LINCOLNSHIRE FOLKLORE BY ETHEK H. RUDKIN

LINCOLNSHIRE FOLKLORE BY ETHEL H. RUDKIN.  Originally published 1936, reprinted by Old Chapel Lane Books, Burgh le Marsh Lincs, 2003, 90 pages about 30 illlustrations. Mrs Rudkin began collecting folklore about 1930 and some of the beliefs which she encountered now seem very odd and remote to our present way of thinking, but one must remember that some of the people from whom she collected were in their 80s and so were remembering what was generally believed by the people of this remote part of the country as far back as the 1850s.  The main part of the the collection began life as a series of articles in the journal 'Folklore' and the type was kept up and a first edition of the book, 400 copies, was distributed by Beltons of Gainsborough. A new edition with an introduction by Dr John Widdowson was published by EP publishing in 1973. I had it reprinted again in 1987 but since then it has again been out of print.  In this edition I have added more photographs from Mrs Rudkin's collection and added footnotes quoting the interesting comparisons with Mrs Gutch & Mable Peacock's County Folklore, Lincs, of 1908 which again has been long out of print.

Mrs Rudkin's book contains beliefs about the weather, folk medicine, hauntings, calendar customs, stories connected with large stones and boulders, tales of witchcraft and an account of the Haxey Hood game celebrated on the isle of Axholme on the 6th of January. Some of the traditional cures for illnesses are not for the squeamish.