A note from Siofra
Hello Folklore Friends,
Well, tonight’s the night! We’ll be recording a podcast in front of a live audience with Laura Cannell at the Guildhall in Norwich as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. I was going to write this straight after the performance to let you all know how it went. But I know myself, and I know I’ll just want a bar of chocolate, a fizzy pop and a bit of time in a quiet room.
We’ve been busy bees preparing for tonight. Stacia wrote up our notes and we’ve put them into a booklet which we’ll be handing out for free. I also whipped up a special badge for the evening. If the are any left we’ll be sure to bring them along to our next event.
I’m sure Stacia and I will give you a full update on how things went very soon. We’ll be releasing the podcast on June 1.
Love
Siofra 💚
A note from Stacia
May is packed with folklore, marking as it does the first day of summer with Beltane, when ‘the fire of Bel’ was celebrated with bonfires to welcome the new season. May Day has been, through the ages, the most important day of the folklore year.
When I was at junior school in Costessey near Norwich, we spent many hours learning how to dance around the maypole, winding ribbons in intricate patterns (and bandaging ourselves up with them when we got the dance wrong).
May Day was BIG in Costessey.
I used to live just a few doors away from the old Falcon Inn at Old Costessey which, during the 19th century, was the centre of the Costessey Gyle ceremony which took place on May Day every year. It was the village’s very own interpretation of the Mayor’s Guild Day in Norwich, ‘gyle’ being the local pronunciation of ‘guild’. Even in my day (not in the 19th century, although being young in Costessey felt like living in the 1800s) there was a parade of floats, contests, entertainment, a feast and Snap Dragon was paraded through the streets. The last Gyle was held in 1983 and I dimly remember being on a float dressed as a baker and literally hurling bread rolls at people – I think so that they could catch them and eat them, but imagine such high jinks would now be outlawed.
This photo from 1887 shows the ‘election’ of a mock Mayor at The Falcon Inn on West End and Costessey’s very own Snap Dragon. In a mirroring of the celebrations in Norwich, the mock Mayor would be sworn into office with his officials with a huge amount of pomp and ceremony before setting off on a procession with their dragon and attendants.
In the late 1800s, there would be a breakfast feast at the Falcon and then a procession to Costessey Hall with flags, banners and musicians led by the Mayor, his officials and then his subjects. At the hall, formal speeches would be made and the ‘Mayor’ would receive his chain of office for the year. After a sumptuous dinner, the procession would reassemble and perambulate round the village with stops at the five public houses there on the way. Once back at The Falcon, there would be a dance and much drinking.
Norfolk Museums Service owns the Costessey Snap Dragon’s head, which is believed to be one of the original Norwich dragon heads, and you can see it at the Museum of Norwich. You can see him here
In this month’s newsletter, we look at the magical May lights of St Walstan’s Well, the folklore of bluebells, the phantom feast at Salthouse and reach ‘O’ in the NFS A to Z to meet another of Norfolk’s much-loved magical creatures.
Have a marvellous May,
Love Stacia X
The magical May lights of St Walstan’s Well
It is said that blue lights can be seen dancing like sprites around St Walstan’s Well in Bawburgh on May 30 on the exact moment of the Saint’s death.
At the age of 12, Walstan renounced his life of privilege and devoted his life to prayer and work, becoming a serf and working as a farm hand in Taverham. He gave everything he owned to the needy and his shoes to a poor man and worked hard for a living, wanting for nothing. One Friday, when he was scything in a field, an angel appeared, telling him: "Brother Walstan, on the third day from today you will enter paradise."
With the kind of Norfolk stoicism that makes our county great, Walstan went to church, made his confession, went back to work for a day and then on Monday instructed his master that his two white heifers were to pull his hearse wherever God ordained. He died later that day, on 30 May 1016, and those present witnessed a white dove flying from his mouth to heaven.
His hearse left Taverham, followed by his family and those who had heard his incredible story, and passed through Costessey where the bulls pulled the cart over a deep pool without sinking, and a spring appeared. It is said that the wheel marks from the cart can still be seen on the riverbed.
Near Bawburgh, another spring arose as the cortege passed which was later said to have the power to cure the infirm, and Walstan was laid to rest inside the village’s church with the Bishop and his monks in attendance: it is said the walls of the building opened to allow the cart and followers inside.
The cortege remained at Bawburgh for three days and Bishop Algar of Elmham officiated at the funeral and allowed the remains to be venerated as the relics of a saint. In the following years, Walstan’s final resting place became a site of pilgrimage from people who sought miracles and healing for themselves or the animals.
Bawburgh’s church was extended and later, Walstan’s bones were placed in a chapel on the north side of the church from which a sunken pathway led down a steep hill to the third well. Thousands of pilgrims visited the site, the most auspicious date of all being May 30, St Walstan’s Feast Day.
Eleven miracles were noted at Bawburgh, with one recorded in 1912 when moss from St Walstan’s Well was said to have restored a blind man’s sight. The veneration of the well ended with the Reformation, when St Walstan’s relics were destroyed, but from the 1850s onwards, pilgrimages returned and even today, services are held at the well close to the saint’s feast day.
Little is known of the blue dancing lights which are said to appear at the well on May 30, but perhaps it is a reminder of when pilgrims once decorated the site with flowers and lights.
