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This Hollow Land: Aspects of Norfolk Folklore
The author of the magisterial Norfolk Parish Treasures trilogy is back with a comprehensive and highly readable survey of Norfolk folklore, customs, legends and the like. The book is a highly illustrated 296 page paperback. Black Dog Books9780995479258
296 pages, Paperback
Published May 25, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 23, 2019
Take a short drive in any direction in Norfolk and you will run into ruins and pubs that have seemingly always existed. Take a long drive (and as any resident and reader of Lewis Carrol will tell you, it takes a long drive to get nowhere fast) and this site will be repeated.
In my hometown of Norwich, my daily commute takes me across cobbled streets (the backdrop to the new CJ Samson novel I have on my bookshelf), churches in different states of use and two cathedrals. It is an old city in an old country that I have always assumed (but never looked into before) must be littered with folktales.
It was an impulse buy (from my favorite local indie bookstore The Book Hive) that made me pick up this book. Part encyclopedia and part story collection that I leafed through over several months.
I wouldn’t recommend reading this book in one go, you can only be so excited by many nearly identical magic stones. Instead, It is a book to keep on your shelf and enjoy, most pages are illustrated and it is an imposing a4 size with glossy pages. It is worth taking trips to see some of the villages it mentions and to look through the index to see what is where. That witches were dunked near my home is a delight (for me - not for them) and I bored my friends with tales of imps and trees from the villages their families still live in.
It is also a book that proves that I was right. Norwich is magical, if only with enchanted stones.
In my hometown of Norwich, my daily commute takes me across cobbled streets (the backdrop to the new CJ Samson novel I have on my bookshelf), churches in different states of use and two cathedrals. It is an old city in an old country that I have always assumed (but never looked into before) must be littered with folktales.
It was an impulse buy (from my favorite local indie bookstore The Book Hive) that made me pick up this book. Part encyclopedia and part story collection that I leafed through over several months.
I wouldn’t recommend reading this book in one go, you can only be so excited by many nearly identical magic stones. Instead, It is a book to keep on your shelf and enjoy, most pages are illustrated and it is an imposing a4 size with glossy pages. It is worth taking trips to see some of the villages it mentions and to look through the index to see what is where. That witches were dunked near my home is a delight (for me - not for them) and I bored my friends with tales of imps and trees from the villages their families still live in.
It is also a book that proves that I was right. Norwich is magical, if only with enchanted stones.
February 22, 2024
Fantastic book. I learnt so many new to me interesting things. The research that must have been done to write this book is incredible. My only complaint, Sam Larner, lived on Bulmer Lane not Bulwer, this was written twice, so not a typo. Sam Larner is buried in the churchyard that my garden leads too, not too far from where Sam lived. The cottage he lived in just around the corner to where I live.
July 28, 2024
Cant wait to dip in and out of this when I revisit some of the places in my silly county/highlights the importance of pub culture
September 20, 2023
This is a great dip in/dip out book. Unfortunately I didn’t realise this when I started reading it straight through. It put me to sleep a couple times because there’s no through argument. There’s are eye-catching chapters like The Evil Eye and Protective Magic, but it’s really worth dipping in to the less promising looking ones. There’s one on towers which I really didn’t expect much from but he says:
‘A belief was that round towers were once antediluvian wells and that the surrounding soil had, over time, been worn away leaving them exposed. These flint structures were, as they story goes, later transformed into round towered churches by the addition of nave and chancel.’
Interesting enough, but he illustrates this with a photo of a well shaft sticking up out of the beach at Covehythe where the entire village has fallen into the sea. Just astonishing.
The whole book is particularly well illustrated. It’s big, almost coffee table sized with inline illustrations and huge inner margins sometimes with pictures running vertically.
Some of his sentences are confused and you’ll need to read them twice to work out what he means. It’s the kind of thing an editor would have caught if it weren’t self published, but no publisher would have spent as much money on production.
Two stars is unfair and would have been higher if I had managed to read it as intended.
‘A belief was that round towers were once antediluvian wells and that the surrounding soil had, over time, been worn away leaving them exposed. These flint structures were, as they story goes, later transformed into round towered churches by the addition of nave and chancel.’
Interesting enough, but he illustrates this with a photo of a well shaft sticking up out of the beach at Covehythe where the entire village has fallen into the sea. Just astonishing.
The whole book is particularly well illustrated. It’s big, almost coffee table sized with inline illustrations and huge inner margins sometimes with pictures running vertically.
Some of his sentences are confused and you’ll need to read them twice to work out what he means. It’s the kind of thing an editor would have caught if it weren’t self published, but no publisher would have spent as much money on production.
Two stars is unfair and would have been higher if I had managed to read it as intended.
October 29, 2023
Couldn't finish this, the work that was put in was good however the writing put me to sleep quicker than my nytol. I really wanted to enjoy this book, I was looking forward to reading it but sadly I just couldn't finish it.
Read
July 12, 2025Exactly what I was looking for :)
Lots of notes taken
Lots of notes taken
November 23, 2025
may be biased, but this book is the oneeee
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews