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Rory Waterman

Devils in the Details: On Location with Folk Tales in England’s Forgotten County, by Rory Waterman

Devils in the Details: On Location with Folk Tales in England’s Forgotten County, by Rory Waterman

An examination of Lincolnshire's folklore, tracing how legends like Yallery Brown and the Lincoln Imp have evolved over time through storytelling, embellishment, and cultural memory

Lincolnshire often seems to be a forgotten county even though it is the second largest in England. It has no motorways, a sketchy rail network post-Beeching and is stereotyped as a place of flat agricultural land and cheap seaside holiday resorts. That is to ignore...

Gambling with the Dead

Gambling with the Dead

A grisly Lincolnshire folktale from Holbeach tells of the gambling antics of three drunken men in a churchyard, a story that passed into local legend as an enduring warning of sacrilege, remorse, and supernatural retribution.
Rory Waterman

In 1783 (or in some accounts 1793), three men were allegedly playing cards in the Chequers Inn, Holbeach, and talking about a friend who had recently died and who used to make up a foursome with them. They hatched a plan that must have seemed like a bloody good one...