Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Crafts

As featured in The New York Times...The hidden history and superstitions behind the crafts which are seeing a 21st-century resurgence\nThroughout the history of civilization, traditional crafts have been passed down from hand to skilled hand. Blacksmithing, brewing, beekeeping, baking, milling, spinning, knitting and weaving: these skills held societies together, and so too shaped their folklore and mythology.\nExploring the folklore connected with these rural crafts, Telling the Bees examines the customs, superstitions and stories woven into some of the world’s oldest trades. From the spinning of the Fates to the blacksmith’s relationship with the devil, and the symbolism of John Barleycorn to a ritual to create bees from the corpse of a cow – these are the traditions upon which our modern world was built.