Discover folklore books from across the UK and Ireland, from local legends and old customs to supernatural traditions and strange regional tales. These titles explore the beliefs, stories and traditions that have shaped communities for generations.
100 books found
Cover unavailableThe Guide to Mysterious Skye & Lochalsh
Geoff Holder’s guide gathers reports, legends and historical traditions from across Skye, Raasay, nearby islands and mainland Lochalsh. Its regional entries range from the dark corries of the Cuillins and coastal caves to castles, ancient…
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Cover unavailableThe Guide to Mysterious Stirlingshire
The Guide to Mysterious Stirlingshire surveys the county’s ancient sites, archaeological curiosities and historic buildings, linking them with local stories and traditions. Stirling Castle and Dunblane Cathedral appear alongside strange carvings, stone circles, healing wells…
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Cover unavailableThe Guide to the Mysterious Lake District
The Guide to the Mysterious Lake District gathers accounts of curiosities, wonders and reported mysteries from across Cumbria’s Lake District. Geoff Holder places these stories within the region’s distinctive landscape, bringing together material connected with…
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Cover unavailableThe Hero in Irish Folk History
The Hero in Irish Folk History examines how heroic figures are remembered, shaped and interpreted within Irish folklore and folk history. Dáithí Ó hÓgáin considers legends associated with Irish heroes alongside the historical ideas, social…
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Cover unavailableThe Jacobites and the Supernatural
The Jacobites and the Supernatural examines how occult beliefs, prophecies and folklore became entangled with the Jacobite Risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. Geoff Holder considers witchcraft, spirits, portents, prodigies, curses and magical talismans…
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Cover unavailableThe Leaping Hare
The Leaping Hare examines the wild hare through natural history, rural experience, folklore and mythology. George Ewart Evans and David Thomson distinguish between the mountain hare, Irish hare and common hare, while also discussing hunting,…
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Cover unavailableThe Ley Hunter's Companion
The Ley Hunter's Companion examines proposed alignments between ancient monuments, churches, hills and other features of the British landscape. Paul Devereux and Ian Thomson consider the history of ley-line theories alongside interpretations connecting these routes…
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Cover unavailableThe Little History of Storytelling
The Little History of Storytelling traces how people have used stories to shape cultures, communities and shared understanding. Dawn Nelson begins with some of the oldest known cave paintings, found on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi,…
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Cover unavailableThe Little History of Storytelling in Cornwall
The Little History of Storytelling in Cornwall traces the county’s storytelling traditions from bardic times to the present, asking how tales developed, who carried them and why they endured. Mike O’Connor considers the settings in…
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Cover unavailableThe Lore of Ireland: An Encyclopaedia of Myth, Legend and Romance
The Lore of Ireland brings together 350 alphabetical entries on Irish myth, legend, romance, folklore, religious lore, customs and traditional belief. Its subjects range from Abán, a 6th-century saint, to weather, with entries summarising relevant…
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Cover unavailableThe Lore of Scotland: A Guide to Scottish Legends
The Lore of Scotland gathers legends, beliefs, customs and traditional stories from across the country, arranged through its regions and local landscapes. Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill include tales of heroes, bloody feuds, giants, fairies,…
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Cover unavailableThe Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends
The Lore of the Land gathers England’s legends county by county, linking stories to villages, towns, churches, roads, hills, graves and historic buildings. Its subjects range from hauntings and highwaymen to family curses, buried treasure,…
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Cover unavailableThe Mabinogion
The Mabinogion brings together 11 medieval Welsh tales, including the Four Branches of the Mabinogi and stories shaped by Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance and legendary history. Kings, heroes and otherworldly beings share its pages with…
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Cover unavailableThe Magic of Coin-Trees: From Religion to Recreation
The Magic of Coin-Trees: From Religion to Recreation examines trees into which coins have been ritually embedded across the British Isles. Ceri Houlbrook traces the custom through written references from the 1700s, when coin-trees served…
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Cover unavailableThe Magic of Irish Nature
The Magic of Irish Nature examines the part played by landscape, wildlife and the natural world in Irish mythology and Celtic culture. Patrick O'Sullivan brings together familiar tales, including the Salmon of Knowledge and the…
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Cover unavailableThe Magpie's Nest
