X Close

Who cancelled English folklore? Britain is embarrassed by its heritage

At war with McDonaldsisation (JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP via Getty Images)

At war with McDonaldsisation (JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP via Getty Images)


November 23, 2022   4 mins

Sleeping Beauty. Cinderella. Puss-in-Boots. All names with which most of us are familiar. But in Britain, when it comes to our own folk tales, myths and legends, most are long forgotten. Few of us know the names of Woden, Herne the Hunter or Wayland the Smith, though their stories were once passed down through generations. Mention Jack-in-the-Green and you’ll be met with blank looks. In Scotland and Ireland there is Cuchulainn, and in Wales the Mabinogion. Children are more likely to know the deeds of Hercules or Achilles than Bladud or Belinus. It is as though a fog has descended, obscuring the stories that once made up the cultural scenery of these islands.

When we talk of folk tales, we are referring to the oral stories of common people. In the British Isles, a rich folkloric tradition emerged following waves of invasions by, among others, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. They are tales of dragonslayers, giants, and wizards, preserved in texts like Beowulf, Old English poetry and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. But over centuries, knowledge of them faded. Numerous reasons have been suggested for this, including the rise of Christianity, the Norman Conquest, Reformation, Interregnum, Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, capitalism, globalisation or merely the passage of time.

Or perhaps Britain has erased its folk tales in an attempt to forget its past. Folk law is the ethnography of peoples, holding memories of traditions, beliefs, and values whose existence may have long vanished. In Britain there appears to be some modern discomfort with folktales, tied as they often are to particular landscapes, people and nations. After the Second World War, Germanic folklore, which the Nazis had overtly employed as a tool to bolster their notion of an Aryan nation, fell out of fashion. It may be that ongoing discussions around British Empire and colonialism, and the sense that folk tales are too easily linked to a nationalistic nostalgia, have made them taboo once again. Or perhaps in a post-Brexit world, anything that sniffs of specifically British or English myths aligns too closely with a perceived backwardness, insularity, or prejudice.

But it is their very sense of place and ties to particular landscapes and peoples that ensure their continued relevance. In the face of global “McDonaldsisation” that flattens the diversity of cultural traditions into a sanitised monoculture of big brands and business suits, folk tales radically resist homogeneity. As Unesco’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage points out, globalisation gives rise to “grave threats of deterioration, disappearance and destruction” of heritage such as folklore. Folklore is a “mainspring of cultural diversity”, and its loss is tantamount to cultural destruction. A country ripped from its roots, with no sense of self, will fracture. It will leave people unmoored in an increasingly impersonal world. Brexit has been endlessly analysed as a reaction against globalisation by those angry at how their lives and cultural identities have been disregarded. Perhaps the vote was a desperate attempt to grasp something vital they felt was being lost. Folklore is one such vital anchor, connecting us with that past and each other.

Folk tales have refused to be banished entirely. Sporadic resurgences litter the 20th and 21st centuries, from the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett and Alan Garner, to the folk horror movement in films such as The Wickerman and Midsommar. Today a new generation of British writers is exploring the folk tradition: Neil Gaiman and A.S. Byatt have reimagined the Norse myths; Max Porter’s Lanny features an incarnation of a “Green Man” or woodwose; Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent revolves around superstitions of a legendary serpent; Zoe Gilbert’s Folk interweaves folk stories with the lives of the inhabitants of a remote island. All these centuries later, artists are discovering reasons to explore these ancient stories.

But why? Perhaps the first attraction of folk tales is that they are tales of wonder and magic. Folk tales, put simply, enchant. When the philosopher Max Weber spoke of the “disenchantment of the world”, he was talking of the dominance of scientific thinking, reason, and modernisation. Everything was, in theory, knowable. Superstition and other irrationalities would be banished. But folk tales, concerned as they are with the unexplainable, are the opposite of disenchantment. In Andrew Michael Hurley’s Starveacre the corpse of a hare can regrow muscle and skin and return from the dead. In Garner’s Booker-nominated Treacle Walker the arrival of a rag and bone man brings ancient rituals and second sight — an entire book, if you will, about rubbing at our dulled, disenchanted vision and revealing magic.

However, magic is often dismissed as a subject for children — not literary fiction. With the exception of genres such as magic realism, stories of magic are often seen as slightly shameful or embarrassing, unlike, say, a solid realist novel about contemporary issues. Today, many of the motifs and settings of folklore can be glimpsed in children’s literature: Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Perhaps no one has done more to cement the folk or fairy-tale as an art form for children than Walt Disney. But rarely has literary fiction been permitted the same licence. When authors do dabble in folklore, the response is often bafflement or snobbery. Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, set in an ancient Britain of monsters and dragons, was met with general bewilderment.

