherworldly creatures,
[11:40] Speaker 1: certainly thrived among ordinary folk, preserved in those old practices
[11:46] Speaker 1: and fireside story-tellings on long nights. And so, in summary,
[11:53] Speaker 1: the foundations of English folklore, they lie in the ancient
[11:57] Speaker 1: pagan myths, those heroic legends, spirits of nature, gradually adapted
[12:04] Speaker 1: but certainly not extinguished by Christianity. And I think we're
[12:11] Speaker 1: better off still having them around, that's for sure. Medieval chroniclers, poets,
[12:17] Speaker 1: and clerics inadvertently recorded little bits and pieces of this lore,
[12:22] Speaker 1: whether as fanciful legend, a moralizing tale, or even deriding
[12:27] Speaker 1: them as superstition. But in any case, we've still got
[12:32] Speaker 1: them here. And it allows us to reconstruct the folk
[12:36] Speaker 1: beliefs of the people long, long before us. So let's
[12:42] Speaker 1: talk about one of the, I mean, in my opinion,
[12:46] Speaker 1: it's one of the most charming aspects of English folklore.
[12:50] Speaker 1: And that's all the fairies and, quote, little folk. But
[12:56] Speaker 1: as far from the diminutive winged sprites of the Victorian
[13:00] Speaker 1: fairy paintings... Medieval English fairies were quite diverse, sometimes quite
[13:07] Speaker 1: nice little creatures and sometimes dangerous, but always otherworldly. Now,
[13:16] Speaker 1: the very word fairy is from the Old French. In
[13:20] Speaker 1: medieval use, it referred broadly to enchantment and the realm
[13:25] Speaker 1: of supernatural folk. So, with that in mind, let's broaden
[13:30] Speaker 1: our definitions a little bit and not just sit within
[13:33] Speaker 1: the modern Disney-style definitions. In local legends, these beings were
[13:40] Speaker 1: often invisible presences that one had to appease. Chaucer's reference
[13:47] Speaker 1: suggests that people thought fairies roamed the land more freely
[13:49] Speaker 1: in earlier times, especially in wild places, out in the forests,
[13:55] Speaker 1: the woods, etc., but especially at night. And indeed, a
[14:02] Speaker 1: common theme was that fairies and elves withdrew from the
[14:06] Speaker 1: world as Christianity advanced, lingering only in remote hills or ruins.
[14:14] Speaker 1: Yet for the medieval peasant, fairies were a practical reality.
[14:19] Speaker 1: One might blame fairies for a changeling child, or seek
[14:23] Speaker 1: a fairy blessing for a newborn. Will a get to
[14:27] Speaker 1: changelings in a little while. Well, English folklore distinguishes several
[14:32] Speaker 1: types of fairy-like creatures. Elves in the Anglo-Saxon belief system
[14:38] Speaker 1: were not Tolkien's noble elms with their fighting prowess and
[14:43] Speaker 1: all the rest, but rather malevolent sprites causing illness. Not
[14:51] Speaker 1: the kind of things you want around. And as I
[14:55] Speaker 1: have mentioned, The Anglo-Saxons feared that elf-shot, invisible elf-arrows causing
[15:03] Speaker 1: sudden pains. And, of course, to ward this off, they
[15:09] Speaker 1: devised charms to cure it. By the later Middle Ages,
[15:15] Speaker 1: the word elf and fairy seemed to have been used interchangeably,
[15:20] Speaker 1: and generally people imagined them as humanoid, magical beings, albeit humanoid.
[15:26] Speaker 1: living in a parallel realm, sometimes crossing over to cause
[15:30] Speaker 1: some mischief. Folk tradition held that leaving small offerings could
[15:36] Speaker 1: attract benevolent fairies, or at least avert their mischief. For example,
[15:44] Speaker 1: fairy rings of mushrooms in the grass were believed to
[15:48] Speaker 1: mark where fairies had danced in the night. Prudent folk
[15:52] Speaker 1: would avoid mowing or disturbing these rings. lest they offend
[15:57] Speaker 1: the unseen dancers. But more intimate were the household spirits,
[16:05] Speaker 1: known as hobgoblins or even brownies. These were thought to
[16:11] Speaker 1: dwell in homes and barns, helping with chores at night
[16:15] Speaker 1: in exchange for a little bit of food in return.
[16:17] Speaker 1: A typical English farmer's family might speak of our hob
[16:23] Speaker 1: or the brownie in the barn. with a mix of
[16:27] Speaker 1: weariness and affection. Now, the brownie, in northern England and
[16:32] Speaker 1: lowland Scotland, was described as a small, ragged, hairy little
[16:37] Speaker 1: man who'd come to sweep the floors, churn the butter,
[16:42] Speaker 1: or even tidy the kitchen after everyone slept. As payment,
[16:47] Speaker 1: he expected a bowl of cream, a crust of bread,
[16:51] Speaker 1: or some fresh milk left on the hearth, That sounds
[16:55] Speaker 1: like a pretty good deal, don't you think? If I
[16:58] Speaker 1: could have someone come around and wash the dishes in
[17:00] Speaker 1: my place, I wouldn't mind it, especially for a little
[17:02] Speaker 1: scrap of bread. Very good deal. Of course, if you
[17:08] Speaker 1: gave him his due, the whole household thrived. But if
[17:14] Speaker 1: you managed to offend him, he might turn into a
[17:18] Speaker 1: malicious poltergeist known as a Bogart. And unfortunately... Brownies were
[17:25] Speaker 1: quite sensitive. They were easy to offend, offer overt thanks, or,
[17:31] Speaker 1: worst of all, a gift of clothing. And the brownie
[17:35] Speaker 1: would be quite annoyed, take an insult. Let's give an
[17:40] Speaker 1: example of a popular tale. It goes that a well-meaning
[17:44] Speaker 1: master left a new suit of clothes for his brownie,
[17:47] Speaker 1: who put it on, caped it with pride, and then
[17:50] Speaker 1: vanished forever, saying that he will work no more as
[17:55] Speaker 1: he's now a gentleman. Talk about backfiring, huh? Well, indeed,
[18:02] Speaker 1: folklore across Britain holds that giving a fairy clothes sets
[18:06] Speaker 1: it free. Now perhaps you've just raised an eyebrow. Yes,
[18:13] Speaker 1: that is a motive even echoed in the House Elf
[18:17] Speaker 1: Dobby in the Harry Potter films, which of course draws
[18:21] Speaker 1: on these older legends. And not the only one, too.
[18:26] Speaker 1: Of course, there's a few other pieces of literature that
[18:29] Speaker 1: has that. Of course, for Dobby's case, it was a sock.
[18:33] Speaker 1: I think, from memory, Master has given Dobby a sock.
[18:37] Speaker 1: I believe that was the line. Well, in any case,
[18:40] Speaker 1: in medieval eyes, this wasn't a fantasy for children. These
[18:45] Speaker 1: weren't superstitions for little kids to keep themselves up at
[18:50] Speaker 1: night or that sort of thing. There were real explanations
[18:53] Speaker 1: for sudden household mishaps. or even inexplicable good fortune. If
[19:00] Speaker 1: things went missing, or milk turned sour, perhaps you'd think
[19:05] Speaker 1: the brownie was slighted. But if the floors mysteriously gleamed
[19:09] Speaker 1: in the morning, perhaps the brownie or a helpful hob
[19:13] Speaker 1: had been at work. Now let's get on to the hob,
[19:18] Speaker 1: that being short for Hobgoblin. It's essentially the English brownie, sure,
[19:24] Speaker 1: often depicted as a brownie-like goblin, but a little bit different.
[19:29] Speaker 1: A famous example is Robin Goodfellow, also called Puck, a
[19:34] Speaker 1: mischievous hobgoblin of English lore. We get it from Shakespeare.
[19:40] Speaker 1: He immortalised Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but he
[19:43] Speaker 1: drew on existing folkloric figures. In medieval English folklore, Puck
[19:49] Speaker 1: or Poke simply meant an impish spirit or demon. Puck,
[19:54] Speaker 1: or Robin Goodfellow, was known as a trickster of the countryside.
[19:59] Speaker 1: He might lead travelers astray at night. That's what we
[20:03] Speaker 1: had to term for it, too, to be Poke-laden or pixie-led.
[20:08] Speaker 1: He might even spoil milk, play pranks. But for some
[20:13] Speaker 1: weird reason, he could also do housework or drive away pests,
[20:18] Speaker 1: if he was in a helpful mood. One 17th century
[20:22] Speaker 1: ballad has Puck boast of a shape-shifting and misleading night wanderers.
[20:29] Speaker 1: Exactly the deeds country folk attributed to will-o'-the-wisps and hobgoblins.
[20:35] Speaker 1: The Irish hookah and the Welsh piocha are cognate beings,
[20:40] Speaker 1: reinforcing that such household or nature sprites were part of
[20:45] Speaker 1: a pan-Celtic and English fairy tradition. Medieval records, like the
[20:51] Speaker 1: local church synods, occasionally mention peasants leaving milk out for
[20:56] Speaker 1: elves or fairies. Of course, the church frowned upon that
[21:02] Speaker 1: quite a bit, But think about the reality of it.
[21:06] Speaker 1: How are you going to stamp that out? You're going
[21:09] Speaker 1: to go around to people's houses and make sure they're
[21:12] Speaker 1: not leaving a little bit of milk on their tables.
[21:14] Speaker 1: As long as they're not causing too much trouble. The
[21:19] Speaker 1: church generally tolerated it. Albeit with that aforementioned eyebrow raised. Now,
[21:28] Speaker 1: alongside the helpful brownies were the more perilous. Those being
[21:32] Speaker 1: the Bogart brownies. Especially in Northern England, we talk of Lancashire, Yorkshire,
[21:38] Speaker 1: those areas. It was essentially a brownie who had lost
[21:42] Speaker 1: its temper. A malicious household spirit. Pretty much like a poltergeist. Yeah,
[21:51] Speaker 1: pretty much indistinguishable from a poltergeist, to be honest. If
[21:54] Speaker 1: a brownie felt mistreated, the law said he would turn
[21:57] Speaker 1: into the Bogart and create chaos. He'd bang doors, break dishes...
