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Apple Tree Man
In English folklore, the Apple Tree Man is the name given to the spirit of the oldest apple tree in an orchard,Bane, Theresa (2013). ''Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology''. McFarland & Co. p. 33. . and in whom the fertility of the orchard is thought to reside. Briggs, Katharine (1976). ''An Encyclopedia of Fairies''. Pantheon Books. pp. 9–10. . Tales about the Apple Tree Man were collected by the folklorist Ruth Tongue in the cider-producing county of Somerset. In one story a man offers his last mug of mulled cider to the trees in his orchard on Christmas Eve (a reflection of the custom and ritual of apple wassailing). He is rewarded by the Apple Tree Man who reveals to him the location of buried gold, more than enough to pay his rent. Thomas, Taffy (2014). ''Midwinter Folk Tales''. The History Press. pp. 114–116. . In another tale a farm cat was curious to explore some fields that people avoided working because they were haunted by ghosts and witches. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Folklore
English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the English region's mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, and folktales. Its cultural history is rooted in Celtic, Christian, and Germanic folklore. During the Renaissance in the 16th century, England looked to more European texts to develop a national identity. English folklore has continued to differ according to region, although there are shared elements across the country. Its folktales include the traditional Robin Hood tales and the Brythonic-inspired Arthurian legend, and their stories often contained a moral imperative stemming from Christian values. The folktales, characters and creatures are often derived from aspects of English experience, such as topography, architecture, real people, or real events. History Before England was founded in the year 927, Wessex and its surrounding areas' cultures were transformed by the invasion of the Danish Kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Farm Cat
The farm cat, also known as a barn cat, is a domestic cat, usually of mixed breed, that lives primarily outdoors, in a feral or semi-feral condition on agricultural properties, usually sheltering in outbuildings. They eat assorted vermin such as rodents and other small animals that live in or around outbuildings and farm fields. The need for the farm cat may have been the original reason cats were domesticated, to keep rodents from consuming or contaminating grain crops stored for later human consumption. They are still commonly kept for their effectiveness at controlling undesired vermin found on farms, ranches, greenhouses, and even drug farms, which would otherwise eat or contaminate crops, especially grain or feed stocks. Farm cats hunt the initial rodent population, and their pheromones keep further rodents from filling the void. History Archeological evidence suggests that the earliest domestication of cats occurred about 7500 BC and was motivated by the human need to safe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trees In Mythology
Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many mythologies. Examples include the banyan and the sacred fig (''Ficus religiosa'') in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of Judaism and Christianity. In folk religion and folklore, trees are often said to be the homes of tree spirits. Germanic mythology as well as Celtic polytheism both appear to have involved cultic practice in sacred groves, especially grove of oak. The term ''druid'' itself possibly derives from the Celtic word for oak. The Egyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wish Tree
A wish tree is a tree, usually distinguished by species, location or appearance, which is used as an object of wishes and offerings. Such trees are identified as possessing a special religious or spiritual value. Postulants make votive offerings in hopes of having a wish granted, or a prayer answered, from a nature spirit, saint or goddess, depending on the local tradition. Practices Coin trees One form of votive offering is the token offering of a coin. Coin trees are found in parts of Scotland, Northern England, and Wales. Folklorist Ceri Houlbrook observed actions at a coin tree in Aira Force, Cumbria, noting that a succession of at least twelve families passed by the site and decided to hammer coins into it using a piece of limestone lying around; she commented that this custom appeared to offer "little variation: it is imitative, formulaic, homogeneous". In 2019 the National Trust for Scotland said 'For many years people have hammered coins into tree stumps and trunks as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vegetation Deity
A vegetation deity is a nature deity whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants. In nature worship, the deity can be a god or goddess with the ability to regenerate itself. A vegetation deity is often a fertility deity. The deity typically undergoes dismemberment (see ''sparagmos''), scattering, and reintegration, as narrated in a myth or reenacted by a religious ritual. The cyclical pattern is given theological significance on themes such as immortality, resurrection, and reincarnation. Vegetation myths have structural resemblances to certain creation myths in which parts of a primordial being's body generate aspects of the cosmos, such as the Norse myth of Ymir. In mythography of the 19th and early 20th century, as for example in ''The Golden Bough'' of J.G. Frazer, the figure is related to the "corn spirit", "corn" in this sense meaning grain in general. That triviality is giving the concept its tendency to turn in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Man
