The Folklore of Devon

Mark Norman

Description

Devon has a long and rich folkloric heritage which has been extensively collected over many years. This book consolidates more than a century of research by eminent Devon folklorists into one valuable study and builds on the vital work that was undertaken by the Devonshire Association, providing insightful analysis of the subject matter and drawing comparisons with folklore traditions beyond the county.

The first major work on Devon's folklore since Ralph Whitlock’s short book published by the Folklore Society in the 1970s, this volume brings the subject into the twenty-first century with consideration of internet memes and modern lore, demonstrating that ‘folklore’ does not equate to ‘old rural practice’. With chapters covering the history of Devon's folklore collecting, tales from the moors, the annual cycle, farming and the weather, the devil, fairies, hauntings, black dogs, witchcraft and modern lore, this will remain the standard work for many years to come.

Introduction

1. Folklore Collection in Devon

2. Stories from the Moors

3. The Calendar Year

4. Farming and the Weather

5. The Devil in Devon

6. Fairies in Devon

7. Some Devon Hauntings

8. The Black Dog

9. Witchcraft

10. Modern Folklore

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Mythical
• Unexplained Phenomena
• Social Science
• Folk Tales
• Fairy Tales
• Popular Culture
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Folclore
• The Devonshire Association
• Local history
• Body (disambiguation)
• Fairy tale
• Witchcraft
• Mythology
• Folklore

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804130377
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 17 Mo

Extrait

The Folklore of Devon

The Folklore of Devon

MARK NÔRMAN

First published in 2023 by University of Exeter Press Reed Hall, Streatham Drive Exeter EX4 4QR UK

www.exeterpress.co.uk

Copyright © Mark Norman 2023

The right of Mark Norman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

https://doi.org/10.47788/YGMP5465

ISBN 978-1-80413-036-0 Hardback ISBN 978-1-80413-037-7 ePub ISBN 978-1-80413-038-4 PDF

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission to reproduce the material included in this book. Please get in touch with any enquiries or information relating to the rights holder.

Typeset in Chennai, India by S4Carlisle Publishing Services

Illustrations by Rhianna Wynter Cover image: David Wyatt,Ghost Road at Leigh Bridge

F OR T HEO B ROWN , WHOCONTRIBUTEDSOMUCHTOTHEFIELDOFFOLKLOREINTHECOUNTY . W ITHHOPESTHATTHISADDSJUSTALITTLE .

Introduction 1. Folklore Collection in Devon 2. Stories from the Moors 3. The Calendar Year 4. Farming and the Weather 5. The Devil in Devon 6. Fairies in Devon 7. Some Devon Hauntings 8. The Black Dog 9. Witchcraft 10. Modern Folklore

Notes Bibliography Index

Contents

Introduction

The term ‘folklore’, coined in 1846 in a letter to the literary magazineThe Athenaeumby antiquarian 1 William Thoms, refers to the collected beliefs, customs and traditions of any community. It is a compound term, which was originally hyphenated before combining into the form we recognize now. The second half of the term, ‘lore’, has as its root the Old English wordlār, meaning ‘instruction’. And so folklore is, quite literally, the beliefs of the people. Of course, ‘the people’ and even the word ‘community’ are quite nebulous. How big is a community? The influential folklorist from University of California, Berkeley, Alan Dundes (1934–2005) described 2 a folk group as ‘any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor’. Put simply, a

