Here is a book to enchant the imagination of all those who enjoy the storyteller’s art.
Have you ever wondered how the legends of Britain arose - the tales of Black Dogs and ‘screaming skulls’, bogeys and ‘bullbeggars’, giants and dragons, treasure-legends and phantom horsemen, wizards and ‘sleeping heroes’, omens and death-warnings?
For the first time the rich and colourful legends, folktales and traditions of Britain are set in the context of the individual locations from which they sprang, so that the reader can enjoy them in the way their original hearers did when they formed part of a living tradition. We see how the myths came into being, how- over generations - they changed in the telling, and how finally they came to form an important part of Britain’s heritage.
In drawing her material mainly from medieval chroniclers, 17th-century antiquaries and 19th- century folklore collectors, Jennifer Westwood closely relates the stories to the landscape and shows how legends arose to account for curious phenomena like the riven tomb at Tewin in Hertfordshire, striking natural features like the Wrekin, or particular place-names like Putney.
Legends were often a fusion of ancient mythology, folk memories of actual events, faulty assumptions and garbled facts. But however they arose, they provided-and continue to provide-a storehouse rich in association: and this book simultaneously reveals both the key to the treasure and the treasure itself.