Be Excellent To Each Other

An American friend asked me today if I knew any ye olde English folklore nemeses and/or heroes. Apart from Robin Hood the only other one I could think of is Spring Heeled Jack, mostly thanks to my old Gran being a mad old bat and frightening the bejsus out of small children by relating stories of his spring powered shenanigans, gawd bless her.

Does anyone know of any more?

only about the near mythical "computer boy" from about ten years ago. He was a legend at winding up teletext journalists.

One of the issues (apart from Robin Hood) is England has very little of its own mythos, the Arthurian legend is mainly French in origin and stuff like Wayland the Smith is Scandanavian. This was one of the reasons Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings et al to give England a legend of its own.

The only other thing I can think of is stuff like 'The Green Man'...but he's more of a symbol than an actual character.

lara croft

Wikipedia is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_folklore

Ernie The Psychotic Madman? (Get out!!! - Ed)

Purple Aki?

Purple Aki would have been a great modern choice, except they arrested him. At which point he went from the realms of folklore to the realms of weird people with peculiar fetishes.

How about Black Dogs, or what may possibly be their modern equivalent, Alien Big Cats?

And there's all the ghost stories.

And just about every town seems to have a story about a tunnel being discovered between LOCATION A (pub or castle, say) and LOCATION B (another pub or church, for example) and someone going down to investigate, only to disappear. Quite often the tunnel is small so they send down a small child with a drum attached to rope as no one else will fit. The drum beats keep coming for a while, then the rope suddenly go slack, the drum beats stop and no trace of the kid is ever found.

And there's green children of Woolpit.

Does the modern fear of the crying boy painting causing fires count?

And how about all the old fairy/faerie traditions?

The Green Men?

we had a Grey Lady story in the old Manor house attached to the college. But it seems this is a common name associated with 'ghost stories'

what about the white worm, that english isn't it? County Durham IIRC

Loch Ness monster, of course, though I think that's fairly recent. Lady Godiva? Does that count as folklore?

There were legends of a phantom black dog near where I grew up, as well as countless "regular" ghost stories. My father grew up in Cornwall, and it's swimming with faeries and knockers and Bolster the giant, not to mention "Darkie Day". I think it's just that much of our folklore is local and regional, rather than national.

No, the Green Man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man

So there's just the one of him? That's so sad. The poor lonely thing. What a horrible myth.

Sorry, the Lambton Worm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambton_Worm

He hangs out with the Pink Man on Fridays though.

That's just an unsubstantiated rumour.

Well his frond tastes funny on Saturday, that's all I'm saying.

Oh, I managed to add a relevant book to the article after seeing a "citation needed" thing. I feel special.

Thursday: Darkie Day
Friday: Bingo

Folk slut:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_Gig

Possible ancestors of mine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunky_Punk

Wow I've been lernt summat today, fanx folklore!

I'm bemused that 'The Sheela na Gig in modern culture' doesn't include a link to Goatse or any of the 'gape her ass/vagina' porn sites.

But wait! I just found out that End of an Era died on this very forum over 200 years ago!! SPOOK!!!

And welcome and stuff

I like that story. A lot!

Black dogs are Irish and Scottish folklore aren't they? The black dog is the Grim

By nana used to tell me all about it-I know loads about faery folk and such-but not english ones sadly

There are plenty of black dog stories from England, too.

Are there? I must investigate this! To the myth mobile!!

Yes, Black Shuk for instance is an English Folk Black Dog beastie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Shuck

You've never heard of the Black Dog of Uplyme? And you a Colyton lass? For shame!

Dogfix

Protestantism?

Dog of Uplyme is a sad story poor goggy! I'd never heard of that, for shame on me!

That other Black Dog is a bit evil like I wouldn't want to come across him.

I remember going across the Moors with my ex and getting really freaked out when we saw this huge black animal!! It shot off like lightening-we saw 3 dead sheep aswell, all of their insides were over the grass >.< oooooh

Thanks for the re-edumuncation gents!

There are some rather lovely legends surrounding Glamis Castle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_of_Glamis
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scot ... astle.html