Fairies, Folklore and Forteana

SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF

ASELECTION OFWONDERS INCLUDES LEVITATING STONESANDASH TREES GROWING APPLES

FIRST FORTEANA?

When did fortean research in Britain begin, if by ‘fortean’ we mean a critical interest in anomalies?

It would certainly be a mistake to point to Charles Fort or even some of his Victorian predecessors as the first to write about the impossible. Already in the mid-late 1600s John Aubrey was collecting and, crucially, assessing information that would fit comfortably in

Fortean Times in 2018; in fact, I have no doubt that if Aubrey were alive today he would be a contributor. Then there are a number of interesting mediæval writers. Gerald of Wales and William of Newburgh both lived in the 12th century and both included fortean phenomena in their works with pointed asides.

However, the absolutely earliest fortean find I have turned up appears in a Welsh text, the

Historia Brittonum. The Historia is dated convincingly to 829-830, but is made up of a selection of material, some of which may be considerably older. (The author of this miscellany is sometimes erroneously called ‘Nennius’.)

In many recensions of the Historia there is included a selection of wonders, 14 marvels to be found in the west of Britain, which includes levitating stones and ash trees growing apples. Among these is a reference to the Licat Amr, a stone tumulus that changes its dimensions every day and that was to be found somewhere in Herefordshire (the Amr is probably the river Gamber).

In itself, this list of ‘marvels’ is not a work of forteana. The author is recounting traditions uncritically. However, in the case of the Tomb of Amr, the short account ends with a fascinating clause – which I would submit are the first fortean words in British history. They are, in Latin, et ego solus

probavi: “and I myself have tried it”.

In other words, sometime in the early Middle Ages – and the ‘I’ here is usually, rightly or wrongly, understood to be the compiler of the Historia – a Welsh man decided to take a tape measure to see if a tumulus had changed dimensions overnight. (Oh, to have been there!)

How sure can we be that this is the earliest fortean investigation in British history? Well, I am fairly certain – though I would love to be corrected – that it is the first recorded fortean investigation. But there can be no doubt that earlier records will have been kept, and were then dispersed and destroyed as history did its worst with sword, fire and flood. Somewhere in the inaccessible library of lost works there will be the records of a Romano-British squire who diligently wrote out his communications with knocking poltergeists, and the diary of a druid who jotted down fish falls. Simon Young’s new book Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies is out now from Gibson Square