The Folklore of Rural Craft: Telling the Bees and other Customs

Come along and hear this account of rural customs by folklorist Mark Norman.

Throughout the history of civilisation, traditional crafts have been passed down from hand to skilled hand.

Blacksmithing, brewing, beekeeping, baking, milling, spinning, knitting and weaving: these skills held societies together, and so too shaped their folklore and mythology.

Exploring the folklore connected with these rural crafts, this illustrated talk examines the customs, superstitions and stories woven into some of the world's oldest trades.

From the spinning of the Fates to the blacksmith's relationship with the devil, and the symbolism of John Barleycorn to a ritual to create bees from the corpse of a cow, these are the traditions upon which our modern world was built.

About the speaker:

Mark Norman is a folklore author and researcher based in Devon, in the South West of the UK. He is the creator and host of The Folklore Podcast, ranked in the top 1% of podcasts in its genre globally with over 1.5 million downloads since its launch.

As well as the book upon which this talk is based, Mark is also the author of Black Dog Folklore (Troy Books, 2015), Dark Folklore (The History Press, 2021) and the forthcoming Folklore of Devon for University of Exeter Press.

He is a council member of the Folklore Society and the Recorder of Folklore for the Devonshire Association.

This talk is part of our Fantasy February - Folklore and Customs Festival of talks to promote the large Folklore and Customs Collection held by Kensington Central Library.

Please note that this event will be delivered via a Zoom webinar.

All those who book will receive the LINK TO JOIN 48hrs before the event, and on the day of the event in an email from the library.