A note from Siofra
Hello folklore friends!
I’m writing this months little note with a slightly jet-lagged brain so I hope it makes sense. I’m just back from a brilliant adventure to New York with my sister (May Queen Crafts). We spent a week in the city and I think we managed to do all the classic touristy things. We didn’t particularly seek out anything folky or weird, but you know I’m always got half an eye out for the strange and unusual…
Ellis Island:
As those of you who listen to the podcast know, I don’t often pick up on spooky vibes. I’m a literal dead zone when it comes to the paranormal. But the was something odd about Ellis Island. I can’t put my finger on what it was, but when we went through the registry room and into the area where health checks took place and people were detained for further questioned, it felt weird. As we took the stairs down from the dormitories, Janine had a strong impression of a little girl in the corridor. I didn’t look into if the site was haunted before we went because I didn’t want to be influenced by what I’d read, but I will look into it now.
Trinity Church graveyard:
I’ve been to this graveyard before. It was the first place I’d seen American memento mori on gravestones. They are sooooo good. I also had a new appreciation of Hamilton family graves. I took about a million photos and Janine was very patient.
The Eclipse:
Well, it was magical. I think we got 90% totality in New York, and it was so special. We didn’t even know it was happening until about a week before we travelled so it was a real treat. We sat in Washington Square park for a couple of hours and watched the world go by, I charged a hagstone (a piece of flint) as the sun disappeared.
Now the holiday is over I’m straight back into research for out Norfolk & Norwich Festival event. Our next newsletter will come out just after the show so I’ll make sure I let you know how it went!
See you soon,
Siofra 💚
A note from Stacia
A short note from me this month, but a long newsletter, so you’ve probably got the better end of the stick. I have a real aversion to April Fool’s Day for many reasons: firstly, I am radically, cataclysmically allergic to practical jokes, secondly, I used to be forced to write ‘hilarious’ made-up stories for April 1 when I worked for a local newspaper. In my opinion, making someone feel bad or idiotic in order to entertain yourself is sociopathic and you’re one step away from becoming a serial killer. Actual factual.
Anyway, with that uptight rant over, let me introduce you to this month’s newsletter where we investigate the roots of April Fool’s Day (!), take a look at three of our favourite beasts, mourn the fact we don’t celebrate Spring-o-Ween, find out all about the cuckoo and meet King Gurgunt from his pied-à-terre underneath Norwich Castle.
Have a lovely April, love Stacia x
The Feast of Fools
Legend has it that April Fool’s Day’s roots are planted in Gotham in Nottinghamshire in the 13th century, although an even earlier festival was The Feast of Fools which was held in the 12th century.
The Feast of Fools was celebrated on January 1, initially in southern France but later across Europe. With the Lord of Misrule appointed on October 31, the feast marked the halfway point of their term, which lasted until Candlemas on February 2.
The Lord of Misrule caused mischief and encouraged feasting, excess and foolery, dressing in bells and ribbons and ensuring that Father Winter (later Father Christmas) had his wishes met throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas.
The Feast of Fools might involve parades, clergy swapping places with lay people, chaotic pranks and practical jokes, men dressing as women, bad behaviour in church, the singing of wanton songs and the wearing of elaborate masks. It was almost as if a brief social revolution was taking place, a subversive festival that turned society on its head.
The Catholic church officially banned the Feast of Fools in the 1400s, but the parties continued quietly for centuries.
When the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, which moved the New Year to January 1, those who failed to adapt and still celebrated New Year on April 1 instead of January 1 were dubbed ‘April Fools’.
In France today, the holiday is called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish, because schoolchildren tape a paper fish to a classmate’s back, and when he or she discovers it, they yell “April Fish!” In Scotland, the butt of an April Fool’s joke is called a gowk, or cuckoo.
In the tarot, the Fool embodies the energy of beginning a new adventure and walking towards the unknown and decisions which may, or may not, be foolish – we must channel the Fool or we would never take the risks that allow us to grow: “As I embark on this new path, my senses keen I need no map. My higher self will guide me true and the Fool brings luck to all I do…”
Three of our favourite…British Beasts
1. Nuckelavee: a skinless horse-like demon from Orcadian folklore which British folklorist Katharine Briggs called “the nastiest” of Scotland’s beasts. Its breath could wilt crops and sicken livestock. With the upper torso of a man, you could see black blood pumping through its yellow veins.
2. The Werewolf of Dogdyke: Lincolnshire, and some of the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire flatlands, have their own lycanthropic legend that lurks on the black fens. It is said that a Dogman prowls these parts of the country, half man half wolf, he often appears on four legs and then rears up to stand on two, sometimes chasing the terrified witness with bloodlust in his eyes.
3. Grindylows: A water-dwelling bogey, usually green in colour, with long sinewy arms and a penchant for drowning little children and then eating them. We all need a hobby.
Walpurgis Night – Spring-o-Ween
There are many rituals and ceremonies that the Norfolk Folklore Society feels should be brought to the UK, and specifically to our county: Walpurgis Night is one.
Walpurgis night, or Valborgsmässoafton, takes place on April 30 and dates back as far as the Middle Ages. It was once celebrated by merchants as the end of the financial year, but soon was adopted by farmers to mark the passing of spring into summer. Farmers would let their livestock graze late into the evening and lit bonfires to ward off any predators or evil spirits lurking in the shadows.
