You may or may not remember that last year, I backed and received Forgotten Yorkshire Folk and Fairy Tales compiled by Andrew Walsh. I really enjoyed reading the tales, most of which were new to me, so when I saw that Andrew had another collection of forgotten tales out, this time focused on Lancashire, I had to back it.

This time, my kickstarter package came with:

• A lovely bookmark
• A blank notebook
• A copy of Saddleworth Superstitions and Folk Customs by Ammon Wrigley
• A copy of Forgotten Lancashire Folk and Fairy Tales, compiled by Andrew Walsh

As with the collection of tales from Yorkshire, many of these were new to me. Andrew made an excellent point in his introduction when he pointed out that most of us are exposed to the same few fairytales, especially if we grew up speaking English! The only other culture which I can say I grew up hearing fairy tales from would be the Chinese tales, and that’s probably because my Chinese textbooks had some tales + some of them have been adapted into comics (thanks Asiapac!). With that in mind, I’m really glad to have been able to expand my knowledge of various tales through this collection.

Some things that I felt were interesting:

• There is a story called The King of the Fairies about how a farmer had a fairy help him. What I found interesting was the reaction of the fairy king to the Christian God. It reminded me of the topic as discussed by A New Dictionary of Fairies and in this case, it would seem that fairies are opposed to Christianity.
• This idea is reinforced in “Boggarts” in Saddleworth Superstitions and Customs, where it is mentioned that if boggarts started troubling a house a bit too much, they would bring in the vicar for a special service!
• The appearance of Satan in various stories – in some, he is obviously evil (taking your soul for earthly success, or pretty terrifyingly in the poem ‘Satan’s Supper’) but in others, things are a bit more ambiguous. For example, in the story The Chilvarous Devil, a spectre (unmentioned if it’s satan himself, but the figure is called a ‘Black Devil’) comes to the aid of the village fool when a cruel prank is played on him by turning the tables on the pranksters.
• The ways to get rid of a changeling were pretty harsh! If these stories were taken as actual ways to discover and get rid of changeling babies, then I pity any baby that was suspected of being a changeling.

Overall, I really enjoyed this collection of stories! I think it’s fascinating how different they were from the Yorkshire tales, which just goes to show how each region (even within the same country) comes up with their own tales to tell.