Some of the best known fairytales, such as Beauty and the Beast, are 4,000 years old

Folklore has always fascinated me. As a young girl, my parents taught me old traditions and customs. Those traditions and customs interest me as much now as they did then, from rituals surrounding important life events, to ancient cures and superstitions. I am enthralled by folklore and I spend hours researching it.

Many customs and traditions are connected to nature and animals. This makes sense as our ancestors would have spent more time outdoors than we do today. Some of my favourite folklore is to do with birds. There is one in particular that springs to mind. If you cut your hair, you should be careful to throw the discarded hair away, because if a bird finds it they might use the hair to build a nest. If this happens it could mean that you will have a headache for the rest of your life.

Another piece of bird-related folklore is that you should salute a lone magpie. There is even a rhyme to accompany it: ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy.’ Many of these superstitions were seen as warnings, to prevent people from doing things that might harm them. For example, you may have heard the superstition that says if you break a mirror then you will get seven years bad luck. However, breaking a mirror may cause the person an injury, so that makes sense.

The same goes for the superstition of walking under a ladder. You could knock someone off a ladder by walking under it, so it is best avoided. It really amazes me that so many of these ancient superstitions have stayed with us to this day. Even the most logical people would refuse to put a pair of new shoes on the table or open an umbrella indoors.

Regardless of whether you are superstitious or not, it is a very interesting part of our heritage.

I have noticed that there are slight variations in superstitions and traditions depending on where you live. If you live close to the coast you may know more superstitions, customs and folklore related to the sea.

One of my favourites pieces of sea folklore is the story of the Selkie, a shapeshifting creature. She becomes a woman when she removes her seal skin. However, without her seal skin she becomes trapped on the land.

Another piece of folklore related to the sea is well known to people living in Co Wexford. Legend says no boat should leave Wexford on St Martin’s Eve. According to folklore, on 10 November each year, St Martin rides across the waves on a white horse and anyone who sees him will not reach the shore alive. This piece of folklore was recorded in The School’s Collection, which was a project in the 1930s dedicated to preserving Irish folklore.

As an author, I love nothing more than sitting down by the fireside and sharing stories that I have heard over the years, stories steeped in superstition and folklore. Many of the stories contain faeries, shape-shifting hares, giants and ghosts. When I tell my stories, I don’t decide on the story I am going to tell until I meet my audience. It feels as though the story is choosing me. The story that I tell has to be the right one for the occasion.

Storytelling in this way gives me the freedom to allow the stories to develop. I might tell the same story to two different groups of people but there will always be slight variations. I allow my imagination to take over and for the story to grow wings and take flight.

Storytelling has always been an important part of bringing people together. It was a way of entertaining each other in days gone by, before we had television or the internet. People would travel for miles, from one village to the next, to hear a good tale. Some of the best known fairytales, such as Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin are over 4,000 years old.

They have stood the test of time – this is as much down to the skill of the storyteller as it is to the strength of the story itself. As time went by, people began to collect and record these precious fairytales. Some of the most well-known story collectors are German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. They collected stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. While we now think of these fairytales as being aimed at children, in their original form they weren’t suited for a younger audience. However, when the stories were published and illustrators responded to them, they were changed to become the versions that we know today. Stories are there for everyone to enjoy. They are universal and are part of our heritage. The best stories carry you along with them. They move swiftly from one scene to the next and there is deep wisdom at the heart of them. There is nothing better than listening to a story by a master storyteller. The best storytellers have you in the palm of their hand. You are hanging on their every word, and it is a magical experience.

The Spectacular Library of Magical Things by Caroline Busher is published by Poolbeg Press and available now