[22:03] Speaker 1: and even wait until you go to sleep and pinch
[22:06] Speaker 1: you when you're in your bed. Families tormented by a
[22:10] Speaker 1: Bogart sometimes tried to move to escape it, only to
[22:15] Speaker 1: find that the Bogart followed them to their new house.
[22:19] Speaker 1: A famous Lancashire tale tells of a farmer leaving his
[22:21] Speaker 1: house with a cartload of goods, only to hear a
[22:24] Speaker 1: voice from a milk churn he was carrying, saying, I'm
[22:28] Speaker 1: with you. Implying the Bogart had of course found a
[22:33] Speaker 1: way to sneak along. Well, real or not, stories like that,
[22:40] Speaker 1: it gives us this framework to discuss household strife and appeasement.
[22:45] Speaker 1: You must keep peace with your unseen helpers, and whatever
[22:50] Speaker 1: you do, do not speak ill of them. And then
[22:56] Speaker 1: there were the outdoor fairies, who inhabited groves, hills and springs.
[23:01] Speaker 1: Not all beings were in the household. Many an isolated
[23:06] Speaker 1: place in England has a legend of fairy inhabitants. Barrows,
[23:11] Speaker 1: that is, ancient burial mounds, were often called fairy hills,
[23:15] Speaker 1: or even elf hills. Travellers might hear strange music from
[23:20] Speaker 1: these hills at midsummer. The concept of fairyland as an
[23:25] Speaker 1: underground or distant realm, where time passes strangely, also appears
[23:29] Speaker 1: in English lore. Though more prominently in Celtic lands, but
[23:34] Speaker 1: we'll get to that in another video. Medieval romance literature,
[23:40] Speaker 1: like the tale of Sir Orfeo or Sir Lounfal, shows
[23:43] Speaker 1: knights encountering fairy queens in otherworldly palaces, like the reflecting
[23:49] Speaker 1: folktales of ordinary folk stumbling into fairy revels. In fact,
[23:54] Speaker 1: Jors's wife of Barthdale mentions the, quote, elf queen and
[24:00] Speaker 1: her merry company. dancing around in the meadows of the
[24:04] Speaker 1: old times. Of course, over time, high literature and humble
[24:10] Speaker 1: folklore fertilized each other. Local stories of fairy abductions, or
[24:16] Speaker 1: fairy midwives, were woven into romances, and literary depictions of
[24:21] Speaker 1: fairies influenced how common people imagined them. Now one intriguing class,
[24:27] Speaker 1: but Admittedly, less well-developed fairy beings in the English lore
[24:33] Speaker 1: are the Water Spirits. English counties do have their share
[24:39] Speaker 1: of river hags and merfolk legends. And yes, they're not
[24:45] Speaker 1: as developed as the Celtic Silkies or the Nixies of Germany. Hmm,
[24:52] Speaker 1: what was that? You want me to do a German
[24:55] Speaker 1: folklore video? You better leave your thoughts in the comments
[24:58] Speaker 1: about that. Well, in Northern England, parents warned children to
[25:04] Speaker 1: stay away from ponds with tales of Jenny Greenteeth, a
[25:10] Speaker 1: green-skinned water hag who lurks around to drag the unwary,
[25:16] Speaker 1: especially naughty children into the depths. I think the parents
[25:20] Speaker 1: might have added that one just for a bit of...
[25:23] Speaker 1: just to... have a little bit of discipline in the household, perhaps. Well,
[25:29] Speaker 1: in eastern counties, the mysterious phenomenon of Willow the Wisp,
[25:33] Speaker 1: that is, flickering swamp light, was attributed to a mischievous sprite,
[25:39] Speaker 1: sometimes a pixie, or simply called a hobby lantern, leading
[25:45] Speaker 1: travellers off the safe path. Though these spirits are less personified,
[25:51] Speaker 1: they do form part of the fairy ecology. and therefore
[25:56] Speaker 1: they should be mentioned. Now, finally, for this section, we
[26:01] Speaker 1: have to talk about how folklore often blurred the line
[26:04] Speaker 1: between fairies and the dead. Some have suggested that fairies
[26:09] Speaker 1: in British folklore represent diminished pagan deities or spirits of nature.
[26:15] Speaker 1: Others note they might personify souls in limbo, or a
[26:19] Speaker 1: mythical golden age. In medieval ghost stories, Apparitions of the
[26:26] Speaker 1: dead sometimes appear as a fairy host. For instance, Oderic Vitalis,
[26:32] Speaker 1: an English monk writing in Latin in the late 1130s,
[26:35] Speaker 1: recounted a priest's terrifying encounter with a night procession of souls,
[26:40] Speaker 1: men and women bearing heavy burdens and suffering punishments, which
[26:45] Speaker 1: the priest recognized as the legendary Familia Herlechini, the household
[26:51] Speaker 1: of King Herla, and him linked to the wild hunt.
[26:57] Speaker 1: The priest admitted that he had often laughed at such stories,
[27:01] Speaker 1: until he witnessed it himself. Now who's laughing? Not him, apparently. Well,
[27:09] Speaker 1: Alderic's account intellectualises folklore into a more Christian lesson on purgatory.
[27:15] Speaker 1: Of course, everything is seen through that lens of what
[27:19] Speaker 1: people understand, especially when it comes to spiritualism. Yet he
[27:23] Speaker 1: does use a lot of folkloric motives. A ghostly cavalcade
[27:27] Speaker 1: led by a known legendary figure, Herla or Harlequin's troop.
[27:34] Speaker 1: And that certainly shows that what one person calls fairies, well,
[27:39] Speaker 1: could be to another simply spirits of the restless dead.
[27:46] Speaker 1: Though English folklore does paint a pretty vivid picture of
[27:49] Speaker 1: a world alive with unseen beings, that's certainly not a
[27:53] Speaker 1: point of argument. From the helpful brownie by the hearth
[27:57] Speaker 1: to the fairy trooping on the heath, these entities played
[28:00] Speaker 1: roles in explaining daily mysteries, and of course reinforcing moral norms, i.e.
[28:07] Speaker 1: don't be lazy, or the brownie'll get angry and turn
[28:11] Speaker 1: into a bogart and then we're in real trouble. But it's...
[28:16] Speaker 1: Also a dimension of providing a sense of wonder and enchantment,
[28:21] Speaker 1: that in a world by daylight was governed by church
[28:24] Speaker 1: and king, and you don't get too much wonder and
[28:27] Speaker 1: enchantment from the king. Well, the next time you leave
[28:32] Speaker 1: a dish of milk out at night, or glass, or
[28:36] Speaker 1: see a ring of toadstools in the dew, just have
[28:40] Speaker 1: a little imagination. You might be touching on the same
[28:43] Speaker 1: enduring thread of belief that runs through centuries of English
[28:47] Speaker 1: folk tradition. Of course, we still leave a glass of
[28:51] Speaker 1: milk and cookies out for Santa Claus, don't we? Well,
[28:56] Speaker 1: you don't do that? Uh, neither do I. I've grown
[29:00] Speaker 1: up now. Sure. Well, the landscape of England, with its
[29:09] Speaker 1: ancient hills, mysterious stone mountains, It seemed to the medieval
[29:14] Speaker 1: imagination to bear the marks of giants and monsters. Giants,
[29:19] Speaker 1: in particular, are pretty deeply embedded in English folklore. In fact,
[29:24] Speaker 1: nearly every region boasted of a local giant in its legends,
[29:29] Speaker 1: often to explain the unnatural features or ancient ruins. They
[29:33] Speaker 1: had to get there somehow, right? The roll call of
[29:37] Speaker 1: English giants It includes Gog and Magog, said to be
[29:41] Speaker 1: two giants subdued by Brutus's Trojans, commemorated in London's Guildhall statues.
[29:48] Speaker 1: The giant of St. Michael's Mountain, Cornwall. That is, Cormoran,
[29:53] Speaker 1: later slain by Jack the Giant Killer. And that's just
[29:57] Speaker 1: a few of them. Jeffrey of Monmouth's mention of Gog Magog,
[30:02] Speaker 1: the giant chieftain hurled off a cliff by Corineus, fixed
[30:06] Speaker 1: one such tale into pseudo-history, giving a legendary origin for
[30:11] Speaker 1: a very real place name. In the popular mind, giants
[30:17] Speaker 1: were the old ones, builders of the prehistoric stone circles
[30:21] Speaker 1: and earthworks that medieval people encountered with awe. We all
[30:27] Speaker 1: know the old English rhyme, Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood
[30:31] Speaker 1: of an Englishman. It immortalizes the threatening cry of an
[30:36] Speaker 1: English giant and later fairy tales. But the roots may
[30:40] Speaker 1: lie in much older storytelling traditions about cannibalistic giants and
[30:46] Speaker 1: brave human tricksters who dared to go up against them.
[30:51] Speaker 1: Folklore often credited giants with superhuman feats of engineering and strength.
[30:56] Speaker 1: Think about Stonehenge. Who built that? A medieval legend recorded
[31:01] Speaker 1: by Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that giants of Africa originally
[31:06] Speaker 1: set those massive stones in Ireland, and Merlin magically moved
[31:10] Speaker 1: them to the Salisbury Plain. A pretty charming fusion of
[31:15] Speaker 1: giant myth and wizardry. But who dug the great ditches
[31:20] Speaker 1: and earth banks? Well, in Sussex, they actually said the
[31:26] Speaker 1: devil dug. often interchangeable with a giant in folklore, dug
[31:31] Speaker 1: the Devil's Ditch and attempted to flood the valley, but
[31:36] Speaker 1: was thwarted by a trick. In other tales, two quarrelsome
[31:41] Speaker 1: giants might lob boulders at each other, leaving rocky outcrops
[31:45] Speaker 1: strewn across the countryside. Through such stories, medieval folk acknowledged
[31:50] Speaker 1: the presence of the past in their environment. There were boulders, mounds,
[31:55] Speaker 1: standing stones. they integrated them into a mythic narrative framework.
