BOOK OF ENGLISH FOLK TALES

This reprint of the folklorist Sybil Marshall's classic collection of 68 folk tales is beautifully illustrated with John Lawrence's woodcuts and includes Marshall's extensive introduction analysing six different genres of folk tale and their origins. "To be valid, a folk tale must have enough truth in it somewhere, even if it is only reflected truth, to enable the folk to believe it." The author shows how supernatural stories can take hold even in our own times. On Saturday evenings in the pub where the talk is of football, how long will it be before the ghost of a departed footballer appears to take a header that changes the fortunes of the team, maybe someone who was lost in the tragic Munich air crash that killed several members of Manchester United? The author includes a story, written down by her brother in 1976, concerning his horse Ole Short which always bolted on a certain stretch of road. Passing through it on his motorbike years later he had an apparition of 17th century people round a fire. Appearances of the devil are common, with the medieval Brother Hubert of Canterbury sending him packing by tolling the bell, while Ralph the Cobbler finds that Old Nick is a gentleman who keeps his bargain. When St Eustace gives a woman a drink from his well, the two devils which were possessing her break out of her body in the form of dogs with eyes as big as saucers. Many stories are tied to a particular location, for instance Matcham's gibbet, reminding passers-by of a man who murdered a drummer-boy but confessed on revisiting the scene of the crime. Mother Shipton's well is a famous location in Yorkshire, and her prophecies are tied in with English history, for instance when she prophesied that Cardinal Wolsey would never set foot in York. Some of the stories are in verse, including "The Marriage of Sir Gawaine", a variation on the "loathly lady" theme. Master storyteller, social historian, and folklorist Sybil Marshall scoured English history to bring together a fascinating collection of folk tales in one glamorous edition. 16.8 x 24.4 cm, 384pp, woodcuts.