Warning From a Tiny Doppelganger – What Can We Learn from an Old Folktale?
Which parts of yourself are you burying?
I found an old folktale recently and it’s so peculiar that I’ve been puzzling over what it means and what it can teach me. Because I think you can approach folklore in two ways — searching for the deeper meaning, or accepting that there is such a thing as fairies, selkies and water monsters (I’m happy with either, to be honest).
The story is from rural Lancashire, where my roaming life recently took me. I was pet-sitting for two dogs in an old farmhouse surrounded by misty fields and meadows. There was just the right amount of drizzle, just the right amount of crisp air, and just the right amount of mellow, tentative sunshine to make it the ideal place to welcome in autumn.
And it was also the ideal setting to explore the folklore of the region, something that I like to do (here’s my post on strange Sussex tales). One story in particular caught my eye: the legend of the Penwortham Fairy Funeral. And that’s because it’s mad-as-a-box-of-boozy-badgers bizarre.