community in this case is more than one. Where two people share a belief, so folklore may be created. It was while reading Ronald M. James’s excellent bookThe Folklore of Cornwall, published by the University of Exeter Press in 2018, that it suddenly became very apparent that a long time had passed since a similar volume examining the county of Devon in detail had emerged. There are of course books which make mention of folklore in Devon, but these tend to be coffee table books: short and easy reads with attractive glossy covers and containing a number of local tales, usually focusing heavily on the paranormal and the ‘unexplained’. Some of these are extremely good. But they do not usually provide any real analysis of the content, nor do they offer anything new. In the best storytelling traditions, they are usually a re-presentation of stories which have been told many times before. They are primarily aimed at a tourist market, and as such they have a tendency to suffer from the problems associated with ‘guidebook folklore’, where legends are retold and embellished based on information which has already been misrepresented many times before. It is a fate which befell some of the finest of Devon’s folklore collectors and is an issue explored within this book, notably in Chapter Five on ‘The Devil in Devon’. The most recent title that is considered really important in terms of the preservation of custom and tradition across Devon is the namesake of this volume,The Folklore of Devon, written by Ralph Whitlock and published in 1977. It benefitted from being edited by the late Dr Venetia Newall, a notable Anglo-American folklore scholar whose document archives are now available to consult at Crediton Library in Devon, thanks to their preservation by the Folklore Library and Archive (the index to the collection can be consulted on the website at www.folklorelibrary.com). Whitlock (1914–1995) was a prolific author as well as being a farmer and conservationist. As such, he had a deep and rich understanding of the land and of the traditions associated with it, and his folklore collecting and writing reflected an interest that went beyond his home county of Wiltshire. In many ways, this volume can be considered as an expansion of and update to the ethos of Whitlock’s smaller book, albeit with a slightly differing selection of subject matter. Being longer in form, this newFolklore of Devonnot suffer to the same extent from the does constraint that Ralph Whitlock found himself under, of trying to include as much information as possible without being able to expand upon it as much as he desired. I have taken the opportunity to draw on folkloric parallels across both time and geographical space in order to compare and contrast examples. That being said, in truth it remains possible only to scratch the surface: a volume of this size and more would be needed for each of the subjects my chapters cover, in order to record even a good part of the traditional past of the county. In laying out the chapter structure of this book I have endeavoured to reflect at least in part the division of stories originally presented by Whitlock in his 1977 work. In places, the chapters in this volume are broken down further and some new subject areas are added. Most significantly, the last chapter explores ‘Modern Folklore’. It has long been the case that custom and superstition is seen as being confined to the uneducated rural classes or the peasantry. This was certainly the case propagated by the Victorian and Edwardian upper-class gentlemen who spent much of their time collecting and commenting on such things (and often bowdlerizing and misrepresenting the material), and who considered these views to be rather crass and beneath their status. Sir John Bowring, writing on the subject of the folklore of the county in a very early volume of the Devonshire AssociationTransactions, declared, for example: ‘I am afraid the credulity and ignorance of our peasantry will not be deemed very creditable to the Devonian reputation, 3 though they afford materials for amusing and instructive speculations.’ Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, as interest in such superstitions can only be said to have boosted the county’s appeal. Moreover, the placing of the peasantry as sole arbiters of local folklore is also misguided. After all, those upper-class Victorian collectors interacted with the subject themselves and in doing so created new traditions; and the same can be said for their own elite forebears and those who followed them. The final chapter of this book aims to show how this constant reinvention continues, even and perhaps especially in our global, technological modern world. The world has changed remarkably since William Thoms put pen to paper to suggest a new word for the outdated terminology ‘popular antiquities’. Some of us might live in a small village community or be part of a small social group, but across the planet a little over fifty per cent of us are also now part of a global community—that is, the community of internet users. Estimates at the start of 2021 suggest 4 that there are now 4.2 billion live web pages on the internet, using between them in excess of 40 5 zettabytes (40 trillion gigabytes) of data. This gives us unprecedented access to information about cultures around the globe in a split-second. However, there is a pervading misconception that something cannot be considered as folklore if it is 6 not old. Yet this is manifestly not the case. In a TED talk given in 2015, Dr Lynne S. McNeill, Associate Professor of Folklore at Utah State University and co-founder of the Digital Folklore Project, described the internet as ‘the world’s largest unintentional folklore archive’. Folklore is surrounding us every day, whether online in the form of the latest amusing cat-based