[32:02] Speaker 1: And if giants were personifying primordial strength, well, dragons symbolize
[32:08] Speaker 1: mystery and terror. Dragons in English folklore reign from the
[32:14] Speaker 1: cosmic to the local. On one hand, St. George and
[32:18] Speaker 1: the dragon imported from a pan-European legend became England's favorite
[32:23] Speaker 1: tale of a heroic knight in combat. The saint slays
[32:29] Speaker 1: the dragon to rescue the maiden, and symbolizes Christian triumph
[32:33] Speaker 1: over evil. By the later Middle Ages, St. George was
[32:38] Speaker 1: England's patron saint, and the dragon his heraldic foe. But
[32:45] Speaker 1: beyond St. George's continental dragon, many shires had their own worms,
[32:50] Speaker 1: often more serpentine and grounded in specific locales. Now the
[32:56] Speaker 1: word worm that is spelt W-Y-R-M in Old English, it
[33:03] Speaker 1: meant a dragon or a serpent, and stories of dragons
[33:07] Speaker 1: often blend into those large snakes or worms haunting ponds
[33:11] Speaker 1: or caves. For example, the folklore of Northern England gives
[33:17] Speaker 1: us the Lambton Worm of County Durham, a worm that
[33:21] Speaker 1: grew to monstrous size after a young lord, John Lambton,
[33:26] Speaker 1: caught a strange eel-like creature, and foolishly decided to throw
[33:31] Speaker 1: it into a well. The worm terrorized the countryside, until Lambton,
[33:37] Speaker 1: who had actually came back from the Crusades, sought the
[33:40] Speaker 1: guidance of a wise woman, and faced the beast in
[33:43] Speaker 1: single combat. He managed to slay it too. wearing spiked
[33:49] Speaker 1: armour so that the worm squeezed itself to death upon him,
[33:53] Speaker 1: but only by also feeling a grim family curse involving sacrifice.
[33:59] Speaker 1: This legend, first written down in the 19th century, but
[34:03] Speaker 1: clearly drawing on older oral tradition, is pretty rich with
[34:06] Speaker 1: those medieval elements you would expect from a story like this.
[34:11] Speaker 1: You've got a knightly hero with a sin to expiate,
[34:16] Speaker 1: a monstrous dragon devastating crops and livestock, and a folkloric
[34:21] Speaker 1: admonition about keeping one's promises. Similarly, the Worm of Sockburn,
[34:29] Speaker 1: also in the north, and the Knucker of Sussex, a
[34:33] Speaker 1: water dragon inhabiting a deep pool or knucker hole, a
[34:39] Speaker 1: regional dragon tales that echo medieval encounters with the destructive forces.
[34:45] Speaker 1: perhaps floods, plagues, reimagined as dragons, this kind of thing.
[34:52] Speaker 1: But the fact that some local families claimed ancestry from
[34:55] Speaker 1: the dragon slayer lent these stories a little bit of
[34:59] Speaker 1: credibility and, well, as you can imagine, quite a lot
[35:04] Speaker 1: of prestige. Medieval chroniclers sometimes included sightings of dragons treated
[35:10] Speaker 1: as prodigies. The Anglo-Saxon chronicles fiery dragons in 793 we
[35:16] Speaker 1: already noted. Likewise, a 12th century chronicler recorded a marvel
[35:22] Speaker 1: in Welsh borders. An illuminating dragon was seen in the
[35:26] Speaker 1: sky at night, perhaps signifying a war to come. Bad news,
[35:32] Speaker 1: that's for sure. But reports like that often blur the
[35:37] Speaker 1: line between folklore and history. It shows that dragons occupy
[35:41] Speaker 1: a role as omens as well as the typical storybook monsters.
[35:47] Speaker 1: To common folk, a dragon could just as easily be
[35:51] Speaker 1: a very large snake in the forest, or a metaphor
[35:55] Speaker 1: for Satan, as in church sermons, of course. But within
[35:59] Speaker 1: the realm of folklore, the physical reality mattered less than
[36:02] Speaker 1: the meaning drawn from it. It's all about imagery. But
[36:09] Speaker 1: dragons always demanded heroes to confront them, be those heroes
[36:13] Speaker 1: as saints, knights, or even clever peasants. But besides dragons,
[36:21] Speaker 1: English tales featured other monstrous beasts, often one-of-a-kind creatures tied
[36:26] Speaker 1: to a certain location. One's quite simple. The Black Dog.
[36:33] Speaker 1: The prime example of a folkloric beast across England. A spectral,
[36:37] Speaker 1: nocturnal hound. set to prowl the lonely roads. Different regions
[36:44] Speaker 1: gave it different names. Black Shuck in East Anglia, Padfoot
[36:49] Speaker 1: in Yorkshire, and the Barghest in the North, etc. But
[36:55] Speaker 1: the descriptions converge on a huge, coal-coloured black dog with
[36:59] Speaker 1: glowing red or sometimes yellow eyes. But unlike a flesh-and-blood wolf,
[37:06] Speaker 1: this apparition might vanish or change size. and encountering it
[37:12] Speaker 1: was certainly an ill omen. In East Anglian legend, Black
[37:17] Speaker 1: Shuck infamously burst into Bungay's church one stormy night in 1577,
[37:22] Speaker 1: killing two parishioners and leaving claw-scorch marks on the door.
[37:28] Speaker 1: Or at least, that's how the old story goes. While
[37:32] Speaker 1: that account comes from a post-medieval pamphlet, it likely drew
[37:36] Speaker 1: on the older folk belief in fiendish dogs that haunt
[37:38] Speaker 1: churchyards and crossroads. These tales give form to the fears
[37:43] Speaker 1: of travelling alone in the dark, where imaginations certainly run wild,
[37:48] Speaker 1: turning the howling of the wind or the distant bark
[37:51] Speaker 1: of a dog into a ghostly terror. And even in
[37:55] Speaker 1: the learned medieval imagination, black dogs feature as familiars of witches,
[38:01] Speaker 1: or as transformations of the devil. The persistence of black
[38:05] Speaker 1: dog lore, from the hound of the Baskervilles back to
[38:09] Speaker 1: medieval times, shows how vividly a simple folkloric image can endure.
[38:13] Speaker 1: And endure it certainly has. But we should also mention mermaids,
[38:21] Speaker 1: which sound a lot more friendly. They occasionally swim through
[38:26] Speaker 1: the English folklore, for lack of better terms. Well, there
[38:30] Speaker 1: are no better terms than that. That was clever, actually.
[38:35] Speaker 1: Though more common in maritime cultures and classical mythology, Mermaids
[38:39] Speaker 1: were certainly known to English folklore by the later Middle Ages.
[38:44] Speaker 1: Often they were considered omens of doom. A mermaid sighted
[38:48] Speaker 1: off the coast meant storms or disaster. One 15th century
[38:53] Speaker 1: English ballad tells of a mermaid who prophetically tries to
[38:57] Speaker 1: warn a ship. But the sailors misunderstand and they meet
[39:02] Speaker 1: their fate. It echoes the themes found in Breton and
[39:06] Speaker 1: Scandinavian lore. Hmm, what's that? You want a Scandinavian folklore video?
[39:13] Speaker 1: Better tell me in the comments then. Well, on inland waters,
[39:17] Speaker 1: the idea of a fish-tailed woman might blend with the
[39:21] Speaker 1: water fairies or nymphs of earlier tradition. And while not
[39:25] Speaker 1: as prevalent as in Irish or Orcadian lore, mermaids contributed.
[39:30] Speaker 1: to the bestiary of marvels that the English listener might
[39:33] Speaker 1: accept as possible, especially on faraway ocean journeys. But finally,
[39:42] Speaker 1: The unicorn and other fabulous animals entered English folklore partly
[39:47] Speaker 1: via the medieval bestiaries and crusader tales. Though no peasant
[39:53] Speaker 1: ever saw a unicorn, they readily told stories of one-horned
[39:57] Speaker 1: beasts in distant lands whose horns could purify poison. An
[40:03] Speaker 1: interesting case of scholarly lore from classical writers filtering down
[40:07] Speaker 1: from these folk beliefs. But closer to home were rumours
[40:12] Speaker 1: of wild men or wood-woses, hairy, wild folk living in
[40:18] Speaker 1: the woods, and great wyverns, two-legged dragons who guarded treasure.
[40:24] Speaker 1: Some English church carvings depict wood-woses and dragons, implying these
[40:29] Speaker 1: creatures were part of the visual folk culture, reinforcing those
[40:33] Speaker 1: old oral tales. Of course, in these great stories of
[40:38] Speaker 1: monsters and giants, One can see a sense of both
[40:41] Speaker 1: caution and awe. They provided thrills and moral lessons, the
[40:47] Speaker 1: brave versus the brute, good overcoming evil, etc. But they
[40:52] Speaker 1: also served to explain what was unexplainable. A lightning-scarred hilltop
[40:59] Speaker 1: becomes a giant's battleground. A strange skeleton unearthed might be
[41:03] Speaker 1: a dragon's remains. and indeed dinosaur bones in later centuries
[41:07] Speaker 1: were sometimes displayed as giant's bones or dragon bones. Interesting
[41:12] Speaker 1: little bit of trivia there. The existence of these monstrous
[41:16] Speaker 1: foes also ennobled the community's heroes. Every village liked to
[41:20] Speaker 1: think some local lad or legendary ancestor had once dispatched
[41:25] Speaker 1: their fearsome giant or dragon at their doorstep, letting them
[41:29] Speaker 1: all live in peace. It's quite charming, isn't it? It
[41:36] Speaker 1: gives a sense to the depth of the environment. Every
[41:40] Speaker 1: unusual rock or old earthwork could hide a potential story.
[41:44] Speaker 1: And even as medieval scholars began to doubt the literal
[41:47] Speaker 1: truth of giants or dragons, the common people persisted in
[41:51] Speaker 1: telling the embroidering of these tales well into the modern period.
[41:57] Speaker 1: And so next, let's have a look at some of
[42:00] Speaker 1: the legendary heroes themselves. Of course, if this world is
[42:04] Speaker 1: filled with Monsters and fairies and elves let us have
[42:09] Speaker 1: heroes to fight them. Characters who became central in English
[42:13] Speaker 1: folk legend, often in combat with the very giants and
[42:18] Speaker 1: beasts which we have just met. Now every culture's folklore
[42:25] Speaker 1: features heroes who reflect its aspirations and values and culture.
