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Drake’s Drum is a snare drum that Sir Francis Drake took with him when he circumnavigated the world. Shortly before he died he ordered the drum to be taken to Buckland Abbey, where it still is today, and vowed that if England was ever in danger someone was to beat the drum and he would return to defend the country. According to legend it can be heard to beat at times when England is at war or significant national event takes place.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term “cunning man” or “cunning woman” was most widely used in southern England and the Midlands, as well as in Wales. Such people were also frequently known across England as “wizards”, “wise men” or “wise women”, or, in southern England and Wales, as “conjurers”. In Cornwall they were sometimes referred to as “pellars”, which some etymologists suggest originated from the term “expellers”, referring to the practice of expelling evil spirits. Folklorists often used the term “white witch”, though this was infrequently used amongst the ordinary folk as the term “witch” had general connotations of evil.
The American Folklore Society is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world. It was founded in 1888 by William Wells Newell, who stood at the center of a diverse group of university-based scholars, museum anthropologists, and men and women of letters and affairs. At present, almost half of its 2,200 members practice their work outside of higher education. In addition to professors, members include museum curators, librarians, arts administrators, freelance researchers, and others involved in the study and promotion of folklore and traditional culture. The Society is based at the Ohio State University and has an annual convention every October. The Society’s quarterly publication is the Journal of American Folklore. The American Folklore Society is a member organization in the American Council of Learned Societies.
Agnes of Glasgow (1760-1780) is a woman of American folklore, but nonetheless was in fact a real person.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Agnes followed her lover, Lt. Angus McPherson, who was a British Army officer, to America during the American Revolution. She stowed away on a ship bound from England to America, arriving in Charleston, South Carolina.
Before Christianisation, in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the “corn” (in modern American English, “corn” would be “grain”) lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless. J.G. Frazer devotes chapters in The Golden Bough to “Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe” (chs. 45-48) and adduces European folkloric examples collected in great abundance by W. Mannhardt.
According to English folklore, those born at certain hours could see ghosts. The crucial time was generally said to be midnight. In Irish folklore, those born in the chime hours would have the second sight.
A brownie/brounie or urisk (Lowland Scots) or brùnaidh, ùruisg, or gruagach (Scottish Gaelic) is a legendary kind of creature popular in folklore around Scotland and England (especially the north, though more commonly hobs have this role). It is the Scottish and Northern English counterpart of the Scandinavian tomte, the Slavic domovoi or the German Heinzelmännchen.
A black dog is the name given to a spectral being found primarily in the folklores of the British Isles. The black dog is essentially a nocturnal spectre, often said to be associated with the Devil, and its appearance was regarded as a portent of death. It is generally supposed to be larger than a physical dog, and often has large, glowing eyes.