meme or whenever we see someone avoid walking under a ladder or saluting a magpie. But despite the sheer volume of folklore available to us, now more than ever it goes unrecorded. The internet might be, as Dr McNeill suggests, a repository of folklore, but how and by whom is it curated? We will explore this further in the final chapter. Between the mid and late twentieth century, folklore arguably fell out of favour as a subject worthy of more serious study, at least in the United Kingdom where universities all but phased out courses that included it. It is only recently, in 2019, that we have seen the reintroduction of one Master’s-level 7 course in folklore. However, folklore as an area of broader interest has seen something of a resurgence in the twenty-first century. This is in no small part thanks to the internet and social media, with projects such as Folklore Thursday on Twitter and my ownFolklore Podcastengaging thousands of interested participants each week. In fact, despite the presence of learned organizations such as The Folklore Society, which was founded in 1878, it is more often those not affiliated with institutions of study whom we must thank for the majority of fieldwork and collecting of folklore traditions, beliefs and stories. I am grateful to the University of Exeter Press for agreeing with me, on my first communication with them, that this volume was necessary. Also to Rhianna Wynter who has drawn the chapter headings and other line art for this book; my wife Tracey who not only wields the red pen so effectively on my manuscript drafts but also puts up with my frequent declarations of, ‘Oh, this is really interesting…’ from the other side of the office, while she is trying to write her own books; and most importantly, to all of the folklore collectors past, present and future, for allowing us all to understand the world around us just a little bit better.

Mark Norman Devon January 2023

C H A P T E R O N E ___

Folklore Collection in Devon

There is a misapprehension that Devon is especially rich in folklore and custom. It is of course rich in these things, but it is notespeciallyso when compared to other areas. E very county in the United Kingdom and every country beyond is equally full of superstition, tradition and custom, both ancient and modern. How much has been recorded and presented, how this was done and how much remains— these are where the distinctions lie. Devon is fortunate to have been home to some excellent collectors of folklore and many of them are profiled in this chapter. The Victorians and E dwardians are of particular note as prolific collectors of diverse curiosities, providing impetus for those who followed— well into the second half of the twentieth century. Some are more prominent than others, but all had a vital role to play in the recording of folklore in the county, and this book draws on their work throughout. Devon is also extremely lucky to have such good records as those kept by the Devonshire Association, whoseR eports and Transactionshave been presenting them since the second half of the nineteenth century. This continues today through the role of ‘R ecorder of F olklore’ in the Association, of which I am the latest in a long line. I make no apologies for drawing extensively from these records in certain chapters— this is probably the most valuable collection of folklore that the county holds to this day, and it is thus with the Devonshire Association that we begin.

The Devonshire Association The Devonshire Association was founded in 1862 by t he self-trained geologist and educator William P engelly, F R S. Although born in C ornwall, P engelly is more associated with Devon thanks to his archaeological excavations in the county, especially those at Kent’s C avern near Torquay which led to his providing 1 irrefutable evidence that early humans lived alongside extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth. P engelly first came up with the idea of forming a society dedicated to the arts and sciences in Devon while walking along Millbay R oad in P lymouth with two friends— C harles Spence B ate and R everend W. Harpley. His thinking was to model the organization after the B ritish Association for the Advancement of Science (founded in 1831 and now known simply as the B ritish Science Association). At first, those to whom he suggested the idea were rather sceptical about its success. Zoologist Spence Bate, for example, wrote to Pengelly in April of 1862:

My dear Pengelly.—The scheme had better vegetate a little longer. I see nothing but failure shining brightly. You can call the meeting, if you like, for Plymouth at two or three o’clock, but I fear the Devonshire Association will be made up of Plymouth members, and what a farce it would be to have our first meeting in Exeter and no Exeter men there. It is your baby, and my advice is that you nurse it still a little. But whenever it is ready to be 2 weaned, I shall be happy to assist you in getting it to run.

As it happened, the first meeting, which took place in E xeter later that same year, was a resounding success. The Association’s original statement of objective was laid out as follows: ‘To give a stronger impuls e and a more systematic direction to scientific enquiry, to promote the intercourse of those who culti vate science, literature and art in different parts of D evonshire, with one another and with others; and to obtain a more general attention to the objects of science, 3 especially in relation to this County.’ The first president of this fledgling group, Sir Jo hn B owring, would also write on aspects of folklore, although not without some social commentary, as w e saw in the Introduction. It was in 1876 that the first report of the F olklore C ommittee was read out, at that year’s annual meeting at Ashburton, by R ichard John King. Many of the subsequent Recorders of Folklore for the Devonshire Association would figure large in the collecting of material across the county.

Key Folklore Collectors While not exhaustive, this chapter records those with a significant part to play in the collecting and preservation of folklore material in the county of Devon. To avoid any speculation on their relative importance, they are simply listed in chronological order by birth year.