Suffolk Fairylore

Description

From the Green Children of Woolpit to the tale of Tom Tit-Tot (Suffolk’s own version of
Rumpelstiltskin), the county of Suffolk is surprisingly rich in lore and legends about fairy
realms and hidden inhabitants. The county’s place-names and agricultural customs testify to
past belief in elves and fairies, beings that were still feared and held in awe by Suffolk people
until the twentieth century. Drawing on medieval chronicles, place-name studies, archaeology,
local newspapers and the collections of folklorists, Suffolk Fairylore (the first book to
explore a county’s fairy beliefs) offers a detailed account of what Suffolk people believed about
the ‘farisees’, and shows that Suffolk is as rich in fairylore as any English county. The book
includes a gazetteer of all the places in Suffolk historically associated with the fairies, as well
as appendices covering Suffolk’s medieval fairy narratives and the fairytales collected in the
county in the Victorian period.
Contents:
Foreword by Kirsty Hartsiotis; Introduction: in search of Suffolk’s fairies; The origins of
Suffolk’s fairies; Fairies in medieval Suffolk; Hidden fairies in early modern Suffolk; Fairy
belief in modern Suffolk; Epilogue: Suffolk’s new fairies; Bibliography; Index.