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English Folklore by Region

Characteristics
Although English Folklore has many influences, its largest are its Christian, Celtic and Germanic. Non-Christian influences also defined English folklore up to the eleventh century, such as in their folksongs, celebrations and folktales. An example is the 305 ballads collected by Francis James Child published during the English revival in the 19th century. During the English folksong revival, English artists scrambled to compose a national identity comprised of England's past folksongs and their contemporary musical influences. Authors such as Francis James Child, Arthur Hugh Clough, and Chaucer made English folksong supranational due to the willingness to import other languages' words, pronunciations, and metres. Other examples of non-Christian influences include the Wild Hunt which originates from wider Europe, and Herne the Hunter which relates to the Germanic deity Woden. The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance may represent a pre-Christian festival and the practice of Well dressing in the Peak District, which may date back to Anglo-Saxon or even Celtic times. May Day celebrations such as the Maypole survive across much of England and Northern Europe. Christmas itself also appears to have its roots outside Christianity. Practices such as decorating trees, the significance of holly, and Christmas carolling itself were born from the desire to escape from the harshness of winter around Europe.

Creatures
A dragon is a giant winged reptile that breathes fire or poison and is usually associated with waterfalls. The dragon is also present in Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, and Mesoamerican mythology.

A Wyvern is a smaller relative of dragons with two legs rather than four. It also has smaller wings and cannot breathe fire.

The black dog is a creature which foreshadows calamity or causes it. It is a combination of Odysseus' Argos and Hades' Cerberus from Greek mythology, and Fenrir from Norse mythology. The first collection of sightings of the black dog around Great Britain, Ethel Rudkin's 1938 article reports that the dog has black fur, abnormally large eyes, and a huge body.

A boggart is, depending on local or regional tradition, either or a malevolent genius loci inhabiting fields, marshes or other topographical features. The household boggart causes things to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame, and they can possess small animals, fields, churches, or houses so they can play tricks on the civilians with their chilling laugh. Always malevolent, the boggart will follow its family wherever they flee. In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, for when the boggart was given a name, it would not be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive.

A brownie is a type of hob (household spirit), similar to a hobgoblin. Brownies are said to inhabit houses and aid in tasks around the house. However, they do not like to be seen and will only work at night, traditionally in exchange for small gifts or food. Among food, they especially enjoy porridge and honey. They usually abandon the house if their gifts are called payments, or if the owners of the house misuse them. Brownies make their homes in an unused part of the house.

A dwarf is a human-shaped entity that dwells in mountains and in the earth, and is associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting. The term had only started to be used in the 19th century as a translation for the German, French, and Scandinavian words which describe dwarves.

Ogres are usually tall, strong, violent, greedy, and remarkably dull monsters and they originate from French culture. In folktales they are likely to be defeated by being outsmarted.

The Will-o'-the-wisp is a folk explanation of strange, flickering lights seen around marshes and bogs. Some perceive them as souls of unbaptized infants which lead travellers off the forest path and into danger, while others perceive them as trickster fairies or sprites.

Beliefs and Motifs[edit]
Carmen de Beovvulfi rebus gestis, 1875, p. iii

Standing stones are man-made stone structures made to stand up. Some small standing stones can also be arranged in groups to form miniliths. Similar to these geological artefacts are hill figures. These are figures drawn into the countryside by digging into the ground and sometimes filling it in with a mineral of a contrasting colour. Examples are the Cerne Abbas Giant, the Uffington White Horse, and the Long Man of Wilmington are the focus for folktales and beliefs.

GREEN MAN

There was a belief that those born at the chime hours could see ghosts. The time differed according to region, usually based around the times of monk's prayer which were sometimes marked by a chime.

Crop circles are formations of flattened cereal. While they have been speculated to have mysterious and often extraterrestrial origins, most crop circles have been proven to be hoaxes. Those made by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley across England in 1991 have since started chains of copycats around the world.

Cunning folk was a term used to refer to male and female healers, magicians, conjurers, fortune-tellers, potion-makers, exorcists, or thieves. Such people were respected, feared and sometimes hunted for their breadth of knowledge which was suspected as supernatural.

The wild hunt was a description of a menacing group of huntsmen which either rode across the sky or on lonely roads. Their presence was a hallmark of the perception of the countryside as a wild and mystical place.

Practices
O n May Day, the first day of May, a tall, decorated pole is put up as a symbol of fertility called a maypole. The maypole represents a phallic object impregnating the earth at the end of spring to ensure a bountiful summer. The maypoles were decorated originally with flowers and carved from the branches of trees about to bloom to symbolise the birth of new life. Eventually the flowers were replaced with ribbons and May day became a day for celebration and dancing in which a May queen and sometimes a May king would be crowned to also symbolise fertility.

A parish ale is a type of party in the parish usually held to fundraise money for a particular purpose.

Plough Monday was a custom in which, on the first Monday after Christmas, men visited people's doorsteps at night and asked for a token for the holiday. They carried whips and a makeshift plough and dug up the house's doorstep or scraper if the house refused to give them an item.

Corn dollies are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before the First World War. Their use varied according to region: it may have been decorative, an image of pride for the harvest, or a way to mock nearby farms which had not yet collected their harvest. There has been a recent resurgence in their creation lead by Minnie Lambeth in the 1950s and 1960s through her book 'A Golden Dolly: The Art, Mystery, and History of Corn Dollies'.

A superstition among children was that, if the first word uttered in the month was "Rabbit!", then that person would have good luck for the rest of the month. Variants include: "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!", "rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit!", and "white rabbit!".

After a person died, a poor person was hired to take on their sins by eating before or after the funeral over their body- a sin-eater. The sin-eater would hence ensure that the recently deceased would be taken to heaven.

Items
Sir Francis Drake's Drum is a legend about the drum of an English admiral who raided Spanish treasure fleets and Spanish ports. He was believed to have white magic which enabled him to turn into a dragon (as hinted by his name, Drake meaning dragon in Latin). When he died, the drum which he brought on his voyage around the world was sung about- that in England's peril, they could strike it and he would come to their aid. Eventually the legend evolved to be that the drum would strike itself in England's peril, and it has been heard struck since.

A hagstone, also called a holed stone or adder stone, is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt. In England it was used as a counter-charm for sleep paralysis, called hag-riding by tradition.

A petrifying well is a well which, when items are placed into it, they appear to be covered in stone. Items also acquire a stony texture when left in the well for an extended period of time. Examples in England include Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough and Matlock Bath in Derbyshire.