Yet there is clearly desire for these kinds of tales. “The fairy-story is really an adult genre, and one for which a starving audience exists,” as Tolkien put it. There is no better example than the continuing popularity of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, inspired by Old English and Norse literature, and more recently George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. These are not niche fantasy, children’s works, or guilty secrets, but mainstream, celebrated works of art. Perhaps those who scoff at magic and folk tales have “stopped short of true maturity”, which, according to WH Auden, consists of “a recovered sense of wonder”.

Fairy tales aren’t just about escapism, though. They can be political too. Many modern writers use folk tale characters and motifs to fight against a modernity that is destroying the planet and old ways of life. Now the forgotten figures of the past, the Green Man, giants and fairies, embodiments of the natural world, are resurrected and reimagined as defenders of the environment. In Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth’s state-of-the-nation play, a decaying olde England of druids and maypoles clings on even as the “civilising” modern world tries to sweep it away with clipboards and council edicts. That it has passed into near-legendary status since its premiere in 2009, with performances still selling out in 2022, is telling.

Clearly the old tales cannot be silenced. They cling on all these centuries later in new forms and new works as authors rediscover the rich traditions of this country. Perhaps one day, alongside Achilles and Hercules, Herne and Belinus and Wayland will take their rightful place in the pantheon of popular consciousness.


Isabella Bengoechea is Assistant News Editor at the i Newspaper


Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

28 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Karl Juhnke
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago

Globalist corps and governments of all persuasions are colonising Western Culture using similar tactics used to colonise the original inhabitants of Australia, USA and Canada for example. Destroy the family. Destroy the masculine. Destroy the stories. Destroy the sense of belonging to the land and culture.

J Cresswell
J Cresswell
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl Juhnke

“Destroy the masculine” I don’t think there’s any evidence of this. There is rightly a building up of the feminine but that is not a corollary.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  J Cresswell

But even the feminine is being destroyed. Let a thousand non-existant “genders” bloom.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  J Cresswell

But even the feminine is being destroyed. Let a thousand non-existant “genders” bloom.

J Cresswell
J Cresswell
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl Juhnke

“Destroy the masculine” I don’t think there’s any evidence of this. There is rightly a building up of the feminine but that is not a corollary.

Karl Juhnke
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago

Globalist corps and governments of all persuasions are colonising Western Culture using similar tactics used to colonise the original inhabitants of Australia, USA and Canada for example. Destroy the family. Destroy the masculine. Destroy the stories. Destroy the sense of belonging to the land and culture.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“Britain is embarrassed by its heritage”What’s with the “we” in this? To lose sight of your heritage is to render yourself defenceless. Blair and his Tory Party acolytes should be tossed into the river Thames.

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

They deserve to be dispatched in less cosy ways.

Richard Aston
Richard Aston
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonathan Story

Or in more imaginative ways that would draw a rousing applause from our ancient ancestors

Richard Aston
Richard Aston
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonathan Story

Or in more imaginative ways that would draw a rousing applause from our ancient ancestors

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

They deserve to be dispatched in less cosy ways.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“Britain is embarrassed by its heritage”What’s with the “we” in this? To lose sight of your heritage is to render yourself defenceless. Blair and his Tory Party acolytes should be tossed into the river Thames.

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

We don’t seem to talking about British folk tales here – more like English folk tales. The author keeps using both interchangeably but they are not the same.

I don’t think that Scotland have many but Wales and Ireland have plenty – not forgotten either.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris W
David Pollard
David Pollard
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Scotland certainly has a vast trove of folktales

David Pollard
David Pollard
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris W

Scotland certainly has a vast trove of folktales

Chris W
Chris W
1 year ago

We don’t seem to talking about British folk tales here – more like English folk tales. The author keeps using both interchangeably but they are not the same.

I don’t think that Scotland have many but Wales and Ireland have plenty – not forgotten either.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris W
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Haven’t Harry Potter & Co become the new folk heroes ?

Incidentally Ms Bengoechea if you think Britain/England is “embarrassed its heritage”, pop down to Lewes, East Sussex, next Bonfire night, and you will see that that is very far from the case.

