Gather ye round, all ye folktale-lovers, and hear the terribly interesting tale of your favourite comedy-historian-cum-folklorist’s summer holidays! Okay, so there was no grand British tour on the scale of Wales 2024 or Scotland 2025, but we’ve squeezed a few new sites into our Saxon travels this year!

We could easily also crowbar in our June journey to Stratford-on-Avon – Macbeth and King Leir being two rather familiar Shakespeare characters who are in Tales of Britain, but there’s far bigger HUGELY EXCITING news connected to that pilgrimage on the verge of being announced…

So in July we were camping out east on the Norfolk/Suffolk border – which meant, of course, we had to investigate the Black Shuck legends at Bungay and Blythburgh… Not that there’s a huge amount to go on there, besides the black dog on the town sign and a few black marks on a church door, but the experience of walking the streets of Bungay will inspire me to go back and make our version of ‘BLACK SHUCK’ that bit more true to the real town… 

Noticing the history of the local pub, it also made me wonder whether I’ve been wrong to not include anything on Dick Turpin in Tales of Britain – okay, so he was just another nasty piece of work, but perhaps I can write a tale that examines the subject of turning criminals into heroes…?

While in the area, I also took time to visit the church so kindly funded by The Pedlar of Swaffham, and then went for a wander through Wayland Woods, the site of ‘Babes In The Wood‘. I thought Birnam Wood’s commemoration of its folkloric and literary heritage was weak enough, but at least they had a sign mentioning Macbeth!

Admittedly, I never walked every path through Wayland, but couldn’t find a single attempt to mark the site as in any way culturally significant for visitors, which was a real disappointment. Someone let us know if we missed a monument to those two poor kids! Not even a couple of little wicker statues, or a sign? For shame, Norfolk.

We also spent the following day over the border at Sutton Hoo, which I tenuously include under the banner of ‘Beowulf’ in the Tals of Britain treasury, but to be honest, we had a lot more fun visiting the Dad’s Army museum in Thetford, which has at least the same historical value, and much more amusing pencils.

There was a great deal less to see of value to Tales of Britain down in Dorset, our next getaway locale in August, but I did at least manage to check out Batcombe, the village where Conjuring Minterne legendarily rode his flaming-hooved horse.

It was definitely the right place, tucked away in a very quiet country lane, but as ever, there wasn’t a single identifier of the folklore on display anywhere, and I couldn’t be sure if the historical John Minterne, said to be buried half in and half out of the church, was evidenced by any of the architecture. Plus, as is disgustingly usual with churches these days, the whole place was locked up, so there wasn’t a lot we could do to make the most of our visit… If it’s God’s house, surely he needs no locks or security system? He can just strike burglars down with lightning? Tchah.

… Anyway, despite that disappointment, we then zoomed up the road to this big daft exhibitionist, who crops up in our version of Jack The Giant Killer!

However, these holiday pilgrimages were all just the build up for me to a whole new form of live folklore event, as suggested by the mutation of the dear old Ludlow Fringe Festival into the brand new Ludlow History Festival! As a native Ludlovian and busy historian, it would have been unthinkable not to be a part of the first ever programme, and so I chose two of several subjects I could have covered – as the poster shows…

For once, I’m very glad to say, both historical lectures were completely sold out! Blackadder’s Britain was a laugh-packed blast, despite nearly losing my voice by the end, but beforehand, performing sans green cape to deliver The Folklore of British History was a particular thrill! This is not just because that show also went down very well, and I managed to sell a few copies of both ‘Tales’ and ‘Histories of Britain’… but just as I was setting up, the excellent Stanton of Castle Bookshop came across and casually whispered “Just so you don’t freak out if he comes in, you should know we have two seats reserved for Robert Plant!”

And in the great man strode, far too casually and off-duty for photo-taking to be a possibility – imagine if I could have got him to hold up a book and pose!? But at least he stayed to the very end of my lecture (which took in the origin stories of Princess Albina and Prince Brutus, before moving through the questions of historicity for Arthur and Robin Hood, and ending on the modern myth of Nessie) before melting away into the crowds.

Having this rock legend attend a Ludlow event wasn’t necessarily all that surprising as he’s as-good-as Lord of the Manor in South Shropshire, used to visit Ludlow all the time as a young lad, and is of course famously a folklore obsessive – but, that said, had I been a Led Zep fanboy in any way comparable to my Beatle discipledom, I’m not sure I’d have been able to get through the show!

I suppose I can’t expect anything similar to happen at the next Tales of Britain show, and perhaps one of Tears For Fears showing up wouldn’t have quite the same thrill, but there will be a special storytelling hour in Bath next month to celebrate the relaunch of the Bath Folk Festival – plus, Ludlow Castle Bookshop have invited me back to close the year with a fresh seasonal special as well! Maybe I’ll see you there! Maybe you’ll see *him* there?

Rock gods and normal folkies are all very welcome!

Happy autumn!