[42:32] Speaker 1: And in England, There are two figures above all that
[42:35] Speaker 1: have attained immortal status. One is King Arthur, and the
[42:41] Speaker 1: other is Robin Hood. Now, they're very, very different people,
[42:45] Speaker 1: of course. Very different classes. One a king of Britain's
[42:50] Speaker 1: mythic past, the other an outlaw in medieval Sherwood. But
[42:54] Speaker 1: they both straddle that line between history and legend. And
[42:57] Speaker 1: both have ancient roots that flowered into rich folklore. King Arthur,
[43:04] Speaker 1: as mentioned, began as a shadowy war leader in the
[43:08] Speaker 1: early medieval Welsh stories, and by the 12th century became
[43:13] Speaker 1: the centrepiece of grand romances. To medieval English folk, Arthur
[43:19] Speaker 1: was a paradoxical figure. You see, on one hand, higher
[43:23] Speaker 1: literature portrayed him in chivalric splendour. You're talking Geoffrey of Monmouth,
[43:28] Speaker 1: Chetian of Troyes, that sort of thing. But local folklore
[43:33] Speaker 1: often localized Arthur in the landscape. Hundreds of sites in
[43:38] Speaker 1: Britain are named for Arthur. From Arthur's Seat, Hills, to
[43:42] Speaker 1: Arthur's Well, Springs. And every one of them has a
[43:45] Speaker 1: legend that goes with it. Actually, near my hometown in Australia,
[43:50] Speaker 1: one of the mountains is also called Arthur's Seat. So,
[43:54] Speaker 1: it's international, for sure, at least among the Commonwealth. In
[44:00] Speaker 1: England's West Country, People said Arthur was not dead, but
[44:04] Speaker 1: sleeps in a cave or under a hill with his knights,
[44:09] Speaker 1: waiting to rise up again. And this folkloric motive of
[44:12] Speaker 1: the sleeping hero attached to Arthur strongly. Well into the
[44:17] Speaker 1: 14th and 15th centuries, there was a popular belief in
[44:20] Speaker 1: Arthur's eventual return. The discovery of a grave purported to
[44:26] Speaker 1: be Arthur's at Glastonbury at 1191 which was likely a
[44:30] Speaker 1: hoax by monks, aimed to squelch that belief by proving
[44:36] Speaker 1: that Arthur was actually dead. Excuse me. Yet, ironically, it
[44:44] Speaker 1: only transitioned Arthur into a more mythic plane. If not
[44:48] Speaker 1: returning in flesh, he returns in dreams, literature, and kind
[44:53] Speaker 1: of a manifestation of the hope of Britain's renewal. Folktales
[44:58] Speaker 1: also cast Arthur in a more down-to-earth light. Some rustic stories,
[45:03] Speaker 1: especially from Wales and the Borders, but known in England,
[45:07] Speaker 1: depict Arthur not as a noble king, but as a
[45:10] Speaker 1: leader of the wild hunt, a ghostly figure galloping across
[45:15] Speaker 1: the night sky. Walter Mapp, an English courtier, recorded one
[45:21] Speaker 1: such tale. The spectral company, named as the Herlethingus, was
[45:28] Speaker 1: said to conquer, wander rather, with the dead among them,
[45:32] Speaker 1: deriving its name from King Haerla, whom map equates with
[45:36] Speaker 1: the ancient Britain king, essentially Arthur under a different namesake.
[45:43] Speaker 1: And here Arthur, or Haerla, becomes a cursed wanderer leading
[45:47] Speaker 1: a host of spirits, reflecting perhaps older pagan ideas of
[45:52] Speaker 1: a deity like Woden leading that wild hunt. Of course,
[45:58] Speaker 1: the Christian redactors turned it into a cautionary legend about
[46:03] Speaker 1: prideful kings. Arthur's dual identity, the once virtuous ruler of
[46:08] Speaker 1: Camelot and the eerie leader of the ghostly hunt, shows
[46:13] Speaker 1: a multivalence of folklore. A single figure can wear many
[46:17] Speaker 1: symbolic hats, and that depends on the intent of the storyteller,
[46:22] Speaker 1: of course. But if Arthur was a hero tinged with
[46:26] Speaker 1: melancholy and loss, that is the fall of Camelot always
[46:30] Speaker 1: looming in his legend, Robin Hood is the exuberant hero
[46:35] Speaker 1: of the common man. Well, let's talk about Robin, the
[46:40] Speaker 1: legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest, or actually in the earliest ballads,
[46:46] Speaker 1: the forest of Bansdale in Yorkshire. It's first mentioned in
[46:50] Speaker 1: medieval texts by the late 14th century. William Langlands, Piers
[46:55] Speaker 1: Plowman in 1377, has a character, say, he knows the
[47:00] Speaker 1: rhymes of Robin Hood, indicating that by then Robin's tales
[47:05] Speaker 1: were widespread in oral traditions. These early Robin Hood ballads,
[47:10] Speaker 1: some of which survive in the 15th century, depict Robin
[47:14] Speaker 1: not as a nobleman in disguise, but as a yeoman,
[47:17] Speaker 1: a skilled archer and a leader of a band of
[47:20] Speaker 1: outlaws living out there in the greenwood. Robin Hood was
[47:24] Speaker 1: the quintessential cunning hero clever, bold, and fiercely anti-authoritarian. It
[47:36] Speaker 1: was he and his merry men, little John Mutch the
[47:40] Speaker 1: miller's son, and others, Maid Marian and Friar Tuck were
[47:44] Speaker 1: added later, they poached the king's deer, robbed wealthy abbots
[47:49] Speaker 1: or officials, and aided poor farmers. The ballads show him
[47:54] Speaker 1: killing or outwitting representatives of oppressive authority, sheriffs, rich churchmen, etc.,
[48:01] Speaker 1: and then sharing the captured loot with the neediest of peasants.
[48:08] Speaker 1: It's kind of a weird image of medieval wealth redistribution
[48:13] Speaker 1: through outlawry. It resonated strongly, of course, in an era
[48:17] Speaker 1: of great inequality, and we can recall that the Peasants'
[48:21] Speaker 1: Revolt of 1381 occurred around the time of Robin's legend emerging.
[48:27] Speaker 1: While Robin Hood isn't mentioned in that revolt, later generations
[48:31] Speaker 1: might have projected similar rebellious spirit onto him. Perhaps Watt
[48:36] Speaker 1: Tyler himself, the leader of that revolt, was a little
[48:39] Speaker 1: bit inspired. Well, to the medieval village folk, Robin Hood
[48:43] Speaker 1: stories were both escapism, but also commentary. A way to
[48:48] Speaker 1: fantasize about turning the tables on those who were pushing
[48:52] Speaker 1: the boot down on their necks. But Robin Hood also
[48:58] Speaker 1: moved from oral song into popular culture via games and plays.
[49:03] Speaker 1: By the 15th century, villagers were incorporating Robin Hood pageants
[49:07] Speaker 1: in their annual festivities, especially around May Day. In some
[49:12] Speaker 1: spring festivals, a man might be elected Lord of Misrule
[49:16] Speaker 1: or May King under the guise of Robin Hood. presiding
[49:20] Speaker 1: over carnivalesque games. Records from church wardens in the early
[49:26] Speaker 1: 16th century show expenses for costumes for quote Robin Hood
[49:31] Speaker 1: plays which likely involved comic scenes of the outlaw and
[49:35] Speaker 1: his companions. These folk carnivals often included merry parody of authority,
[49:42] Speaker 1: and is telling too that Friar Tuck, being a disreputable cleric,
[49:47] Speaker 1: and Maid Marian, perhaps originally a man dressed as a woman,
[49:51] Speaker 1: given the cross-dressing aspect of May games, join Robin's entourage
[49:56] Speaker 1: in these entertainments. Now this suggests Robin Hood's legend merged
[50:01] Speaker 1: with older folk festival traditions of overturning social norms and
[50:06] Speaker 1: celebrating fertility and renewal. Some have even speculated links between
[50:11] Speaker 1: Robin Hood and the Green Man or Jack in the
[50:14] Speaker 1: Green figures, symbolizing nature's rebirth, since Robin wears Lincoln Green
[50:20] Speaker 1: and haunts the Greenwood, a wild man free from the
[50:24] Speaker 1: bounds of civilization. While such pagan fertility connections are debated,
[50:30] Speaker 1: it is pretty clear that by late medieval times Robin
[50:33] Speaker 1: Hood served as a symbol of the free spirit of
[50:36] Speaker 1: the forest, beloved In popular imagination. What is there not
[50:42] Speaker 1: to like? I mean. Everyone was poor back then. When
[50:47] Speaker 1: I say everyone. You're talking the vast majority. And of course.
[50:52] Speaker 1: People felt hard done by. Life was harsh. To have
[50:57] Speaker 1: a hero like Robin Hood. Even the imagination of one.
[51:02] Speaker 1: It just gives people a bit of hope. Anyway. But
[51:08] Speaker 1: the fact that Robin's story had no firm author and
[51:13] Speaker 1: no single text, that allowed it to remain folk property.
[51:17] Speaker 1: And of course the story shifted and grown with each retelling,
[51:23] Speaker 1: suiting the times. I'm sure that even in Victorian era
[51:27] Speaker 1: they were talking about Robin Hood and sort of putting
[51:31] Speaker 1: it into their own circumstance. Of course, even into the
[51:36] Speaker 1: 19th century and the 20th century, ballads of Robin Hood
[51:40] Speaker 1: collected by folklorists remain remarkably close to their medieval roots,
[51:45] Speaker 1: preserving the outlaws' cheeky humour and sense of fair play.
[51:52] Speaker 1: But it's more than just Arthur and Robin. There's a
[51:55] Speaker 1: number of other legendary figures that we're just going to
[51:58] Speaker 1: briefly touch upon. The first one is Heroard the Wake.