The Magpie’s Nest gathers bird folk tales, riddles and rhymes from a world where birds appear in everyday places, from busy train stations and city centres to quiet woods and back gardens. The collection asks…
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Cover unavailableThe Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends
The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends gathers stories from Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and Breton traditions. Peter Berresford Ellis includes tales of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, magical weapons, fabulous beasts…
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Cover unavailableThe Man Who Talked to the Wind
The Man Who Talked to the Wind gathers Rathlin Island folk tales reworked from recordings made by local storyteller Tommy Cecil. Preserved in the Ulster Folk Museum’s Tommy Cecil Archive, these accounts also include stories…
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Cover unavailableThe Moon-Eyed People
The Moon-Eyed People brings together true tales, tall tales and folk stories linking Wales with Appalachia. Peter Stevenson considers the experiences of Welsh migrants, the Native communities already living in the region, and enslaved people…
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Cover unavailableThe Mystery of Jack of Kent and the Fate of Owain Glyndwr
Alex Gibbon examines the Welsh border traditions surrounding Jack of Kent and their possible connection with Owain Glyndwr, the leader of the Welsh revolt against Henry IV. Set around Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and the Welsh Marches,…
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Cover unavailableThe Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends
Simon Young examines 70 urban legends associated with 19th-century Britain and the wider English-speaking world, treating them as folklore rooted in a particular historical period. The collection includes stories of buried-alive victims, child pie, sewer…
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Cover unavailableThe Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy
Ronald Hutton surveys religious beliefs and practices in the British Isles from the Old Stone Age to the coming of Christianity. The book considers what archaeology and historical evidence can reveal about ritual, belief and…
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Cover unavailableThe Pattern Under the Plough: Aspects of the Folk-Life of East Anglia
George Ewart Evans records the customs, working habits and local language of East Anglian farming communities before mechanisation transformed rural life. Drawing on conversations with older residents of Blaxhall, Suffolk, he organises the book around…
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Cover unavailableThe Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland
The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland gathers beliefs, customs and practices from across Britain and Ireland in a detailed alphabetical reference work. Steve Roud covers ideas about luck and misfortune alongside…
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Cover unavailableThe Phynodderree, and Other Legends of the Isle of Man
Edward Callow’s collection presents four literary retellings of Isle of Man legends, drawing on fairy lore, historical tradition and church-centred supernatural belief. The opening tale concerns the Phynodderree, a fairy figure associated with love, exile…
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Cover unavailableThe Prophecies of the Brahan Seer
Andrew MacKenzie examines the traditions surrounding Coinneach Odhar, the Highland figure remembered as the Brahan Seer. The book considers the prophecies attributed to him and the tradition of second sight in which those accounts are…
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Cover unavailableThe Quest for the Green Man
John Matthews examines the Green Man as a recurring figure in mythology, folklore and the imagination of the natural world. The book follows his changing forms through British traditions, medieval architectural carvings and Arthurian material,…
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Cover unavailableThe Quiet Moon
The Quiet Moon follows a year through changing moons, seasonal turning points and the living landscape of Britain. Kevin Parr draws on ancient Celtic beliefs about the moon, placing January’s Quiet Moon amid the Dark…
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Cover unavailableThe Riddle in the Tale
The Riddle in the Tale brings together magical folk tales built around riddles and shorter challenges designed to be solved along the way. Its stories include a farmer who must answer the fairies’ riddles to…
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Cover unavailableThe Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400–1700
Ronald Hutton examines the religious and secular rituals that shaped the English year between 1400 and 1700. The book traces seasonal celebrations, communal festivities and local customs through periods of major religious and political change,…
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Cover unavailableThe Robin Hood Handbook
The Robin Hood Handbook examines how the outlaw has been shaped by history, myth and legend, asking whether a real person lies behind the familiar stories. Mike Dixon-Kennedy considers Robin Hood’s traditional exploits, including his…
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Cover unavailableThe Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland
The Sacred Isle examines religious belief in Ireland from its earliest human settlement through the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century. Dáithí Ó hÓgáin brings together archaeological evidence, Irish literature and folklore to assess…
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Cover unavailableThe Secret Country: An Interpretation of the Folklore of Ancient Sites in the British Isles
The Secret Country examines folklore attached to ancient and prehistoric places across the British Isles, treating monuments and landscapes as centres of traditional belief. Janet and Colin Bord gather accounts connected with antiquities, prehistoric peoples,…
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Cover unavailableThe Secret Middle Ages
The Secret Middle Ages reconstructs everyday medieval culture through the objects and images encountered by ordinary people between 1200 and 1550. Malcolm Jones draws on little-known and recently discovered artefacts, looking beyond courtly and ecclesiastical…
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Cover unavailableThe Silver Bough
The Silver Bough is the first volume of F. Marian McNeill’s four-volume study of Scottish folklore, folk-belief and festival tradition. It considers the survival and transformation of older beliefs within Scottish culture, including material connected…
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The Spooky Isles Book of Horror Vol. 1
Edited by David Saunderson and Andrew Garvey, The Spooky Isles Book of Horror Vol. 1 brings together 20 stories and essays from 18 writers. The collection explores horror and folklore from Britain and Ireland, including…
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Cover unavailableThe Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
Ronald Hutton traces the ritual year across Britain, following seasonal customs from the earliest written records to the present day. The book considers how communities marked Christmas and the Twelve Days, Valentine, Shrovetide, Easter, May…
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Cover unavailableThe Storyteller's Supper
The Storyteller’s Supper brings food, folklore and oral storytelling together in a collection of traditional tales, rhymes and riddles. Its stories move through field and furrow, orchard and hedgerow, farmyard and dairy, linking ingredients and…
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Cover unavailableThe Three Ravens Folk Tales
The Three Ravens Folk Tales gathers 39 retold stories, one for each of England’s historic counties, drawing on the folklore shared through Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux’s podcast. Each tale is accompanied by an introduction…
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Cover unavailableThe Three Ravens Folk Tales of Wales
The Three Ravens Folk Tales of Wales gathers new tellings from the 13 historic counties of Wales, bringing together stories of loyalty, fear, enchantment and mischief. Among them is the tragic account of Gelert, the…
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Cover unavailableThe Treasury of Folklore: Waterlands, Wooded Worlds and Starry Skies
The Treasury of Folklore: Waterlands, Wooded Worlds and Starry Skies gathers myths, legends, folk tales and traditions shaped by seas, skies and woodlands. Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham range across countries and continents, tracing…
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Cover unavailableThe Virgin
Geoffrey Ashe examines the cult of the Virgin Mary, tracing how she has been represented as the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven, Madonna and spiritual mother. The study considers Marian devotion through ancient myth, Christian…
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Cover unavailableThe Weird Tales of Dorothy K. Haynes
Dorothy K. Haynes’ Scottish supernatural fiction brings together cruel childhoods, fairy folklore and witchcraft. Edited by Craig Lamont, with a foreword by Johnny Mains, this British Library collection includes rare and previously unpublished stories, with…
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Cover unavailableThe White Goddess
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth sets out Robert Graves’s theory that a recurring goddess figure stands behind much European poetry and myth. He associates her with birth, love and death, and…
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Cover unavailableThirty-Two Words for Field
Thirty-Two Words for Field examines the Irish language’s close relationship with landscape, memory and traditional knowledge. Manchán Magan considers the 32 words used for different kinds of field, including geamhar for a field of corn-grass,…
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Cover unavailableTipperary Folk Tales
Aideen McBride gathers legends, local lore and traditional stories from across County Tipperary, linking the county’s landscapes with Ireland’s older myths. The collection begins with tales of the first settlers and Fionntán’s escape in the…
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Cover unavailableTree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Irish Words for Nature
Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Irish Words for Nature gathers Irish terms for animals, birds, fish, insects, plants and the wider natural world. Manchán Magan shows how these words can carry vivid observations, folklore…
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Cover unavailableTree Folk
Tree Folk gathers folk tales, songs and lore connected with the trees of Britain and Ireland. Lisa Schneidau follows the wheel of the year, tracing a living tradition shaped by seasonal change and the enduring…
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