Antiquarian folklore and legend
spoken directly from the pages of the past
listen to all episodes below
ABOUT THE PODCAST
One of the most useful and wondrous tools available in the world of folklore research and history writing is the library of books written by antiquarian writers in the 1800s. These collections are full of folklore, legends and general historical observations from a time when the writers were often collecting things first hand, out in the villages and countryside, recording the tales they heard in regional collections.
Most of their content, however, isn’t widely circulated, but they’re full of absolute gems, and so that’s where the idea for the podcast came from; finding an outlet for all of these oral histories, and a place where I can dive into them and share them with other like minded history fans. No filter, no revisionism. No need to tether a piece of folklore to 21st century themes. Just the folklore, as it was on the day it was written down in the 1800s.
The entries in each podcast are highlights pulled from the collection covered in that episode. Some passages are short and sparse, others far longer and much more detailed, that’s simply the way these books present themselves, but no matter how much we can fit into an episode, there’s always way, way more available in the book itself - some of these collections run to more than five hundred pages - so should you wish to, you can explore every book we cover yourself by using the links in the episode show notes here.
If you'd like to reach out about the show, you can use the contact form to pop a message over.
Thanks for listening!
Eli
Eli Lewis-Lycett is a folklorist and history writer, for more on his other work, click here.