Riassunto
Riassunto di Tradizioni, superstizioni e folklore
A chi è rivolto
Readers who enjoy local history, old customs and the stories behind everyday sayings. It suits anyone curious about Lancashire, about how myths travel between peoples, or about what our ancestors feared and hoped for.
Che cos’è questo libro
Charles Hardwick, a Preston antiquarian, published Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore in Manchester in 1872. He wrote it to show that the odd customs of Lancashire and northern England are very old. Bonfires on Hallowe'en, boggarts on the moors, witches on Pendle Hill and pins dropped in wells all, he says, share roots with beliefs found across Europe and in India.
His method is simple. He takes a custom he saw himself or heard from friends, such as a farmer burning a calf to beat a spell, or a landlady welcoming a dark-haired man on New Year's morning. Then he follows it back through the Vedas, the Greek myths, the Norse tales and the old English chroniclers. He leans on the scholars of his day, among them Max Müller, George Cox and Walter Kelly, who read many old stories as pictures of storm, sunlight and rain.
You get a tour of a whole year of folk life, from Yule to Midsummer, and then of witches, ghost hounds, giants and werewolves. You also get Hardwick's boyhood memories of Preston, and local tales that few other writers recorded. He knows his guesses are bold, and he says so. We begin with the earliest people of the north, and with what the names of their rivers may still tell us.
In questo riassunto
- 1Place names carry a buried Eastern pastFree
- 2Bonfires and need-fire descend from sun worship
- 3Dragons and worms are storm battles retold
- 4Christmas and New Year keep ancient habits alive
- 5Easter and May Day welcome the returning sun
- 6Witch trials show fear and fraud feeding belief
- 7Boggarts, fairies and birds carry old omens
- 8Ghost hunters, sleeping kings and giants share one source
- 9Wells and rods show how myths are read
Punto chiave 1 di 9
Place names carry a buried Eastern past
Hardwick opens with language. He explains that Sanskrit, the old tongue of India, is so close to Latin, Greek and the Germanic and Slavic languages that scholars now think all of them come from one source. The people who spoke it, called Aryans, are placed near the upper Oxus river. From there some went west into Europe and some south into India. The Celts and Teutons, the main stocks of the British, are two branches of that one family.
The oldest Sanskrit writings are the Vedas, hymns to gods of sun, fire, sky and rain. Indra hurls lightning, Agni is fire, and Soma is the drink of the gods that falls from the clouds. Hardwick argues that these gods are the early forms of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor. He also warns that guessing at word origins is risky, and he offers his own ideas as suggestions, not as settled facts.
Then he turns to the map. Roman altars in the north name gods such as Belatucadrus, and one was found at Ribchester on the Ribble. Ptolemy calls the Ribble estuary Belisama, and Hardwick reads this as the water of the god Bel. The Brigantes, who held the north, may take their name from an old word for hills. He also wonders whether the name echoes the Bhrigus, the Vedic beings who brew storms among the mountain clouds.
Other rivers get the same treatment. The Eden is linked with Idunn, the Norse goddess of youth, and with the swan maidens of Vedic myth. The Severn is tied to Varuna, a Vedic sky god, and the Dee to an old word for gods. Hardwick adds the Luck of Edenhall, a glass cup said to have been snatched from a fairy feast beside the Eden. He treats it as a faint memory of the cups of the gods.
What should you take from this? That a name on a map can hold a story older than any written English. Hardwick's chain of guesses is bold, and he admits it. But the picture is vivid. A Lancashire hillside under storm cloud is, to him, the same scene that Vedic singers once described, only with a different name.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Questions about Tradizioni, superstizioni e folklore
What is Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore about?
It collects the customs and beliefs of Lancashire and northern England, such as bonfires, witches, boggarts and wells. Charles Hardwick argues that they share roots with beliefs across Europe and India, and he explains each with stories, quotations and local memories.
Who was Charles Hardwick?
He was a nineteenth-century antiquarian from Preston in Lancashire, who died in 1889. He also wrote a History of Preston and Its Environs, and he dug at ancient sites near Preston and Over Darwen.
What does Aryan mean in this book?
Hardwick uses Aryan for the people who spoke the ancestor of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and the Celtic and Germanic tongues. He argues they carried their gods and stories west into Europe and south into India.
Is this a true account of folk customs?
The customs are real. Hardwick records ones he saw himself or had from friends, and he adds historical sources and trial records. He offers many suggestions.
Is Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore easy to follow?
The chapters are short and arranged by theme, such as Christmas, May Day, witchcraft and ghosts. Hardwick tells many lively anecdotes, from boggart pranks to treasure hunts, and he writes in a warm, plain voice.