I wouldn’t rely on what you have learnt in Quislington, Oxford or even Durham, sadly, all three are riddled with self- hating academics and the like, and are of very little merit

Kiti Misha
Kiti Misha
1 year ago

I don’t think it’s a matter of canceling a heritage as much as it’s the old difference between cities and countryside. Cities are havens for lost souls who get increasingly more lost the more they get submerged in the stress and chaos of modernity. True culture and heritage doesn’t survive in cities but in the regions that are inherently British, the countryside. In cities myths and fairytales survive only through the commercial industry’s turning old narratives in weak and diluted versions of their former selves.

Kiti Misha
Kiti Misha
1 year ago

I don’t think it’s a matter of canceling a heritage as much as it’s the old difference between cities and countryside. Cities are havens for lost souls who get increasingly more lost the more they get submerged in the stress and chaos of modernity. True culture and heritage doesn’t survive in cities but in the regions that are inherently British, the countryside. In cities myths and fairytales survive only through the commercial industry’s turning old narratives in weak and diluted versions of their former selves.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Haven’t Harry Potter & Co become the new folk heroes ?

Incidentally Ms Bengoechea if you think Britain/England is “embarrassed its heritage”, pop down to Lewes, East Sussex, next Bonfire night, and you will see that that is very far from the case.

I wouldn’t rely on what you have learnt in Quislington, Oxford or even Durham, sadly, all three are riddled with self- hating academics and the like, and are of very little merit

Caroline Watson
Caroline Watson
1 year ago

When I was a chorister in the Seventies, our ‘go-to’ resource for everyday services was the Oxford Book of Carols. Folk carols from Britain and across Europe collected by Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Not all were Christmas; there were Easter carols and harvest carols too, although I particularly remember the Yorkshire carol with the words, ‘Bring us out a mouldy cheese and some of your Christmas loaf’, which made total sense to us, as we’d grown up eating fruit cake with cheese.
Church choirs never seem to sing folk carols outside Christmas now, and the Oxford Book of Carols is too expensive for most of them to buy.

Caroline Watson
Caroline Watson
1 year ago

When I was a chorister in the Seventies, our ‘go-to’ resource for everyday services was the Oxford Book of Carols. Folk carols from Britain and across Europe collected by Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Not all were Christmas; there were Easter carols and harvest carols too, although I particularly remember the Yorkshire carol with the words, ‘Bring us out a mouldy cheese and some of your Christmas loaf’, which made total sense to us, as we’d grown up eating fruit cake with cheese.
Church choirs never seem to sing folk carols outside Christmas now, and the Oxford Book of Carols is too expensive for most of them to buy.

Clive Mitchell
Clive Mitchell
1 year ago

“Or perhaps in a post-Brexit world, anything that sniffs of specifically British or English myths aligns too closely with a perceived backwardness, insularity, or prejudice.”

How on earth can Brexit be shoehorned into this? Talk about contrived. The invisibility of English folk tales have been discussed for long before Brexit was a twinkle in Farages eye.

It’s part of what motivated Tolkien.

To much unsupported speculation. It’s almost as if the writer feels the need to pad out the article. Please write what is required for the point you are making, the rest is simply a waste of space.

Unless of course you’re be being paid by the word?

Last edited 1 year ago by Clive Mitchell
Clive Mitchell
Clive Mitchell
1 year ago

“Or perhaps in a post-Brexit world, anything that sniffs of specifically British or English myths aligns too closely with a perceived backwardness, insularity, or prejudice.”

How on earth can Brexit be shoehorned into this? Talk about contrived. The invisibility of English folk tales have been discussed for long before Brexit was a twinkle in Farages eye.

It’s part of what motivated Tolkien.

To much unsupported speculation. It’s almost as if the writer feels the need to pad out the article. Please write what is required for the point you are making, the rest is simply a waste of space.

Unless of course you’re be being paid by the word?

Last edited 1 year ago by Clive Mitchell
Ludwig van Earwig
Ludwig van Earwig
1 year ago

I’m not sure what the author’s talking about. The folk tales I grew up listening to included British/English stories like “Goldilocks and the 3 bears”, “Jack and the beanstalk”, and “The 3 little pigs”. Have those tales now been suppressed? The Goldilocks story is certainly well known outside the Anglosphere.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ludwig van Earwig
Karl Juhnke
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago

Replaced or bastardised.

Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis
1 year ago

Ah, yes ! But were the bears, bears of colour, or were they ‘white supremist’ polar bears ?

