Dorset's premier website devoted to local folklore, customs, mysteries and the unexplained

The Dorsetarian

Sherborne Folklore and Ghosts
Folklore, Customs and Ghost Stories in Sherborneby Elisabeth Bletsoe Sherborne is a small market town in north-west Dorset; formerly a Saxon burgh. It evolved through the cloth, gloving and silk industries and boasts two castles, a Benedictine Abbey and the renowned public school for boys established since Edward VI. The town is embedded in varied countryside united by scarps of Jurassic ...

Well Dressing and Sacred Water
Well Dressing and Sacred Waterby Chris Tripp Water Worship - The Filly Loo Ceremony around the village pond, Ashmore. Water is the foundation of all life on Earth. Our bodies are mostly made up of it. A human being can survive many days without food in a hostile environment, but deprived of water for a much shorter period of time and our bodies quickly start to malfunc...

Folklore of William Barnes
The Folk-Lore of William BarnesBy John Symonds Udal I have been asked to write a short paper or article on "Dorsetshire Folk-Lore" for our "Year Book." But I feel some difficulty in doing so, for two reasons; first, because it is impossible in such a limited space to give any fair idea of what the folk-lore of the Dorset people consists; and, secondly, because I am myself just...

Some Dorset Superstitions
Some Dorset Superstitions By Hermann Lea In employing the term superstition, it is in the sense defined by Franz v. Schonthan : — Zwar nicht wissen — aber glauben Heisst ganz richtig — Aberglauben. (Not to know, but to believe; what else is it, strictly speaking, but superstition?) It is natural, no doubt, that superstition should decrease in the s...

Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy - A Dorset Novelist and Poet Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June, 1840, at Higher Bockhampton, a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford, some two and half miles east of Dorchester. The author's grandfather, Thomas Hardy (the first), settled in Bockhampton in 1801, in a house which his father had built for him. By trade he was a master mason but hi...

Easter Customs and Traditions
Easter Customs and Traditions By Robert Newland 'Easter Tide’ is the most important festival of the Christian year, symbolising the ‘Redemption of Man’ and the confirming of the fundamental belief in ‘Life Everlasting’. Easter holy week begins with ‘Palm Sunday’, which commemorates the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem before his tri...

Cerne Abbas
Cerne AbbasA Brief History of the Village with Local Legendsby Anon. Amid the rolling, grassy hills of the picturesque Dorset hinterland nestles a perfect gem of typical English villages - Cerne Abbas.Cerne, by its very geographical situation, might eventually have competed with Dorchester for the honour of being the county town, but all who love the unspoiled English countryside would not have...

Fossil Folklore
Sea Dragons, Fairy Loaves& Serpents of StoneFables & Fossils of Lyme Regis by Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker Dr. Karl Shuker and life-size megalodon jaws,Lyme Fossil Shop, Lyme Regis In July 2010, I visited Lyme Regis on Dorset’s south coast, a relatively small town but one that is to fossil enthusiasts what Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh-English border is to book love...

Skulls in Folklore
Skullsby Sabine Baring-Gould. In medieval churches, castles, and mansions where there is a parapet rising from the wall and obscuring a portion of the roof, this parapet is supported at intervals by corbels, that usually represent heads of either men or beasts, very frequently grotesque. These corbels are not of any great structural importance, though they add to architectural decoration. T...

Ghosts and Hauntings
Ghosts and Things that go Bump in the Night by David Kingston. The word Ghost is described in the Oxford dictionary as, "a person's spirit appearing after his or her death." But then what about the reports of horses galloping down the lanes on a dark night and other such apparitions? Why do certain countries, houses and places appear to have more than there fair share of Ghosts?Great Britai...

The Dorsetarian online journal

The Dorsetarian is an online journal featuring a selection of articles and stories on local folklore, mysteries and the unexplained submitted by visitors to this website.

So if you wish to contribute to this page an interesting article or story relevant to Dorset folklore, mysteries and the unexplained then e.mail The Dorsetarian.

N.B. The Dorsetarian will notify the authors of submissions about acceptance, possible alterations or rejection of the article.

Copyright terms: Persons wishing to photocopy or print out articles of Dorsetarian for their own personal use are free to do so. Those wishing to reproduce an article for any other purposes, please obtain permission from the individual authors of the article.

All text and articles featured are subject to the individual authors copyright

1 | 2 | 3 |

Maids, Moors, and Monsters : Published Saturday 27th March 2010
Maids, Moors, and Monsters The Folklore of Morris by Richard Freeman. Few people who have seen Morris men dancing on a village green or in a pub garden realise the complexity and antiquity of the dance they are witnessing. The pleasant spectacle has a history that stretches back tho...

Eric Frank Russell : Published Thursday 29th July 2010
Eric Frank Russell by Mark North. English Science Fiction writer and Forteanist Eric Frank Russell was born on 6th January 1905, Sandhurst, Surrey into a military family. He served with the RAF during World War II and worked briefly as an engineer before taking up writing full-time. Russell wrot...

Daisy Wheels : Published Sunday 28th February 2010
Daisy Wheels and a Ritual Landscape in Dorset. by Ric Kemp In the summer of 2009 I went for a walk across a 10 kilometres long prehistoric landscape feature called the Dorset Cursus, probably a ritual processional walk-way constructed earlier than Stonehenge, containing a solar alignment, or...

John Symonds Udal : Published Sunday 2nd January 2011
John Symonds Udal - A Dorset Folklorist by Mark North. To Dorset people of old, customs, superstitions and traditions were inextricably interwoven with nature, countryside and social history. This formula produced a wealth of folklore in this county and the first person to make an intense stud...

Christmas in Dorsetshire : Published Saturday 4th December 2010
Christmas in Dorsetshire by John Symonds Udal Imbued with the utilitarian spirit of our time, one is apt to overlook those strong feelings of genuine pleasure and innocent merriment with which our ancestors were wont to greet Christmas as it came upon them in its annual round. For m...

Halloween : Published Friday 21st October 2011
The Feast of the Dying SunThe Customs and Traditions of Halloween By Robert Newland Hallowe'en, otherwise known as All Hallows Eve, a time for fun and games, dressing up and ghost stories. Traditionally it was believed that malevolent spirits, witches and fairies were abroad on this night. (se...

Black Dogs - Part 1 : Published Sunday 28th March 2010
Spectre Dogs by Robert Chambers. Neither Brand in his Popular Antiquities, nor Sir Walter Scott in his Witchcraft and Demonology, mentions spectre-dogs as a peculiar class of apparitions, yet they seem to occupy a distinct branch of English mythology. They are supposed to exist in one form ...

St. Georges Day : Published Monday 19th April 2010
St. George's Day By Robert Newland. St. George's Day - The 23rd April is the day when England celebrates its gallant Patron Saint, - Saint George.George was a forth century Christian soldier from the province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. He is most famous for rescuing Princess Sabra from the c...

Lammas Tide : Published Thursday 29th July 2010
Lammas Tide & Harvest HomeThe Festival of the First Fruits by Robert Newland. The 1st August is the ancient festival of Lammas Tide, which traditionally is the start of the harvest calendar: - A time of giving thanks to mother nature for all her fruits and reaping what has been sown.The ...

Black Dogs - Part 2 : Published Sunday 28th March 2010
English Fairy and Other Folk Tales - Spectre Dogs by Edwin Sidney Hartland. Neither Brand in his Popular Antiquities, nor Sir Walter Scott in his Witchcraft and Demonology, mentions spectre-dogs [1] as a peculiar class of apparitions, yet they seem to occupy a distinct branch...

1 | 2 | 3 |