The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is made of, or completely surrounded by, leaves. The Green Man motif has many variations. Branches or vines may sprout from the mouth, nostrils, or other parts of the face, and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. Found in many cultures from many ages around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetation deities. Often used as decorative architectural ornaments, Green Men are frequently found in carvings on both secular and ecclesiastical buildings. "The Green Man" is also a popular name for English public houses, and various interpretations of the name appear on inn signs, which sometimes show a full figure rather than just the face. Some speculate that the mythology of the Green Man developed independently in the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple (symbolism)
Apples appear in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit. One of the problems identifying apples in religion, mythology and folktales is that as late as the 17th century, the word "apple" was used as a generic term for all (foreign) fruit other than berries, but including nuts. This term may even have extended to plant galls, as they were thought to be of plant origin (see oak apple). For instance, when tomatoes were introduced into Europe, they were called "love apples". In one Old English work, cucumbers are called ''eorþæppla'' (lit. "earth-apples'), just as in French, Dutch, Hebrew, Afrikaans, Persian and Swiss German as well as several other German dialects, the words for potatoes mean "earth-apples". In some languages, oranges are called "golden apples" or "Chinese apples". Datura is called "thorn-apple". Ethnobotanical and ethnomycological scholars such as R. Gordon Wasson, Carl Ruck and Clark Heinrich write that the mythological apple is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibb's Eve
Tibb's Eve refers to both a folk expression for a day which will never arrive, as well as a celebration held on 23 December originating in Newfoundland and Labrador known as Tipp's Eve. Origin of the phrase Saint Tibb (or Tib) is a character appearing in 17th-century English plays. The character is a loose-moraled woman and was used for comic relief. The word was also used to describe a "wanton" as in Epigrammist Richard Turner's "Nosce Te (Humours)" written in 1607: Folklorist Philip Hiscock notes: Tibb's Eve was a "non-time"; if something was said to happen on Tibb's Eve, it was unlikely it would ever happen. It appears circa 1785 in "A classical dictionary of the vulgar tongue" thusly: "Saint Tibb's Evening, the evening of the last day, or day of Judgement; he will pay you on St. Tibb's Eve, (Irish)." This usage, seen in English newspapers in the 1830s and American newspapers of the 1840s, is illustrated in this 1902 editorial: Similar phrases exist, such as 30 Februa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witches
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment. Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the supernat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in spiritism as a ''séance''. Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter or spectre, spirit, spook, wraith, demon, and ghoul. The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taffy Thomas
Taffy Thomas, MBE is a storyteller, based in Grasmere in the English Lake District. Biography In September 2009, Thomas accepted the honorary position of the UK's first Laureate for Storytelling, which was officially launched on 30 January 2010 at the British Library as part of a series of national events for National Storytelling Week, for a period of two years. Brian Patten, Michael Rosen, Pete Suchil Chand, Patsy Heap, Del Reid and Simon Thirsk are patrons and official guardians of the first laureate for storytelling. Thomas trained as a Literature and Drama teacher at Dudley College of Education, before teaching in Wolverhampton. While teaching, he also founded two companies to promote folk theatre and rural arts. Thomas fronted and performed in the ''Fabulous Salami Brothers'', the popular touring unit of ''Charivari'', while ''The Magic Lantern'' traveled Europe illustrating folk songs by use of shadow puppets. A stroke at the age of 36 brought another change in directi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ''Malus sieversii'', is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe and were brought to North America by European colonization of the Americas, European colonists. Apples have Religion, religious and mythology, mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse mythology, Norse, Greek mythology, Greek, and Christianity in Europe, European Christian tradition. Apples grown from seed tend to be very different from those of their parents, and the resultant fruit frequently lacks desired characteristics. Generally, apple cultivars are propagated by clonal grafting onto rootstocks. Apple trees grown without rootstocks tend to be larger and much slower to fruit after plantin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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