In most Central European and Scandinavian countries, Walpurgis night has more cultural currency than October 31 and is a chilly night of bright fires, witches’ Sabbaths and roaming demon dogs.
Superstition has it that on this magical night between April and May, the sky fills with cackling witches and wizards, devils and demons, ghosts and goblins and spectres and skeletons.
Said to be Satan’s last hurrah before May Day (Beltane), it is the last festival of darkness before a celebration which welcomes back light, warmth and life. The biggest celebration of all, it is said, takes place on the peak of the Harz mountains in Germany where all the witches from near and far meet to mourn the end of winter.
Walpurgis Night is so named as it takes place on the eve of the feast of Saint Walpurga, who was an 8th-century abbess. The origin of the festival can be traced back to an ancient pagan legend, which says that the devil Wotan married his beloved Freya on the Brocken on the night of April 30.
This myth found its way into the famous play Faust by legendary German poet Goethe, who, it seems, wrote this as a six-year-old boy: “Now to the Brocken the witches ride; the stubble is gold and the corn is green; There is the carnival crew to be seen, And Squire Urianus will come to preside. So over the valleys our company floats, with witches a-farting on stinking old goats.”
Under Christian influence Walpurgis Night became a festival to drive out evil spirits. On the Eve of 1st May, bells would toll and prayers would be said.
Walpurgis Night folklore
If you’d like to see who you’re going to marry, keep a linen threat near a statue of the Virgin Mary on Walpurgis night and at midnight, unravel it and recite the following: “thread, I pull thee, Walpurga I pray thee, that thou show to me what my husband’s to be like”. If the thread is strong or easily broken, soft or tightly woven, clean or stained, you could tell what your future spouse would be like. Little bit random
Love potions were said to be even MORE potent on the night of April 30
If you want to see witches on April 30, try these methods: put on your clothes inside-out and walk backwards and wear a wild radish round your neck
If you DON’T want to see witches, ring bells, bang drums, crack whips, beat pots, make a LOT of noise and ensure you protect your doorways to outdoors with three crosses each, preferably made of rowan or hawthorn wood
The curious cuckoo who arrives in April
“In April, Come he will. In May, He sings all day. In June, He changes his tune. In July, He prepares to fly. In August, Go he must.”
This mysterious bird is linked to a great deal of folklore, from weather to luck, the changing of the seasons to a personal roadmap for the year.
The cuckoo is said to sing from St Tiburtius’ Day – April 14 – to St John’s Day on June 24, and if you should hear the cuckoo sing on April 14, you should turn over all the money in your pockets, spit and not look down at the ground!
If you carry out this ritual and are standing on soft ground, it is said you will have good luck throughout the year, while if you are on hard ground, the cuckoo’s call heralds bad luck (if for no other reason that you need to clear up the spit from your floor).
In Norfolk, the folklore was even more specific: whatever you were doing at the point when you heard the first cuckoo call of the year would be how you would spend the majority of the next 12 months.
It also matters which ear you hear the cuckoo in first: right ear is good luck, left ear is bad luck as was hearing the call with an empty stomach.
Try not to be facing a graveyard when the call comes, or that’s where you may be resting within a year and make sure you’ve sown your oats and corn.
Our forebears often believed that the cuckoo would be followed by a cuckoo-storm, bad or unsettled weather. In the diary of author Tomás O’Crohan, he wroteof a conversation he heard in April 1919: “The harsh weather of cuckoo time is over, uncle,” said Séamas to Séamaisín. “It is, wisha,” Séamaisín replied, “and may it never return in full strength again. Many a man is sent to the Poorhouse by that self-same month and, if I dare mention it, to the madhouse too.”
And then, of course, there is the strangeness of the cuckoo’s breeding pattern. Female birds leave their eggs in the nests of other birds including the dunnock, hedge-sparrow and reed-warbler. These smaller birds then rear the cuckoo’s larger offspring with their own.
It is believed that the word ‘cuckold’, which refers to a man who is deceived by an adulterous wife and who possibly supports children that were not fathered by him, is derived from the word ‘cuckoo’.
NFS A-Z: N is for Norwich Castle
Norwich Castle isn’t lacking in ghostly stories, ransacking attempts or regal visits, but our story begins long before the castle came to be, when a mythical King (always the best kind) and the son of Bellinus, decided to settle in Norwich – quite literally, as it turned out.
King Gurgunt was so fond of Norwich that he built the Castle and established the city around it and when he was ready to take his last breath, he seated himself at a grand table deep underneath the castle mound – one of the largest man-made structures in Britain – and, alongside his silver, gold, jewels and treasures, fell into an eternal sleep.
It is said that, like King Arthur, King Gurgunt is ready to rise from his slumber in order to save Britain if she was in peril, and indeed it is said that when another regal visitor came to Norwich, he awoke to greet her – well, in a manner of speaking: it was an actor playing Gurgunt.
Queen Elizabeth I visited August 16 1578 and, in an account of the visit by Bernard Garter, it says the actor, attended by three henchmen and carrying his helmet, his shield and his staff, bowed before the Queen when she reached Harford Bridge and introduced himself as King Gurgunt.
The procession continued to Town Close, at which point the actor started to theatrically tell his story, but the heavens opened, the Queen was quickly led to shelter and the legend was never told.