Five Books That Showcase the Fascinating Landscape of European Folklore

It has been nearly a decade since I first stumbled across a group of Druids performing their Spring Equinox ritual on Tower Hill in London, an experience that led me on a transformative journey to the heart of British folklore. Traveling to the far corners of Britain and many places in between, I witnessed and documented the remarkable folk traditions that continue to take place today, now thriving within contemporary Britain.

I have now brought this large body of work together for the first time in my debut book Folklore Rising which presents over two hundred paintings and photographs alongside my experiences on the frontline of the British folklore scene. I have compiled some of the fascinating books that have inspired me along the way; not only have these titles helped me to find my voice as an artist, but they have also been essential resources whilst conducting my research around folklore and ritual practices.

Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond by John Maizels

Shortly after finishing art college, I felt somewhat bewildered and a long way off from knowing what I wanted to paint and what my voice would be as an artist. There was a period that followed where I had fallen into a state of despair, ruminating and worrying all the time. One day I found myself lying on the floor, convinced that I was a fraud, that my future was a mess, that there was no hope for me and that I wasn’t a true artist—something I am sure I am not the first to have experienced. At this very low moment, I pulled a book out of my shelf that I had owned for some time but had never read called Raw Creation by John Maizels and opened it on the page, which happened to have pictures and the story of Ferdinand Cheval and his Ideal Palace.

It described how this rural French postman, whilst on one of his long and grueling postal rounds, had tripped up on an unusual looking stone that reminded him of a dream he had had twelve years before, in which he built a palace in his back garden. After tripping on this “stumbling block” he had actually started building his “Ideal Palace;” he eventually completed it in 1912 after spending 33 years building it. I was so inspired by this story that I decided to paint his portrait and from this went on to paint a series of 18 portraits depicting the lives of outsider artists. Through these biographies, I explored the creative impulse and the often therapeutic and healing nature that turns people to creation. Ever since that day I have never stopped painting and never found myself in a position where I didn’t know what to paint. I owe so much to this book, and it has been a constant source of inspiration to me for many years now. No other art book has had such a profound effect on me as an artist.

Wilder Mann: The Image of The Savage by Charles Freger

In this awe-inspiring book, Charles Freger travels across Europe, visiting nineteen countries in the process, documenting the weird and wonderful costumes of a wide array of living and breathing folk traditions—in many cases with origins lost to the midst of time. When I first stumbled upon the book, and I was confronted by a hairy yeti-like creature with an elongated head on the cover, I thought I was looking at some kind of artistic recreation of an ancient myth. But in fact, after flicking through page after page of beautifully composed photographs of some of the most remarkable costumes I have ever seen, such as Horned monsters, goat costumes, bears and bush like figures draped in foliage, I was amazed to discover that I was in fact looking at a culture that belonged to me.

These were European traditions that are still happening right now. In these remarkable, somewhat unnerving and uncanny images, where the photographer Freger places these folkloric figures within the landscapes in which gave birth to them, I was amazed how familiar it felt; it was as if it was some ancient DNA within had awoken within me, these hybrid figures acting as a levelling plane in which I was reminded that we are part of nature and nature is part of us. A life changing book that as undoubtedly been a huge inspiration on my work.

Hieronymus Bosch: The Complete Works by Stefan Fisher

I have spent hours on end reading about and looking at the biblical riddles and medieval anxieties in this epic, large format tome, spilling across the pages in a wide array of forms—from people dancing within eggs and foliage with owls perched on top, to naked figures devouring the forbidden fruits of the garden of Eden, and then demonic figures who are locked within hellscapes as the souls of sinners are devoured, impaled within the strings of a harp. Not only do they give us an insight into the minds of the people of the Middle Ages, but they also speak to us now; they are like an overspill of our collective dreams, consciousness, worries, desires, and repressions. The images are alien and yet familiar. As with the processional figures of folklore that are hybridized beings of man, plant and beast, in these paintings of Bosch we see similar figures that have an ability to explain the unexplainable, feelings within that remind us of the intertwined, interrelated nature of life itself and the great mysteries of the unknown that we all face as human beings.

Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain

This book has become an essential companion to me over the years, and it gives a beautiful insight into enduring myths and legends, and the sheer creativity that can be found within the regional culture of Britain. Packed full of local stories of old gods, mythical beings, haunted pubs, beasts, dragons, witches and standing stones, it is the ultimate handbook wherever you find yourself. These rich tales re-enchant the landscape all around you, bringing to life vivid pictures and the old stories that have long been told and kept alive generationally. The beautiful cover and depiction of the Dorset Ooser, a mysterious now-lost mask of British folklore, gives the book an immediately iconic significance, and as a nod to the inspiration that this book has had on me, I used my painting of a modern-day Dorset Ooser (created by Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk) for the cover of my book, Folklore Rising. At its essence, this wonderful book is a celebration of the oral storytelling traditions that run through the veins of the British Isles and it is an essential must for all readers intrigued by folklore, history and mythology.

William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books

As a child, walking through Bunhill Fields in London, I remember being intrigued by a gravestone with the name William Blake written upon it. After that, his name would keep following me around; I would sit on the steps of Blake House to eat my lunch whilst working in Carnaby Street, for instance, and I later found out that his original childhood home had once stood there, and he had had his first vision of God there at the age of seven. I have long studied his art and when I heard his name being called out by the Druids on Tower Hill, in which they credited him as being one of their chief Druids, I felt like serendipity had struck me once again and that it was time to read Blake properly.

It can be challenging, in a way, when you first start reading Blake; it seems like a different universe and it can take you a while to become fully immersed, but once you do, the gateways to an inner Jerusalem are presented, where he orders his readers to unshackle the conditioning that has been inflicted upon their minds by both society and themselves, so as to find delight and the divine within everything. For Blake, all things are holy, which I find to be a powerful message to live by in an age where we treat nature as nothing more than a resource to be exploited.

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