From the Loch Ness Monster to the Grindylow, our guide looks at infamous British myths and the legends and folklore tales, plus the best sites to visit in the UK that have inspired these spooky stories – if you dare! Since prehistory, when we first started telling stories to one another, we have paid close attention to those locations that our tales have populated with monsters and supernatural presences. There has been a recent resurgence in their creation lead by Minnie Lambeth in the 1950s and 1960s through her book A Golden Dolly: The Art, Mystery, and History of Corn Dollies. She conjectured that they may in some way have been connected to a Romano-British deity venerated in the area when it was still part of the province of Britannia, and that this presence was a guardian of some form. Numerous local sightings of a very large black cat are believed in some quarters to be less a spectral feline and more a very-real panther or puma, possibly a zoo escapee or illegal release.

Snippets of British history are highlighted in the closing section and detailed in a way that is interesting and easy to understand. A sculpture of the mythical Green Man on the Church of St Mary and St David, Kilpeck Poor little birdie teased, by the 19th-century English illustrator Richard Doyle. The scholarly, monocle wearing second son of a Duke, who solves bizarre murders ably assisted by his manservant Bunter might seem an anomaly among the Wallenders and Rebus's of today's detective fiction but against unlikely odds Lord Peter Wimsey, created by Dorothy L Sayers, continues to delight readers. The Robin Hood story has all the ingredients of an excellent legend: a dashing outlaw, clad in green and skilled in archery and sword-fighting, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, with a group of ‘Merry Men’ in tow (including a fat monk, Friar Tuck) and a forest hideout (Sherwood Forest); a beautiful maiden (Maid Marion); a dastardly sheriff (the Sheriff of Nottingham); a beloved king (Richard the Lionheart) and his conniving younger brother (Prince John). If I had to take just one book - just one - to a desert island, well, screw Shakespeare and beggar the Bible, I'd take this.The story of Robin Hood is perhaps best viewed in light of the fact that he was a figure who stood up for the downtrodden: the reigning monarch was seen as tyrannical, using the law for his own end. In the introduction to Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain, we encounter the spine-tingling account of Dr Anne Ross’s encounter with an evil presence – half-human, half-animal – that is said to have entered her house along with two mysterious crudely-worked stone heads found near to Hadrian’s Wall. The folk horror of the ‘70s, in which traditions became threats and hedge-row spirits became devils, was largely a regressive, religious response to this movement.

These are figures drawn into the countryside by digging into the ground and sometimes filling it in with a mineral of a contrasting colour. My great-grandfather claimed that he had been chased through Windsor Great Forest by Herne the Hunter, who gets a whole double page spread to himself. Corn dollies are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before the First World War. The story goes that Beowulf slays Grendel, a monster who has tormented the hall of Hrothgar King of the Danes for twelve years. The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends, from Spring-heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys.Both described a humped creature with a long neck, small head and large body, and the motorcyclist – a vet – described it as a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur.

First of all I will have to admit I have been reading this book off and on for many years - this is one of those books you cannot read from cover to cover in one sitting or even many sittings I just think there is too much to take in. It often appears during electrical storms, such as the one that struck both the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh on the same day and at the exact same moment in August 1577, leaving scorched claw marks on the church door at Blythburgh, at least two fatalities and a feeling of deep dread.It is a book that provides endless stimulus to the imagination, particularly for the author who happens to be seeking to inject a local and authentic air into novels or shorter tales that possess a hint of the uncanny or the supernatural. We visited artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins and digital experts Gravitywell to reveal how traditional craftsmanship and modern technology were brought together to create the map of myth, legend and folklore.

Pendle Hill in Lancashire is a place surrounded by myths and legend, stories of the Pendle witches draw thousands of pagans to the hill every year. Some of the more compelling sightings have been shown to be hoaxes, and many other explanations for sightings have been put forward, such as wave formations and floating logs being mistakenly identified, and similarly mundane ideas. Paradoxical to English values of strict adherence to the law and honour, Robin Hood was glorified in ballads and stories for his banishment from society. Oddly, all but one of the dozen or so eyewitnesses of the Owlman have been girls or young women, most under 16. Keen walkers can brave the trail left behind by the Pendle witches through the beautifully sombre Lancashire countryside of the Pendle hills to their site of execution.Cunning folk was a term used to refer to male and female healers, magicians, conjurers, fortune-tellers, potion-makers, exorcists, or thieves.