Andrew Wise
Andrew Wise
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Lewis

And Goldilocks was making imperialist advances on their safe spaces – she clearly needs to check her white privilege 🙂

Andrew Wise
Andrew Wise
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom Lewis

And Goldilocks was making imperialist advances on their safe spaces – she clearly needs to check her white privilege 🙂

Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
1 year ago

I think for a lot of young people their Folklore comes from Marvel and DC Comics and movies.

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago

I think the answer lies here:
“preserved in texts like Beowulf, Old English poetry and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae”
English folklore never had its Hans Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault. Nor for that matter did it have its Homer or Ovid. Or its Prose and Poetic Edda or its Arabian Nights. There was and is no major literary or popular account of England’s myths (and aside from Beowulf Old English poetry is not a rich source for folk tales).
The sources for the popular fairy tales/folk tales we are familiar with – whether Classical, Norse or mittel-European – are all literary accounts that were published in popular editions in the nineteenth century. English literature simply doesn’t have an equivalent.
This is not a result of modern ‘cancel culture’ (nineteenth children at the height of Britain’s imperial pomp were told stories deriving from translated French, Italian and German nursery tale compendiums not ‘native’ myths). It’s just an accident of England’s literary history.
This is illustrated by the one genuinely popular English story cycle – the Robin Hood tales – which are stories of the people which have received continuous popular literary treatment (in ballads and later storybooks) since the fifteenth century.

Last edited 1 year ago by Smalltime J
laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

Let’s not forget the tales of King Arthur and his knights. They’ve been a rich source of engaging stories for centuries. And many of them are haunted by a wonderful sense of the old magic; just beyond our comprehension.

Erik Hildinger
Erik Hildinger
1 year ago

Although this may seem a shameless commercial announcement (which, perhaps, it is) I used the Arthurian myths as the basis for an historical novel treating modern concerns about decadence, cultural survival and migration. Readers here might find it interesting.  
erikhildinger.com
Folk tales, it seems to me, both illustrate common human experience and, at the same time, incorporate a localism that gives a people much of their identity. I remember the masthead of a small newspaper I used to see in New Orleans years ago, which read “Localism is the only true route to culture.” I think that’s right.

Erik Hildinger
Erik Hildinger
1 year ago

Although this may seem a shameless commercial announcement (which, perhaps, it is) I used the Arthurian myths as the basis for an historical novel treating modern concerns about decadence, cultural survival and migration. Readers here might find it interesting.  
erikhildinger.com
Folk tales, it seems to me, both illustrate common human experience and, at the same time, incorporate a localism that gives a people much of their identity. I remember the masthead of a small newspaper I used to see in New Orleans years ago, which read “Localism is the only true route to culture.” I think that’s right.

Brendan Brooke-Hughes
Brendan Brooke-Hughes
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

There is a great collection of Welsh folk stories found in most book shops in Wales called the Mabinogion. It is the name given for the English translations of a set of eleven folk tales from Welsh. These stories are full of magic and all other things one expects from folk tales. The tales were first written down around 1400 AD but date from much earlier having been passed down orally.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

Let’s not forget the tales of King Arthur and his knights. They’ve been a rich source of engaging stories for centuries. And many of them are haunted by a wonderful sense of the old magic; just beyond our comprehension.

Brendan Brooke-Hughes
Brendan Brooke-Hughes
1 year ago
Reply to  Smalltime J

There is a great collection of Welsh folk stories found in most book shops in Wales called the Mabinogion. It is the name given for the English translations of a set of eleven folk tales from Welsh. These stories are full of magic and all other things one expects from folk tales. The tales were first written down around 1400 AD but date from much earlier having been passed down orally.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

I suspect there is an important distinction between fairy tales and folk tales. Sometimes fairy tales are based on folk tales (particularly from Germany) but they are reworked for children. Disneyfied as it were.
I remember as a child (in the middle of the last century!) reading an inherited book of cautionary tales from the Victorian era. They were quite a bit more bloodthirsty than today’s tales and sometimes ‘good’ did not triumph. I guess folk tales have been tamed and civilised via fairy tales, or forgotten because they are inappropriate for modern life.

Karl Juhnke
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago

Replaced or bastardised.

Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis
1 year ago

Ah, yes ! But were the bears, bears of colour, or were they ‘white supremist’ polar bears ?

Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
1 year ago

I think for a lot of young people their Folklore comes from Marvel and DC Comics and movies.