[52:04] Speaker 1: a very real 11th century rebel against the Normans in
[52:07] Speaker 1: the Fens, who quickly gained legendary accreditation as a freedom
[52:12] Speaker 1: fighter employing trickery and guerrilla tactics. Later chroniclers and ballads
[52:16] Speaker 1: turned Hereward into a larger-than-life figure. They even sometimes called
[52:21] Speaker 1: him the Last Englishman, an example of how history became
[52:26] Speaker 1: folklore of a local pride. Then we have Lady Godiva,
[52:32] Speaker 1: the eleventh-century noblewoman who was said to have ridden naked
[52:36] Speaker 1: through Coventry to persuade her husband to lower taxes. Bold strategy,
[52:42] Speaker 1: that's for sure. While this story, first recorded centuries later,
[52:46] Speaker 1: has all the elements of folklore, a dramatic subversive act,
[52:51] Speaker 1: a moral about humility and generosity, and even the cautionary
[52:55] Speaker 1: detail of a peeping Tom, the one man who dared
[52:59] Speaker 1: to spy on her and was struck blind, Hope it
[53:03] Speaker 1: was worth it. Well, whether it was true or not,
[53:07] Speaker 1: the Godiva, rather, ride became part of English popular lore.
[53:12] Speaker 1: Symbolic of compassion, and of course the power of a
[53:16] Speaker 1: bold choice by a bold individual. Then we have a
[53:22] Speaker 1: few folk saints and heroes, and they're important too. Certain
[53:27] Speaker 1: saints and legends overlap with folklore. For instance, let's take St.
[53:31] Speaker 1: Dunstan 10th century Archbishop of Canterbury. He appears in a
[53:36] Speaker 1: famous folk legend battling the devil himself. One story recounts how,
[53:41] Speaker 1: as a blacksmith, Dunstan nailed a horseshoe to the devil's
[53:45] Speaker 1: hoof so skillfully and painfully that the devil begged for release.
[53:52] Speaker 1: Dunstan agreed, only after Satan swore never to enter a
[53:56] Speaker 1: place where a horseshoe hung above the door. Well, this
[54:01] Speaker 1: legend's not only entertaining, But it does explain the folk
[54:04] Speaker 1: practice of hanging horseshoes for luck, and as a demon-warding talisman.
[54:09] Speaker 1: A beautiful example of folklore and superstition entwined with a
[54:14] Speaker 1: real historical person's memory. Similarly, we've got St. George. Though
[54:19] Speaker 1: a distant figure, he became an active folk hero in
[54:22] Speaker 1: the form of mumming plays, more on that soon, by
[54:26] Speaker 1: the way, where St. George would fight a dragon, or
[54:30] Speaker 1: perhaps even a Turkish knight, only to die and be
[54:35] Speaker 1: revived by a comic doctor. A performance that was half religious,
[54:41] Speaker 1: half pageantry. Well, I suppose in all of these hero
[54:48] Speaker 1: tales you can notice a pretty common motif. That is
[54:52] Speaker 1: the underdog triumphing. Whether it's a small hero against a giant,
[54:59] Speaker 1: a righteous outlaw against a corrupt official, or a saintly
[55:03] Speaker 1: smith outwitting the devil himself. These reflect the hopes and
[55:07] Speaker 1: humour of the common people. Folklore allowed medieval English men
[55:12] Speaker 1: and women, who led pretty hard lives under strict hierarchies,
[55:17] Speaker 1: to imagine a world where wit, courage and virtue could
[55:20] Speaker 1: win out over brute force and injustice. A light at
[55:24] Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel. The heroes of folklore often
[55:28] Speaker 1: operate outside the normal rules. Outlaws in forests, saints aided
[55:33] Speaker 1: by miracles of God, women taking bold action, and thus
[55:37] Speaker 1: provide a sort of safe, vicarious rebellion or wonder for
[55:41] Speaker 1: the listener. And it is important to see how local
[55:46] Speaker 1: identity plays into all this. Every shire had its champion,
[55:51] Speaker 1: every village its particular legend. Folklore heroes localize the universal
[55:57] Speaker 1: longing for justice rather than deliverance. The village might brag
[56:02] Speaker 1: that our ancestor slew the last dragon in England, or
[56:07] Speaker 1: a family might keep an heirloom sword claiming it was
[56:10] Speaker 1: Robin Hood's or used by King Arthur's knight. Connections like
[56:16] Speaker 1: that made big legends personal and immediate. The legendary heroes, though,
[56:23] Speaker 1: were not static. Details changed with the times. They always did.
[56:29] Speaker 1: For example, in Tudor and Stuart times, Robin Hood was
[56:33] Speaker 1: gentrified in place, portrayed as a fallen nobleman who hid
[56:38] Speaker 1: in the forest, i.e. the Earl of Huntingdon. But the
[56:42] Speaker 1: medieval folk Robin Hood was plainly a yeoman, explicitly not
[56:48] Speaker 1: of high birth. This shift shows attempts by later interpreters
[56:54] Speaker 1: to make an outlaw a little bit more aristocratic. which
[56:57] Speaker 1: likely did not reflect the original popular sentiment. Nevertheless, the
[57:03] Speaker 1: core of the legend proved resilient, and the folk kept
[57:07] Speaker 1: alive the image of the merry outlaw in green, generous
[57:12] Speaker 1: to the poor and fearless before their sheriffs. So, now
[57:19] Speaker 1: having explored all that, let's get into the rituals and customs.
[57:23] Speaker 1: the folkloric practices that mark that passage of the year,
[57:26] Speaker 1: and the rhythms of life for those communities in the
[57:30] Speaker 1: medieval era. The traditional festivals and rituals of England reveal
[57:39] Speaker 1: a rich calendar of folkloric practice. And through these customs,
[57:43] Speaker 1: the communities reinforced social bonds, celebrated the cycles of nature,
[57:48] Speaker 1: and kept those old beliefs subtly alive under new guises.
[57:54] Speaker 1: So let's start with winter's end and spring. After the
[57:59] Speaker 1: dark of winter, people look to Candlemas, February the 2nd,
[58:03] Speaker 1: and Plough Monday. That is the first Monday after Epiphany,
[58:07] Speaker 1: signs of renewal. Plough Monday is particularly a folk celebration
[58:12] Speaker 1: among farming communities, hence the name. Ploughmen would drag a
[58:18] Speaker 1: decorated plough through the village, sometimes led by a figure
[58:22] Speaker 1: called the plough fool or the plough jags, and demanded
[58:26] Speaker 1: pennies or ales at houses. This was both a blessing
[58:31] Speaker 1: for the fields and also a little bit of misrule.
[58:35] Speaker 1: Those who refused might find their doorstep ploughed as a prank.
[58:39] Speaker 1: The church tried to Christianize it by collecting plough light offerings,
[58:46] Speaker 1: but the rambunctious door-to-door aspect smacks of pagan first plough rites.
[58:51] Speaker 1: As February turned to March, Shrove died, that is, the
[58:55] Speaker 1: days before Lent became a time of feasting and merriment.
[58:59] Speaker 1: Shrove Tuesday was celebrated with football games in the streets,
[59:04] Speaker 1: pancake feasts, a tradition that still survives, by the way.
[59:07] Speaker 1: At least I hope it survives at your place. there's
[59:10] Speaker 1: nothing better than pancakes, and hock-tied games where roles might reverse.
[59:17] Speaker 1: In some places women playfully bound men with ropes to
[59:20] Speaker 1: demand a kiss or a forfeit, and vice versa in
[59:25] Speaker 1: another day, vestiges of gender role inversion, I suppose. when
[59:31] Speaker 1: these customs gave people a psychological outlet, before the austerity
[59:35] Speaker 1: of Lent, which is not known for being a very
[59:39] Speaker 1: enjoyable festival. As spring and early summer, we have the
[59:44] Speaker 1: most important folk festival of the year, that is May Day,
[59:49] Speaker 1: May 1st, or rather the Eve of May. Villagers across
[59:53] Speaker 1: England rejoiced in the spring's arrival with may-bowls, may-queens, and Morris-dancers.
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: and go and Google Morris Dance, as they have an
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: interesting appearance. At dawn, youths went maying in the woods
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: to gather hawthorn blossoms, greenery, and flowers to decorate the village.
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: Then they were directed to a maypole, a garland, a
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: maypole garlanded rather with flowers and ribbons, likely a relic
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: of ancient fertility symbols, around which they would dance together.
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: Surviving records from the 15th century mention town expenditures on
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: maypoles and summer games, indicating that this was quite well established.
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: And then there was a May Queen, a young girl,
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: or sometimes an embodiment of the goddess Flora, who would
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: be chosen to preside with her consort, sometimes called Robin
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: Hood or the May King in folk plays. And the
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: day was... Quite enjoyable. Morris dancers. Men dancing with bells
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: on their legs, waving handkerchiefs and clashing sticks. Performed energetic jigs,
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: believed to bring luck for the planting season. Now Morris
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: dance goes back quite a while too. It's first attested
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: in late medieval England. A year 1448 record of Morris
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: dancers being paid at court. And likely evolved from earlier
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: folk dance forms. Its exact origins are a little murky.
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: The term Morris, perhaps a corruption of Moorish, suggesting an
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: exotic dance influence. But by Tudor times, Morris dances were
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: a staple of village feasts. They often accompanied the mummers
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: or folk players who enacted comic plays. Another major spring
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: observance was midsummer, as June 23rd to 24th. the feast
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: of St. John the Baptist. Midsummer Eve saw bonfires lit
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: on hilltops, a practice with clear pagan roots. We're talking
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: summer solstice fire festivals. Well, the church tolerated it, of course,
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: but only when they put it under the saints' banner
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: at being St. John the Baptist. People left through the
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: flames or embers, which were said to bring protection from evil.
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: and cattle might be driven through smoke for purification. Charms
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: and herbs gathered in midsummer were deemed to be especially potent.
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: One might collect St. John's Wort to ward off fairies
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: and witches, or watch for omens because the night was enchanted.
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: And in some communities, young men rolled a fiery wheel downhill,
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: symbolizing the sun's peak and decline. Overall, Midsummer was a
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: bloody good time. And it was a time when the
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: veil between worlds thinned. Later folklore held that on Midsummer Night,
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: fairies held their revels. Shakespeare's play attests to that very idea.
