In this book, first published in 1970, Ruth L. Tongue has collected a number of county folk tales recorded by her from childhood onwards, from old people, village children and farm round-the-fire sessions. Many of the beliefs embodied in the gipsy and witchcraft tales are still in practice today among the travelling people and locally ‘gifted’ healers. The tales reveal a good deal of fairy lore, some tree lore, including ghostly trees like Crooker, and the ‘uncanny’ Black Dog makes his appearance in more than one tale. The collection includes several of the long fireside tales which would be told on succeeding evenings on winter nights round the kitchen fire, and rhozzums from various localities.

Once upon a Milton Keynes ... Buckinghamshire is an ancient county of Roman forts and highwaymen, motorways and urban myth. These are the Buckinghamshire folk tales of past, present and future: old tales in new towns, and new stories from old legends. Look out for witches and dragons, mind all those roundabouts, and whatever you do – don't eat the stew.

Katharine Briggs made an indelible mark on the world of folklore with her compilation of the Dictionary of British Folktales in the English Languages, while her subsequent Dictionary of Fairies confirmed her already distinguished place among British Folklorists. Briggs's initial academic interest while at Oxford University was in seventeenth-century literature and the Civil War. Upon leaving Oxford she pursued amateur dramatics and worked for the Guide Movement, and during the Second World War she served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. It was here, perhaps, that her personality fully matured; among other activities she delighted her fellows with her remarkable gift for story-telling. After the war, her career as a folklorist began to blossom. As if to make up for lost time, she spent the last twenty years of her life writing and lecturing almost continually. As well as her books on folklore, she gained renown for her children's books Kate Crackernuts and Hobberdy Dick. She was responsible for revitalising the Folklore Society and as its President, she laid the foundations of the Society as it is today. Hilda Davidson's biography brings to life a remarkable woman whose combination of academic excellence and natural gift for narrative found her friends all over the world.

County Folk Lore is a collection of folk tales and legends from various regions of Great Britain. The book provides a fascinating insight into the customs, beliefs, and superstitions of rural communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Fairies have been revered and feared, sometimes simultaneously, throughout recorded history. This encyclopedia of concise entries, from the A-senee-ki-waku of northeastern North America to the Zips of Central America and Mexico, includes more than 2,500 individual beings and species of fairy and nature spirits from a wide range of mythologies and religions from all over the globe.