Smalltime J
Smalltime J
1 year ago

I think the answer lies here:
“preserved in texts like Beowulf, Old English poetry and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae”
English folklore never had its Hans Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault. Nor for that matter did it have its Homer or Ovid. Or its Prose and Poetic Edda or its Arabian Nights. There was and is no major literary or popular account of England’s myths (and aside from Beowulf Old English poetry is not a rich source for folk tales).
The sources for the popular fairy tales/folk tales we are familiar with – whether Classical, Norse or mittel-European – are all literary accounts that were published in popular editions in the nineteenth century. English literature simply doesn’t have an equivalent.
This is not a result of modern ‘cancel culture’ (nineteenth children at the height of Britain’s imperial pomp were told stories deriving from translated French, Italian and German nursery tale compendiums not ‘native’ myths). It’s just an accident of England’s literary history.
This is illustrated by the one genuinely popular English story cycle – the Robin Hood tales – which are stories of the people which have received continuous popular literary treatment (in ballads and later storybooks) since the fifteenth century.

Last edited 1 year ago by Smalltime J
AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

I suspect there is an important distinction between fairy tales and folk tales. Sometimes fairy tales are based on folk tales (particularly from Germany) but they are reworked for children. Disneyfied as it were.
I remember as a child (in the middle of the last century!) reading an inherited book of cautionary tales from the Victorian era. They were quite a bit more bloodthirsty than today’s tales and sometimes ‘good’ did not triumph. I guess folk tales have been tamed and civilised via fairy tales, or forgotten because they are inappropriate for modern life.

Ludwig van Earwig
Ludwig van Earwig
1 year ago

I’m not sure what the author’s talking about. The folk tales I grew up listening to included British/English stories like “Goldilocks and the 3 bears”, “Jack and the beanstalk”, and “The 3 little pigs”. Have those tales now been suppressed? The Goldilocks story is certainly well known outside the Anglosphere.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ludwig van Earwig
AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

But most of England is now farmed (or managed) or covered by cities. There is very little ‘wild’ country still remaining and myths and tales seem to require a ‘wild’ setting to gain traction. You need an ‘unknown’ to sanitise with heroes.
Ernie (the fastest milkman in the west) was a comedy song not an urban myth. Besides, there are fewer milkmen nowadays and milk floats are rarely pulled by horses. Perhaps urbanisation and the pace of change is explanation enough?

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

But most of England is now farmed (or managed) or covered by cities. There is very little ‘wild’ country still remaining and myths and tales seem to require a ‘wild’ setting to gain traction. You need an ‘unknown’ to sanitise with heroes.
Ernie (the fastest milkman in the west) was a comedy song not an urban myth. Besides, there are fewer milkmen nowadays and milk floats are rarely pulled by horses. Perhaps urbanisation and the pace of change is explanation enough?

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
1 year ago

Nobody cancelled it. It was swamped by pop.

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
1 year ago

Nobody cancelled it. It was swamped by pop.

Richard 0
Richard 0
1 year ago

Thank you. Interesting article. Buried Giant is a very good novel – has stayed with me since reading it a few years ago.

Richard 0
Richard 0
1 year ago

Thank you. Interesting article. Buried Giant is a very good novel – has stayed with me since reading it a few years ago.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Hodierna Juvenalia

Ecce academiae lucos coronatos turpite
Fatuis utilibus, caerulea coma ubique.
Valde pinguides, et semper torvae facies,
Dicentes in lingua quod lingua ipsa inanis.
Flent palam veterani culturorum bellorum, itaque
Virtutem demonstrantes fragilitatis ipsius sensus.
Quia queror in me maledictum de candore meo,
Etsi sum quoque nocens eodem modo, sed tamen
Quomodo harioli se nostri tyranni iniungant,
Evigilati hostes plebis dum quasi tribuni?

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Craven
Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Hodierna Juvenalia

Ecce academiae lucos coronatos turpite
Fatuis utilibus, caerulea coma ubique.
Valde pinguides, et semper torvae facies,
Dicentes in lingua quod lingua ipsa inanis.
Flent palam veterani culturorum bellorum, itaque
Virtutem demonstrantes fragilitatis ipsius sensus.
Quia queror in me maledictum de candore meo,
Etsi sum quoque nocens eodem modo, sed tamen
Quomodo harioli se nostri tyranni iniungant,
Evigilati hostes plebis dum quasi tribuni?

Last edited 1 year ago by Richard Craven
David Sims
David Sims
1 year ago

How would you classify Robin Hood? King Arthur?

David Sims
David Sims
1 year ago

How would you classify Robin Hood? King Arthur?

Peter Beech
Peter Beech
1 year ago

Brilliant piece. Thank you.