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: But for the common folk around them, it was a
[1:03:16] Speaker 1: big old drink-up. A holy day, but also a carnival.
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: Blended prayer with fire-lit dancing under the stars. Something to
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: look forward to. Well, we also have harvest in autumn's time.
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: When summer ripened into harvest, a host of local customs
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: sprang up to give thanks and ensure future fertility. Harvest Home,
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: which is also called Inn Gathering, was a celebration at
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: the end of the grain harvest around late August or
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: early September, after the last sheaf was cut. Farm laborers
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: would joyously bring in the harvest load, often shouting and
[1:03:57] Speaker 1: blowing horns while they did it. The last sheaf of corn, doll,
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: might be dressed in ribbons to represent the corn maiden,
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: or the harvest queen, carried in procession. Feasting and drinking
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: followed this. Provided by landlord or farmer, this was a
[1:04:18] Speaker 1: time of temporary equality, when masters and servants dined together
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: and the hard work of harvest gave way to merriment
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: all round. While much of the harvest home's detailed documentation
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: comes from early modern sources, the practice certainly has medieval
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: antecedents in feudal boonday harvests and the festivals that accompanied them.
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: An echo of possible sacrificial rites might be seen in
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: the folklore that the spirit of the corn lived in
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: the last sheaf, and that by cutting it, the reapers
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: had to catch or placate the spirit, hence weaving a
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: corn dolly to keep it safe until the next sowing.
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: As the day shortened, All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween, on
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: October 31st marked a turning point, a night where ghosts
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: and supernatural beings were believed to roam. Medieval All Hallows
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: was primarily a religious observance prayers and masses for the
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: dead on November 1st and all souls on November 2nd,
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: but folk customs thrived around it. In England, the medieval
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: practice of souling illustrates a blend of Christian and pagan tradition.
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: On All Souls Day, November 2nd, the poor, often children,
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: would go door to door, offering prayers for the departed
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: in exchange for food, typically small spiced cakes called soul cakes.
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: A soul... A soul, a soul cake. Praise you, good mistress,
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: a soul cake. That was one of the traditional songs
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: they used to go around singing. And each housewife would
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: give a cake, or perhaps some ale in return the
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: visitor promised to pay, rather pray for the souls of
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: her kin. This custom was certainly well established by the
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: Reformation as of the 16th century, and it likely began
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: back in the Middle Ages. Some accounts held that for
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: every cake eaten, a soul was freed from purgatory, a
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: notion that gave comfort to the living and reflected the
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: error's intense concern for the dead. Souling also had a
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: quasi-spooky element, I suppose. There was one belief that if
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: you did not offer soul cakes, the restless spirits might
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: return to play tricks on you. Nothing too bad, but,
[1:06:46] Speaker 1: you know, just inconveniences. We see here the clear ancestor
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: of modern-day trick-or-treating, with his blend of charity, prayer and
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: gentle threat. And indeed some soul has carried hollowed-out turnips
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: with candles, representing souls in purgatory to ward off evil.
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: We can find this too in the histories of Ireland.
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: They certainly did the same thing, especially with the turnips.
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: And actually when the Irish went to the New World,
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: and the pumpkin harvest was more bountiful, well, that's where
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: it changed. I'm sure you'd know that if you watched
[1:07:26] Speaker 1: my video on Irish folklore. Well, thus Halloween in medieval
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: England was not about costumed children yelling for candy, but
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: it did involve going to house to house at night
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: with lanterns and acknowledging the supernatural, all under the auspices
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: of aiding souls in purgatory. Now the church, focusing on prayer,
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: tolerated this, though later Protestants would suppress the practices. Always
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: ruining the fun, I'm afraid. Well, finally we come to
[1:07:59] Speaker 1: the heart of the dark half of the year. Yule died.
[1:08:05] Speaker 1: The twelve days from Christmas Eve to the twelfth night,
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: that is, January the sixth. Medieval Christmas was a rich
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: mix of sacred and profane celebration. A little bit different,
[1:08:17] Speaker 1: but a little bit recognizable, too. It just decked halls
[1:08:20] Speaker 1: with holly, ivy, and mistletoe. Now, mistletoe, though a druidic
[1:08:25] Speaker 1: sacred plant, found its way into Christmas as a greenery
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: under which kisses could be stolen. A practice first clearly
[1:08:32] Speaker 1: attested in the 18th century, but likely evolving from older
[1:08:36] Speaker 1: fertility symbolism. Feasting, music, and games were the order of
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: the day, and one widespread custom was the Lord of
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: Misrule banter. a figure often a peasant or sub-deacon appointed
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: to lead the christmas revels whose job was to turn
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: normal order upside down under the lord of mithril's reign
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: high and low mingled, a mock court was held, silly
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: decrees or burlesque rituals were enacted. This tradition, documented in
[1:09:09] Speaker 1: medieval and Tudor times, descends from the late Roman saturnalia,
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: and shows that enduring folklore of social inversion was a
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: bit of a safety valve By temporarily letting the world
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: go topsy-turvy, society reasserts order for the rest of the year.
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: English folklore also brought mumming plays to the Christmas season. Mummers,
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: from the Middle English momen to wear masks, were troops
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: of amateur actors, often local youths or guild members who
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: performed short comic dramas in exchange for food, ale or coin.
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: The classic mummer's play, dating in written form to the
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: 18th century, but almost surely performed earlier. Featured characters like St. George,
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: a Turkish knight, a dragon, a quack doctor, and in
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: the play St. George and the antagonist, sometimes called Slasher
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: or the Turkish Knight, boast arrogantly and eventually come to blows.
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: Now poor old George actually gets himself killed, or sometimes
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: the other knights are slain by George, depending on when
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: they want to change the story. And then a doctor
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: comes in. Miraculously, he revives the dead character with potions. Prompting,
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: of course, a rejoicing reaction from the crowd. This little drama,
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: often with added fools like Billsabub or hobby horse characters,
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: is essentially a death and resurrection theatre. And that's rooted,
[1:10:41] Speaker 1: of course, in the folk ritual of renewing life. The
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: mum has wore gaudy costumes. disguising themselves sometimes with ribbons
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: or cloth and wire masks, and they would enter the
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: wealthy homes or village inns and perform the play, and
[1:10:59] Speaker 1: then pass the hat around. Notably, St. George and the
[1:11:03] Speaker 1: Dragon frequently appear in these plays, meaning the folk themselves
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: kept alive the legend in vernacular dramatic form, long after
[1:11:12] Speaker 1: any real belief in dragons existed. Mumming plays were especially
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: common around the Twelfth Night or in New Year, and
[1:11:21] Speaker 1: they do survive in some English villages today as cherished traditions.
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: Another Christmas folk custom was waysailing. Now this took two forms,
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: house-visiting waysail and orchard waysail. House-visiting waysailers were like carolers
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: of sorts. They carried a waysail bowl of spiced ale
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: or cider and went door to door singing and offering
[1:11:47] Speaker 1: a drink in exchange for gifts. Or if there were
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: no gifts, just simply good wishes. Now the word, word rather, waysail,
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: comes from the Old English wassail, i.e. being be hail
[1:12:03] Speaker 1: or be healthy. And it was actually a toast, like
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: saying cheers or good health, this kind of thing. One
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: traditional waysail song begins, Here we come away sailing among
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: the leaves so green. The customers essentially sharing a blessing
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: for the new year among neighbours. Also, along with alcohol
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: and song, a friendly social glue of sorts. Well, orchard way-sailing,
[1:12:33] Speaker 1: by contrast. I was more pagan in flavour, especially in
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: cider-producing regions like Somerset or Kent. Farmers on the twelfth
[1:12:42] Speaker 1: night were to go to the orchard and sing to
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: the apple-trees, pour cider on their roots, and hang cider-soaked
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: toast in the branches for the birds. They would fire
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: guns in later times, or bang pots to scare away
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: evil spirits, or to ensure a good harvest of apples
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: in the coming year. This ritual clearly personifies the tree
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: and harkens back to an animalistic or at least highly
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: symbolic mindset, where fruit trees must be cheered and fed.
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: to keep them fruitful. It's a pretty good example of
[1:13:18] Speaker 1: how folk practice connected people intimately with the cycles of nature,
[1:13:23] Speaker 1: half in earnest prayer and half in good humour. But
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: throughout all these seasonal rites, the church often provided a framework,
[1:13:34] Speaker 1: but the common folk embroidered them with local colour and
[1:13:36] Speaker 1: remnants of the older custom, as much as would be tolerated.
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: The medieval clergy alternated between tolerating Christianizing and condemning the practices.
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: Some elements, like the boy-bishop traditions, where a choir boy
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: was elected bishop for St. Nicholas Day, December 6, and
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: led parody services, were loud as harmless mirth. Others, like
[1:14:04] Speaker 1: excessive costuming or devilish games, might be frowned upon. Yet
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: by and large these festivals persisted, because they served vital
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: communal and psychological functions, they were times of collective joy, release, and,
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: I suppose, reaffirmation of that sense of community. Unique local
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: customs abounded too. The horn dance at Abbott's Bromley, as
[1:14:32] Speaker 1: men dancing with reindeer antlers, perhaps dating to medieval times
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: or earlier, the Cooper's Hill cheese rolling in Gloucestershire, possibly
[1:14:41] Speaker 1: an old fertility rite disguised as a sport of chasing
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: a roll of cheese downhill, or the myriad well-dressing ceremonies
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: in Derbyshire, decorating springs with flower-petalled mosaics to give thanks
[1:14:54] Speaker 1: for the water, likely a descendant of pagan sacred spring veneration.
