Cinderloo
(Dawley Riots)

Shropshire Folklore - Introduction

Shropshire Folklore Contents

This overview of the folklore of Shropshire is mainly based upon A Sheaf of Gleanings: Shropshire Folklore by Charlotte Sophia Burne. I learned of this book when thumbing through The English Folklorists (as one does). At that time I had no intention of producing this website but gradually the idea took hold and I was lucky enough to find a copy of the book through the uk.local.shropshire newsgroup.

There're a lot of things left unexplained in folklore - like why the devil should want to build a causeway at Acton Burnell. Or why he should believe that once the Stiperstones were buried, England would perish? But we forget that we live in 21st century where irrational beliefs are no more... except, they're not. Folklore is alive and well, suitably updated as the Urban Myth. Poodles in microwaves, dead grannies on the roof-rack, the cement-filled car. For an equally unlikely - yet widely believed stories - see www.snopes.com or the books of Jan Harold Brunvand.

I also found a copy of Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell's Old Shropshire Life for sale by a bookseller in Sacramento, CA, but it was already sold. Neither the bookseller nor I could understand how it turned up in Sacramento rather than in Shropshire. Eventually a copy turned up rather closer to home. As it turned out I wish I hadn't bothered. It's a collection of stories written in dialect and full of the moral earnestness of all bad Victorian writing. I've since seen copies at book-fairs and had to restrain myself from offering the opinion to a potential purchaser that it's crap. Particularly annoying is the habit of the author to refer to anyone with money as 'Quality'.

A subsequent hunt across the net and a favour from a bookseller friend who still has my video of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End procured the Reverend Charles Harthorne's Salopia Antiqua. This wasn't overly productive on the folklore but did pose the burning question about Mitchells' Fold - 'Whether this was ever when its most complete state an Ophite hierogram, must continue unknown to ourselves and succeeding ages'. And who hasn't wondered about that?

I thought I'd like to make the legends of Shropshire available to anyone who was interested - hence these pages. After a fair amount of deliberation (over at least 2 pints) upon how to organise the site, I've decided to organise it in the same manner as Charlotte Burne's book. Charlotte, writing in 1883, didn't have the benefit of hyperlinks but I've added these where they might prove useful.

Warning! I'm not a professional (nor even amateur) folklorist so please don't cite anything in these pages without a suitable caveat - if you do need to know the source for a particular story let me know and I'll do my best to help. Similarly, any corrections of fact or interpretation are welcome.