Suffolk Fairylore

From the Green Children of Woolpit to the tale of Tom Tit-Tot (Suffolk's own version of Rumpelstiltskin), the county of Suffolk is surprisingly rich in lore and legends about fairy realms and hidden inhabitants. The county's place-names and agricultural customs testify to past belief in elves and fairies, beings that were still feared and held in awe by Suffolk people until the twentieth century. Drawing on medieval chronicles, place-name studies, archaeology, local newspapers and the collections of folklorists, Suffolk Fairylore (the first book to explore the county's fairy beliefs) offers a detailed account of what Suffolk people believed about the `farisees', and shows that Suffolk is as rich in fairylore as any English county. The book includes a gazeteer of all the places in Suffolk historically associated with the fairies, as well as appendices covering Suffolk's medieval fairy narratives and the fairytales collected in the county in the Victorian period.