FEN FOLK, Hartlepool (2026)

24/12/2025

Merry Christmas 🍎

Keep an eye on the apple trees this Christmas… the fens say the sun makes them ambitious

12/12/2025

𝕾𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖑 𝖆𝖙 𝕮𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕬𝖇𝖇𝖊𝖞 👹

I could do a whole string of posts on Crowland Abbey (and lets face it, probably will), but the bit of folklore I heard most growing up was if you walked down these old decrepit steps (slide 2) backwards three times, you’d summon the devil. No idea who came up with that, but a tale’s a tale, isn’t it lads?

Lemme know if you’re local and if you have you heard this one!

08/12/2025

Alright guys, It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Been a bit quiet on here lately, turns out growing a baby eats your brain and your free time. But it has sent me nosing around all the old Fenland folklore about pregnancy and childbirth, and honestly… some of it is wild.

Case in point: if a baby was born still inside its caul, people believed it would never drown. Sailors would pay a premium to get their hands on that dried sack and even carried the dried caul around as a good-luck charm on ships. Delightfully weird, very watery, extremely on-brand for the Fens.

I’ll be back properly in the new year, and the zine will be wobbling back to life too. Thanks for sticking with me. 🌊🖤

22/02/2025

Co**se Coins™
Contact your local handywoman to find out more.

**secoin

22/02/2025

Co**se Coins™
Contact your local handywoman to find out more.

**secoin

14/02/2025

That first one sounds a bit spicy, doesn’t it? 🌶️

Before 1914, most East Anglian villages didn’t need an alarm clock on Valentine’s morning, the local kids had that covered.

At the crack of dawn, they’d be out knocking on doors and reciting rhymes in exchange for pennies and sweet treats. Imagine waking up to a chorus of enthusiastic (and slightly off-key) voices demanding cake.

Enid Porter recorded some of the verses they used—here are a few gems…

15/01/2025

A Plough Monday without Molly Dancing would have been like a Christmas without hearing Last Christmas by Wham!

I’ve been exploring the history of Plough Monday and Molly Dancing in the fens over on fenfolk.com, feel free to give it a read 💫

12/01/2025

Here’s a couple of snaps Straw Bear Festival. In the famous words of Gary Barlow ‘this is my idea of a very nice day out’

𝖂𝖍𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖆 𝕾𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖜 𝕭𝖊𝖆𝖗

Originally it was a type of the plough Monday celebration - I’m not sure if celebration is the right word to use but yesterday I heard someone greet their mate from across the pub with ‘HAPPY STRAW BEAR BABES’ which, for me, solidifies it as a celebration.

It’s thought that the straw bear festival was started by the struggling plough boys, who would dress up (probably with straw) and go door to door and perform as a way to earn money and gifts, such as beer, to***co and meats to help them through the harsh winter months. If a household didn’t offer up some kind of payment for the performance, their front strep would become a victim of the plough and get dug up - get that bag, boys

Today the Straw bear is led through the streets by the bear handler, and followed by a procession of all kinds of performers.

Apparently it’s lucky to wear a piece of straw from the bear - wish I managed to grab a piece now, just in case.

31/12/2024

HAPPY NYE LADS

Over in fenlands, New Year’s Day isn’t just about nursing a hangover and wondering where all the sausage rolls went. No, here it’s about bread, coal, and avoiding terrible omens like your life depends on it.

Step 1: First Footing
Your first visitor sets the tone for the year. Ideally, he’s a dark-haired man carrying bread (so you don’t starve), coal (so you don’t freeze), and salt (so you aren’t skint). Bonus points if he’s got a sprig of evergreen for longevity. But if he’s cross-eyed? That’s it. Year ruined. Slam the door and start over in 2026.

Step 2: Midnight Firewood Boy
Got a lad knocking on your door at midnight with an armful of firewood? That’s good luck, apparently. (Why firewood? Don’t ask. Lincolnshire logic.) Lead him through the house, out the back door, and tip him a couple of quid. It’s like a festive Deliveroo service for good fortune.

Step 3: The Coal & Coin Conundrum
Here’s a weird one: put coal and coins on your windowsill New Year’s Eve, then bring them in first thing on New Year’s Day. Supposedly guarantees warmth and money. Unless, of course, you’re robbed by magpies at dawn.

Step 4: No Carrying Out
Whatever you do, don’t carry anything out of your house before something’s been brought in. The old rhyme from Lincoln says it all:
“Take out then take in, bad luck will begin,
Take in then take out, good luck comes about.”
No chucking the recycling until you’ve brought in a sprig of holly or a rogue sock from the garden.

Step 5: Ban the Bills
Paying bills today? Don’t do it. Unless you fancy a year of letters from debt collectors and avoiding unknown numbers.

So there you have it: A Lincolnshire marshes guide to surviving January 1st without invoking ancient curses. Got any superstitions of your own? Drop them below, unless it’s bad luck to talk about them, of course.

21/12/2024

✨𝕸𝖚𝖒𝖕𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕯𝖆𝖞 ✨

On December 21st, St. Thomas’s Day, poorer folk, usually widows or older women, would go door to door asking for small handouts. This was called Mumping, Gooding or Thomassing, and in return, they’d hand over a sprig of holly or mistletoe, for good luck.

In some villages, the richer folk chipped into something called St. Thomas’s Dole, a charity pot to help people survive the harsh winter months. Mumping Day is mentioned since the 16th century but fizzles out by the 1930s.

Is it just me, or does the timing scream “ancient ritual vibes”? Winter Solstice is when people were really up against it, and survival wasn’t certain, especially for the poorest members of the community. Maybe this started as something much older and they stuck a saint’s name on it to make it sound legit?

What do you reckon? Was Mumping Day a 16th-century tradition, or does it have ancient roots hiding under a bit of Christian branding?

fenfolk

14/12/2024

GET YER SKATES ON

Did you know fen skating was once a winter staple in East Anglia? Back in the day, when the flooded fields froze over, locals strapped on skates (made of bone, wood and iron!) and turned the icy fens into their own Winter Wonderland.

(A frozen field is way more appealing to me than Hyde Park tbf)

It wasn’t just for fun either; fen skating started out practical. How else do you deliver eel traps or make it to the pub when the roads are rivers of ice? But then the competitive spirit took hold. By the 1800s, the fens were full of speed demons racing for mutton joints and cash prizes, with the likes of William ‘Turkey’ Smart becoming proper local legends.

Though rare frosts make it harder to skate naturally these days, the legacy of fen skating lives on as a quirky and chilly part of fenland heritage.

1) illustration by .folk
2) Turkey Smart and his rival Gutta Percha in 1861, Photograph courtesy of The Cambridgeshire Collection

30/11/2024

Ever heard of the Holbeach Gamesters? It’s one of my favourite fen tales, full of ghosts, devils, and eternal damnation 🃏

The story goes that in 1783, three card-obsessed lads, missing their recently deceased mate, decided to dig him up for one last game. They broke into All Saints Church, propped him up at the altar, and dealt him in.

But things didn’t stay lighthearted for long. Some versions say his co**se grinned at midnight. Others say demons burst through the floor, dragging the lot of them to Hell. And there’s even a version where the Devil himself turned up to shuffle the deck. Classic cautionary tale stuff: don’t drink too much, don’t mess with the dead, and maybe don’t play cards in a church.

What’s fascinating is the mix of fact and fiction—there was actually a real-life scandal involving some cheeky chancers and a churchyard in Holbeach. But how it grew into this gothic masterpiece of folklore is a tale in itself.

Want the full story? Check over to fenfolk.com for all the gory details and the different versions of this bizarre legend.

FEN FOLK

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