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: Each village had its own quirks. Folklore provided a vehicle
[1:15:04] Speaker 1: to preserve collective memory. For example, some towns had rebel oaths,
[1:15:11] Speaker 1: that they were cited annually to commemorate some long-ago defiance. Like,
[1:15:16] Speaker 1: for example, Painswick's custom of ritually refusing entry to the bishop,
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: stemming from a medieval dispute. In repeating these rites, people
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: get their local history and identity alive. So when we
[1:15:30] Speaker 1: say English folklore, well, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: We have to go into counties and towns and all
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: the rest. But before we move on, it is worth
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: noting that many such customs show a blend of enjoyment
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: and fear of the supernatural. Celebrating May Day was joyous,
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: yet night on all hallows carried dread of ghosts. Christmas
[1:15:58] Speaker 1: was warmth and light in darkness, yet those twelve days
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: were also magical. The time when animals might speak at
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: midnight or the wild hunt could be heard across the sky,
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: howling out there in the storm. Folklore acknowledged both the
[1:16:13] Speaker 1: bright and the dark. For instance, an old belief held
[1:16:17] Speaker 1: the twelve days of Christmas were omen-bearing. Each day's weather
[1:16:22] Speaker 1: presaged the corresponding month of the new year. People also
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: avoided certain tasks during these days, no spinning yarn, for example,
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: as it might offend the fates. The fabric of time
[1:16:35] Speaker 1: was felt to be delicate at the turn of the year.
[1:16:39] Speaker 1: A holdover from pre-Christian solstice anxiety, perhaps. But it's hard
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: to prove that right or wrong. All right, well, we've
[1:16:50] Speaker 1: saved the best till last, haven't we? Well, beneath all
[1:16:54] Speaker 1: these grand legends and the cheerful displays is another layer
[1:17:01] Speaker 1: of the folklore. And that's the everyday magic and superstition
[1:17:06] Speaker 1: that pervaded medieval life. In an age without any scientific
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: explanations for disease, disaster or fortune, or at least the
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: ones they had were quite limited, people often turned to
[1:17:18] Speaker 1: folk magic, a mix of inherited pagan practices and adaptive
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: Christian prayer, to influence the unforeseen forces around them. Now
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: this realm of folklore deals with charms, witches, omens, and
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: the little protective actions woven into daily existence. Virtually every
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: community had someone reputed to have special knowledge in herbs
[1:17:44] Speaker 1: and healing, whether called a wise woman or a cunning man,
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: herb wife, or simply known by reputation. These practitioners of
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: folk medicine and magic occupied a respected, if sometimes feared, niche.
[1:18:01] Speaker 1: They would craft herbal remedies for ailments, recite charms for healings,
[1:18:05] Speaker 1: find lost objects, and even cast horoscopes. The law was
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: largely oral, of course, handed down through apprenticeships or family lines.
[1:18:16] Speaker 1: Much of it in hindsight was effective, practical knowledge, which
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: plants soothe pain or how to set a broken bone.
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: But it was always couched in ritual to give it power.
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: For example, for a fever, a cunning woman might brew
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: a herb potion while reciting a psalm. Thus, blending spiritual
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: authority with natural effect. For a difficult childbirth, one might
[1:18:43] Speaker 1: place a written charm, perhaps a saint's name or a
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: biblical verse under the bed, or call in the wise
[1:18:50] Speaker 1: woman to lift the curse, believed to be blocking the birth.
[1:18:56] Speaker 1: The church, of course, tacitly allowed many of these practices,
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: as long as overt pagan references were left out. However,
[1:19:06] Speaker 1: when wise folks strayed into fortune-telling, love spells, or curse-lifting
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: that invokes spirits. Well, that was a line that the
[1:19:15] Speaker 1: clergy found to be one they didn't want them to cross,
[1:19:20] Speaker 1: condemning them as traffickers in these forbidden crafts. As for
[1:19:25] Speaker 1: charms and amulets, they were common, too. Infants might have
[1:19:30] Speaker 1: an amulet of coral or a wolf's tooth hung around
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: their neck to ward off the evil eye, a malignant
[1:19:37] Speaker 1: glance that could cause harm. Farmers might nail a horseshoe
[1:19:41] Speaker 1: over the barn door, as we saw in St. Dunstan's
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: tale to protect the livestock from witches or fairies, and
[1:19:47] Speaker 1: horseshoes were indeed particularly lucky. Iron in general was considered
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: a protective metal against enchantment. Maybe because it is cold
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: iron that repels fairies in many legends, people would drive
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: iron nails into doorsteps, or carry a knife on their
[1:20:06] Speaker 1: person to feel more secure, which that is a very
[1:20:10] Speaker 1: practical way to feel more secure, of course. But then
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: we got crucifixes and holy water. They were the Church's
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: protective tools. But in folk usage, they had a magical
[1:20:22] Speaker 1: tinge too. Holy water was sprinkled, not just for official blessings,
[1:20:28] Speaker 1: but to banish a suspected ghost, or to cleanse a
[1:20:31] Speaker 1: haunted house. Similarly, The sign of the cross doubled as
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: a superstitious gesture as much as a devotional one. One
[1:20:40] Speaker 1: crossed oneself when speaking of the devil or encountering a
[1:20:44] Speaker 1: strange noise at night, just in case an evil spirit
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: was around. Widespread folk beliefs attached to animals and plants
[1:20:52] Speaker 1: as omens or remedies. A howling dog under the window
[1:20:56] Speaker 1: was a death omen, and so was a bird, especially
[1:21:01] Speaker 1: a raven or a pigeon flying into the house. Had
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: one of them come in, you're in real trouble. But
[1:21:07] Speaker 1: on the beneficial side, carrying a rabbit's foot was lucky,
[1:21:11] Speaker 1: a tradition that possibly stems from much later, but medieval
[1:21:15] Speaker 1: people did revere certain animal parts. A hare's foot to
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: cure crabs, a snake's skin in the purse for wealth, etc.
[1:21:26] Speaker 1: The ash tree was thought to have protective power. Infants
[1:21:29] Speaker 1: in Yorkshire were passed through a cleft ash sapling in
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: a ritual to cure rupture or rickets. A kind of
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: sympathetic healing, where the child's illness was believed to transfer
[1:21:41] Speaker 1: to the tree. The sapling might be bound up as
[1:21:45] Speaker 1: it was healed, so would the child. A charming little
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: bit of green magic. But we also find remnants of
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: pagan worship in folk belief. The veneration of wells and
[1:21:57] Speaker 1: springs remained strong. People would drop coins or rags, so-called
[1:22:03] Speaker 1: cluti wells in Celtic regions, as offerings to the spirit
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: of the well for healing. Although these practices were often
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: officially redirected to asking for a saint's intercession, hence many
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: wells were at St. Mary's well, St. Anne's well, sort
[1:22:19] Speaker 1: of thing, the underlying idea of a spirit or force
[1:22:23] Speaker 1: residing in the water persisted. The custom of well-dressing in
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: some English villages, decorating wells with elaborate floral mosaics, likely
[1:22:32] Speaker 1: originates from the gratitude ritual for water, possibly heightened in
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: years of drought or plague. Now that line between white magic, beneficial,
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: and black magic, the more malicious brand, was also a
[1:22:50] Speaker 1: little bit blurry in folklore circles. Most people would readily
[1:22:54] Speaker 1: seek a wise person's help to break a curse or
[1:22:57] Speaker 1: heal an illness, but they would be swift to condemn
[1:23:00] Speaker 1: a neighbour suspected of ill-wishing their own, their cow rather,
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: or causing a child's sickness through envy. The belief in witchcraft, people,
[1:23:11] Speaker 1: usually women, who made pacts with evil forces to harm others,
[1:23:15] Speaker 1: certainly existed in medieval England, though it only reached hysterical
[1:23:19] Speaker 1: heights in the early modern era witch-hunts. In the 15th century,
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: English law made witchcraft a crime. But references before that
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: are pretty sparse. There is one early case. Lady Alice
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: Kittler in the 14th century Ireland, which is a little
[1:23:41] Speaker 1: bit out of our purview, but it is under English
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: jurisdiction at the time, so we will mention it. She
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: was accused of sorcery and heresy. and shows that an
[1:23:51] Speaker 1: elite woman such as herself could be targeted for practicing
[1:23:55] Speaker 1: dark arts too. Yet at the village level, probably informal
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: action was taken long before any authorities were involved. Shunning
[1:24:05] Speaker 1: or locally punishing someone believed to be a witch was likely,
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: or conversely, hiring a cunning man to counteract the witch's
[1:24:13] Speaker 1: spell by means of a ritual or charm was common too.
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: For instance, If a farmer's cow suddenly wouldn't give milk,
[1:24:21] Speaker 1: he might suspect the evil eye from a spiteful neighbor.
[1:24:26] Speaker 1: He could consult a cunning man, who would advise placing
[1:24:29] Speaker 1: a hag stone, which is a stone with a natural
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: hole over the barn door, since such stones were believed
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: to trap or repel witches. Or he might hate what
[1:24:40] Speaker 1: is called a witch bottle, a glazed jar filled with
[1:24:43] Speaker 1: the victim's urine and pins. by the fire in the law,
[1:24:48] Speaker 1: this tortures the witch by proxy and forces her to
[1:24:51] Speaker 1: lift her spells if she is guilty. These folk counter-magic
[1:24:56] Speaker 1: practices were a clandestine kind of justice system for dealing
[1:24:59] Speaker 1: with suspected witches, long before any learned witch hunters came
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: on the scene. Yeah, we'll get to that later in
[1:25:09] Speaker 1: a different video. I've already made a few videos about
[1:25:12] Speaker 1: witch hunts, you'll find them in the playlist. Now, medieval
[1:25:17] Speaker 1: records hint that ecclesiastical authorities were aware of persistent folk paganism.
[1:25:23] Speaker 1: The canon episcopi, it is the early church law popularized
[1:25:27] Speaker 1: around the 10th century, famously denounces, quote, wicked women who
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: believe in process, profess rather that they ride out at
[1:25:36] Speaker 1: night with the pagan goddess Diana or Herodias, and a
[1:25:39] Speaker 1: crowd of women transversing great distances. Churchmen insisted this was
[1:25:47] Speaker 1: an illusion of the devil. But the mention indicates that
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: some women, perhaps in folk tradition, claimed to go flying
[1:25:55] Speaker 1: at night in spirit, a clear survival of a goddess
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: or spirit cult, now framed as being diabolical in nature.
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: Of course, England had its share of such beliefs. We
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: see parallels in later witch trial testimonies about attending nocturnal Sabbaths.