The folklore of bluebells
A favourite with fairies, the violet glow of bluebells is one of May’s most magical spectacles. Norfolk boasts many ancient woodlands carpeted with bluebells and the flowers have held symbolic and magical meanings for many centuries. Sometimes known as fairy thimbles, their other folklore name: Dead Man’s Bells came from the superstitious belief that damaging bluebells would lead to death.
The Woodland Trust’s website writes “There are countless folklore tales surrounding bluebells, many of which involve dark fairy magic. Bluebell woods are believed to be intricately woven with fairy enchantments, used by these mischievous beings to trap humans.
“It is also said that if you hear a bluebell ring, you will be visited by a bad fairy, and will die not long after. If you are to pick a bluebell, many believe you will be led astray by fairies, wandering lost forevermore.
“In the language of flowers, the bluebell is a symbol of humility, constancy, gratitude and everlasting love. It is said that if you turn a bluebell flower inside-out without tearing it, you will win the one you love, and if you wear a wreath of bluebells you will only be able to speak the truth.”
In magic, the flowers can be placed in one’s pillowcase or dried and hung near the bedside and used in love spells by turning the petals inside out to ensure the return of your affections.
Bluebells also had a practical use. Their sap was used to bind books, glue the feathers on to arrows and their bulbs were crushed and used to starch ruffs and sleeves in the Elizabethan period.
The phantom feast at Salthouse
On the third Tuesday in May when the hedgerows froth with blossom and the Hare Moon casts Midsummer light over the land, a phantom feast takes place in Salthouse.
A ghostly procession snakes its way from the grassy slopes of the Norfolk village and sets up beside the mere at midnight and there, in the open air, a spectacular Roman banquet takes place.
May is the month of magic: fairies, Jack-in-the-Green, May Queens, corn women and enchanted dew, solstice, new life, Garland Day and Beltane. On May 15, the Romans celebrated the birthday of Mercury, the messenger and son of Zeus, who could travel at the speed of thought. The God of commerce, communication and travel, he was also the chief patron of thieves, messengers, travellers, tricksters and merchants.
Mercury was also the God of sleep who carried Morpheus’ dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans and who was also charged to take souls from this world to the next. The Romans are thought to have used Salthouse as a safe harbour from pirates who were unable to navigate the difficult, narrow approach from the open sea.
Roman bricks, pottery, coins and jewellery were found on Gramborough Hill in the village which has a name which is self-explanatory and harks back to the traditional process of salt manufacture from seawater.
Roman celebrations could be the scenes of outrageous gluttony. Emperors such as Claudius were renowned for their unappealing habit of eating and drinking excessively and then having servants tickle their throat with feathers to encourage them to disgorge the contents of their stomachs so they could start afresh.
Vitellius would feast four times a day, procuring exotic ingredients from across his empire to be the star ingredient in the dishes prepared for him, such as fried dormice and flamingo tongues, milk-fed snails and boiled sow’s wombs.
Norfolk’s phantom feast includes not only tables filled with food and tankards filled with wine, but also singing, dancing and small bonfires that illuminate the revellers as they celebrate.
And then, just as late spring eases into early summer, darkness eases into the lightest days of the year and Mercury leads those who gather in his name back to the otherworld, furnishing them with dreams aplenty to help them sleep for another year.
NFS A-Z: O is for ‘Oss

The ‘Obby ‘Oss is linked to May and traditions exist across the country: in Norfolk, we have the Ickeny, the Norwich Pagan Moot’s ‘oss.
Taking its name from a Norfolk dialect word for anything awkward or troublesome (particularly horses) the Ickeny comes out for rituals, particularly at Twelfth Night, when, according to the Moot: “He appears in his dark winter garb, embodying the dangerous and chaotic forces of Midwinter.
“Later in the year, He appears in His summer garb, bringing the blessing of his dynamic energy to our endeavours.”
The Moot continue: “The horse has always been important in Britain…it appears in many folk customs and processions. In Norwich, we have borrowed the idea of the ‘Oss from our friends in Cornwall. He may look scary, but He is a focus for the image of those untamed forces of Nature that we need to keep at bay. So He enters the circle we form on Mousehold Heath at Twelfth Night and our Champion drives Him out to gallop across the heath safely, leaving just enough of His energy for us to set about our tasks for the year.”
Find out more HERE
Well that was all wonderful reading first thing this morning! Thank you. As an Old Costessey girl myself I well remember the Costessey Guild/Gyle; hearing it spoken of more than actual attendance but somehow its presence imbued the whole place and the year through with a kind of ‘otherness’. Costessey was different, and I was oddly proud of living somewhere so strange and wild, set apart from the lives of my suburban classmates from the other side of Norwich as my brother and I stayed at our Thorpe St Andrew school (interestingly called St William’s) when I moved to Costessey at the age of 7. Having Costessey Brownie, Guide and church choir friends and (obviously) wandering around the woods on my own gave me full immersion in the Costessey experience.
Oh and of course here we are on the edge of St Walstan mythos as well - his name was spoken all the time when I was growing up and I remember searching the woods on Longwater Lane during a Guide hike, after someone said that one of Walstan’s magical springs was hidden in a puddle somewhere within its bounds.