Hello, and welcome to the first letter from Domestic Folklore.

I started Domestic Folklore because I wanted somewhere to collect the things I find myself endlessly interested in: old customs and superstitions, objects with stories attached to them, the changing seasons, old houses and the marks we leave on them, and the little rituals that somehow survive in ordinary life.

I’ve always been a collector of these things, although not necessarily in the organised sense. A fortune-telling cup inherited from my mum. A memory of a corn dolly hanging in my great gran’s flat. Stories attached to stones and places I pass all the time. The strange little traditions we carry around with us without always knowing where they came from.

Domestic Folklore is somewhere to put them.

And these letters are going to be an extension of that — occasional notes when I’ve found, made, researched or remembered something worth sharing. There won’t be a relentless email schedule or a carefully planned content calendar. I’d rather write when I actually have something to say.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about corn dollies

My great gran lived in a little ground-floor flat in Cardiff. I remember the enormous teapot in its knitted cosy, her old manual carpet sweeper, and a small garden where a peg dolly would sometimes hang from the washing line.

And I remember her corn dolly.

I recently tried making one of my own, which sent me down a rabbit hole into the old harvest traditions surrounding them: the last sheaf of corn, the spirit of the crop, Welsh harvest customs, and the many strange and beautiful forms these little figures have taken.

Read: The Corn Dolly — harvest, memory and an old tradition → https://domesticfolklore.co.uk/little-magics/the-corn-dolly

Elsewhere in Domestic Folklore

There are already a few other things tucked away on the site.

I’ve written about the Cup of Knowledge, a fortune-telling teacup that belonged to my mum, and the Victorian enthusiasm for finding your future at the bottom of a cup.

There are little magics from the Cotswolds, including the Rollright Stones, midsummer customs and the wonderfully simple business of throwing an apple peel over your shoulder to discover the initial of your future love.

And, slightly closer to home, I’ve been turning my attic from a very beige room into something that feels rather more like climbing the stairs into my head — complete with a hand-painted night sky and an old protective mark recreated on one of the beams.

Come and have a wander around Domestic Folklore → www.domesticfolklore.co.uk

✦

I’m not entirely sure yet what will turn up in the next letter.

That is, I think, rather the point.

Lucy x

Domestic Folklore
Field notes on old customs, curious objects & small magics.