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: But in the Middle Ages, rather than mass trials, we
[1:26:18] Speaker 1: mostly got sermons and penances aimed at these practices. It
[1:26:23] Speaker 1: does show, though, how folklore and religion clashed and converged.
[1:26:28] Speaker 1: To the Church, folk magic and superstition were often, well,
[1:26:32] Speaker 1: just that, superstition, from the Latin word superstitio, meaning, well,
[1:26:38] Speaker 1: roughly meaning leftover pagan belief. And it was tolerated when harmless.
[1:26:45] Speaker 1: But when it's smacked of idolatry or anything demonic, that's
[1:26:49] Speaker 1: when the hammer had to come down. Another bridging figure
[1:26:54] Speaker 1: of religion and folklore is the ghost. And we've got
[1:26:58] Speaker 1: them in plenty of different cultures now, don't we? Medieval
[1:27:03] Speaker 1: Catholic doctrine allowed for the concept of ghosts, typically souls
[1:27:08] Speaker 1: from purgatory returning for some unresolved matter, or perhaps to
[1:27:13] Speaker 1: seek prayers for their souls. Folklore eagerly expanded on this,
[1:27:18] Speaker 1: depicting many kinds of hauntings. The earlier section on revenants
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: demonstrated how strongly people felt about the restless dead. William
[1:27:28] Speaker 1: of Newburgh, in the 1190s, recounted multiple cases of the
[1:27:32] Speaker 1: dead returning in corporeal form, true revenants or even proto-vampires,
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: terrorizing neighborhoods wherever they went. But they were not romantic spirits.
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: They were frightening. They had to be dealt with by
[1:27:47] Speaker 1: physical means, like ding up the corpse, or by spiritual means,
[1:27:51] Speaker 1: like absolution letters. One memorable story from Newburgh tells of
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: a wicked husband in Buckinghamshire, who died and rose nightly
[1:28:02] Speaker 1: to crush his poor wife by lying upon her, and
[1:28:06] Speaker 1: then roamed the village in broad daylight, spreading panic. The
[1:28:11] Speaker 1: problem was so old but only when the Bishop of
[1:28:14] Speaker 1: Lincoln provided a written absolution to be placed on the corpse,
[1:28:18] Speaker 1: quelling the restless dead. But for more everyday ghost lore,
[1:28:24] Speaker 1: any old house or castle might have a spectre within it,
[1:28:28] Speaker 1: typically a ghost haunted because of some unfinished business, and
[1:28:33] Speaker 1: folklore provided rituals to lay them to rest, perhaps by
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: recovering a buried bone, or by having a mass said
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: in their name. And some ghosts were essentially harmless, loops
[1:28:46] Speaker 1: of memory. Others were malicious bogeys. An interesting folkloric hybrid
[1:28:53] Speaker 1: is the churchyard ghost that jumps on the back of
[1:28:56] Speaker 1: late-night travellers. A known motive in English and Irish lore,
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: by the way. The cure was to carry the ghost
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: back to its grave, or to cross running water, which
[1:29:08] Speaker 1: a ghost supposedly cannot do. Kind of like ringwraiths, I suppose.
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: They're opposed to water. Well, these beliefs serve to discourage
[1:29:19] Speaker 1: nighttime wandering. Maybe it's a little bit safer to just
[1:29:24] Speaker 1: light a few candles and stay inside. But we shouldn't
[1:29:28] Speaker 1: neglect omens and divinations, which were a big part of
[1:29:32] Speaker 1: folk belief too. People scrutinized the flight of birds, the
[1:29:36] Speaker 1: shapes of clouds, the habits for animal signs. A classic
[1:29:42] Speaker 1: English superstition is this. If the candle flame guttered or
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: a coal popped out of the fire, it meant that
[1:29:49] Speaker 1: a stranger might soon arrive. The new moon had rituals too.
[1:29:55] Speaker 1: One might flip a coin in one's pocket, at the
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: first sight of a crescent moon to ensure prosperity, or
[1:30:02] Speaker 1: bow to the moon to avoid bad luck. Now, if
[1:30:05] Speaker 1: that's not pagan, I don't know what is. That's the
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: most pagan thing I've ever heard. Well, dreams were also
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: considered meaningful. Interpretation of dreams by handbooks to do so
[1:30:19] Speaker 1: existed as well. But even without those, folk sayings like,
[1:30:24] Speaker 1: Dreaming of eggs will bring you new wealth circulated around.
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: Love and marriage attracted a lot of folk divination too.
[1:30:34] Speaker 1: Medieval maidens might pluck petals. You know, he loves me,
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: he loves me not sort of thing. Or throw a
[1:30:40] Speaker 1: shoe over the house on New Year's to see what
[1:30:43] Speaker 1: direction it points. Whatever direction it was pointing to, well,
[1:30:47] Speaker 1: go that way to find your future husband. On Midsummer
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: Eve or Halloween, A girl might fast and then lay
[1:30:55] Speaker 1: a sprig of yarrow under her pillow to dream of
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: her true love. These gentle spells were harmless in the
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: church's eyes, though if they involved invoking pagan deities or
[1:31:05] Speaker 1: forcing someone's will, they'd be frowned upon. Generally, folk magic
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: was tolerated if it stayed low, solving small problems, and
[1:31:18] Speaker 1: didn't openly blaspheme or claim to conjure demons. Well, however,
[1:31:26] Speaker 1: medieval records do show cases of suspected harmful magic, maleficium,
[1:31:31] Speaker 1: being prosecuted. Often these were entangled with political or personal conflicts, etc.
[1:31:37] Speaker 1: A servant accused of trying to poison a lord using sorcery.
[1:31:42] Speaker 1: But the average villager likely feared a witch's curse far
[1:31:45] Speaker 1: more than being charged as a witch themselves. At least.
[1:31:50] Speaker 1: until the late 15th century when witch-hunting ideas from the
[1:31:53] Speaker 1: continent began creeping in. Before that, communities had a more
[1:31:58] Speaker 1: nuanced view. Someone might be a witch, but still consulted
[1:32:03] Speaker 1: for healing, illustrating the ambivalence in folk attitudes. There's one
[1:32:09] Speaker 1: medieval English proverb that goes like this. There are three
[1:32:13] Speaker 1: kinds of folk. Those who heal with sorcery. Those who
[1:32:17] Speaker 1: harm with sorcery. and those who do nothing. Pray you
[1:32:22] Speaker 1: fall into the hands of the first, if you must,
[1:32:25] Speaker 1: and never the second. Well, finally, superstition, it touched every
[1:32:32] Speaker 1: stage of life, birth, coming of age, and death. When
[1:32:39] Speaker 1: someone has died, lest the soul be trapped, a practice
[1:32:43] Speaker 1: attested in later folklore. Many of these actions arise from
[1:32:49] Speaker 1: the desire of controlling the uncontrollable, or at least to
[1:32:56] Speaker 1: show respect to forces beyond one's understanding and keen. Folklore
[1:33:01] Speaker 1: provided a sense of agency and comfort. Maybe you couldn't
[1:33:06] Speaker 1: cure the plague. Maybe you could wear a certain charm
[1:33:09] Speaker 1: or recite the prayer of St. Roch and feel protected.
[1:33:14] Speaker 1: Maybe you couldn't guarantee a bountiful crop, but you could.
[1:33:17] Speaker 1: way-sail your orchard or consult the almanac for propitious hours
[1:33:22] Speaker 1: to sow. Well, in summary, I suppose the world of
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: medieval English folk belief was richly textured with magic and superstition.
[1:33:36] Speaker 1: It's a parallel belief system that co-existed with and sometimes
[1:33:39] Speaker 1: under the radar of the more orthodox religion. Largely practical,
[1:33:46] Speaker 1: largely private. Amulets, little rituals, consultations with wise folk, and
[1:33:52] Speaker 1: constant negotiation with luck and fate. While the Church's theology
[1:33:56] Speaker 1: provided answers for ultimate salvation, folklore's vernacular magic offered answers
[1:34:01] Speaker 1: for the here and now. How to ease a sick child,
[1:34:05] Speaker 1: protect the home, ensure love and prosperity. It's that human
[1:34:10] Speaker 1: need for assurance, life's little questions, and the big ones too.
[1:34:17] Speaker 1: And I suppose you can trace many modern good luck
[1:34:20] Speaker 1: habits or alternative medicines back to these medieval roots. Surely
[1:34:26] Speaker 1: you noticed a few of them throughout our talk today.
[1:34:30] Speaker 1: And there you go. An hour and a half of
[1:34:35] Speaker 1: English folklore. I think we covered, well, everything that I
[1:34:40] Speaker 1: wanted to cover. And I hope you learned a lot too. Well,
[1:34:47] Speaker 1: I'm going to thank my top-tier patrons and supporters. And
[1:34:51] Speaker 1: the channel going. Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Amber, Susan, Cameron, Carrie, Charlene, Lynn-Therese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulfinir, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Aaron, Jayden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[1:35:09] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Shell, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stephan, Kevin, HMSHH, Crystal, Tauvery, Anthony, Lucy, Brandon,
[1:35:22] Speaker 1: Gugu Bubonic, Nicholas, Craig, Neftis. Uh-oh, I forgot where I
[1:35:29] Speaker 1: was reading from. Where am I? Oh, there I am,
[1:35:32] Speaker 1: right down the bottom, okay. Alexander, Kogan, Dorsey, Benita, Claire, Courtesy, Carol, Robert, Mary, Bridget, Nefertari, Yvette,
[1:35:40] Speaker 1: Miss Mochi, Eleven, Allison, Free American. Jennifer, Brittany and David. Yes,
[1:35:55] Speaker 1: thank you so much. Okay, so that's it from me tonight.
[1:35:59] Speaker 1: I'm going to go and have a little bit of
[1:36:00] Speaker 1: a rest. It was a long video, wasn't it? And
[1:36:04] Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it. As always, lots of love
[1:36:06] Speaker 1: to you all. And I will see you next time.
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: Good night, everyone. Look after yourselves out there. Plenty of water, too. Please,
[1:36:14] Speaker 1: stay hydrated. It's more important than you could imagine. Farewell
[1:36:20] Speaker 1: for now.

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