Folklore beliefs among soldiers

[knittinganddeath]

Can anyone refer me to sources about folklore beliefs among soldiers during the war? Creatures like brownies, Black Dogs, church grims, hobgoblins, nixies, etc. In particular I would like to know if they brought these ideas with them from home to the front and how (if at all) they manifested themselves.

For example, English folklore has a lot of bog spirits that like to drown unsuspecting passersby, which seems transferable to deaths in shell holes and mud in no man's land.

Thanks for any help!

[FROGSMILE]

1 hour ago, knittinganddeath said:

Can anyone refer me to sources about folklore beliefs among soldiers during the war? Creatures like brownies, Black Dogs, church grims, hobgoblins, nixies, etc. In particular I would like to know if they brought these ideas with them from home to the front and how (if at all) they manifested themselves.

For example, English folklore has a lot of bog spirits that like to drown unsuspecting passersby, which seems transferable to deaths in shell holes and mud in no man's land.

Thanks for any help!

The only examples I can give you relate to good luck symbols that have their origins in pagan practice if my memory serves me.  In that regard there are countless examples of photos showing British and Dominion wounded in hospital blue uniform wearing black cat brooches, straw dolls made from pipe cleaners, and occasionally horse shoe lapel pins.  
Conversely, I’ve not heard of, or read about any more sinister phenomenon, like goblins, trolls, or other devilish creatures.  In that regard I’ve gained the impression that there was a general preference in British and associated culture for the hopeful rather than the doom-laden.  I will be very interested to learn of any contrary accounts and indications that forum members might be able to offer. 

Edited 9 November , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[TEW]

I spotted a 'Boggart' trench, lane or avenue via Mcmaster Maps. There are two hits for that name and one for Goblin Bank.

The Boggart intrigued me as I'd only recently heard the term via a Somerset connection and the map showed a number of Somerset locations in the vicinity of Boggart trench.

Doesn't mean anyone believed in Boggarts or that it was so named to appease the Boggart. A touch of humour seems more likely than to attach a malevolent beings' name to a section of hazardous trench.

TEW

[Interested]

 

On the outskirts of Manchester you'll find Boggart Hole Clough, a well-known beauty spot.  I don't suppose any Lancs infantry were in the area when the trenches were named?

[charlie2]

I‘m not sure its what you are looking for as I haven‘t read the book, but you might like to have a look at „Stecowa - Phantastisches und  Übersinnliches aus dem Weltkrieg“ https://archive.org/details/Stecowa/mode/2up 

Fact, faction or fiction ?
Charlie

[knittinganddeath]

Thanks everyone for your comments!

@FROGSMILE I actually hadn't thought about good omens, and your point about positive thinking is well-taken.

@charlie2 Thank you for the link, I'll check it out. The title is very promising, at least.

 

2 hours ago, TEW said:

The Boggart intrigued me as I'd only recently heard the term

Not a fan of Harry Potter, I presume? ;-) Conversely, I didn't realise until recently that JK Rowling hadn't invented boggarts wholesale for the series, and that they were in fact part of English folk traditions.

[Moonraker]

Crazy Mary's Hole, Suffolk

Paranormal experiences or stories from the Somme

At about 8pm on early January 1919 Gordon Wilkins and another soldier were returning to camp after walking to "Figeldean" (sic) church (near Amesbury, Wiltshire):

"I was startled to see in the night sky on the western edge towards Netheravon three weird coloured globes – red and orange – at a height of about 3,000 feet. They looked like lantern illuminations with a very strong glow … they floated downward, and then suddenly and inexplicably vanished … There were airdromes and British Royal Artillery camps and ranges some miles away. But at this time, there was no firing at night." The man who was with me had apparently seen these globes before [at least four times in 1917 and 1918].

Wilkins' companion thought the lights might emanate from Boscombe Down, though Wilkins felt this to be unlikely as "airplanes" of that period had no apparatus capable of firing such globes. (Retold in"UFO Roundup", vol 4 no 3, 1999, apparently taken from Harold T Wilkins, Flying Saucers Uncensored [Citadel Press, New York 1955] pp222-3.)

 

[bierast]

Here's a humourous Austrian postcard depicting "Heinzelmännchen at the front". These little fellows are helpful household sprites akin to brownies, who do the chores while humans are asleep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinzelmännchen

[Pat Atkins]

I suppose the "Angel of Mons" doesn't quite fit the bill, really. Very interesting topic, which I for one had never considered; thanks for bringing it up - I'll be interested to see what comes up.

 

Edit: or the Leaning Virgin of Albert. Superstition, certainly, and perhaps folklore in the making - but not what you're after, I guess.

Edited 9 November , 2022 by Pat Atkins

[seaJane]

I've read fairly widely among oral histories of the GW just lately, and all I can say I've come across is the concept of the "fetch," or people seeing family as if alive who turn out to have been dead at the time. @Sepoy recently told me, for example, of Harold Owen's experience, and a friend not on the forum reports similar of one of her family.

[Moonraker]

I'm not sure how far we may/can stretch the OP's remit, but

The Road to En-Dor  - spiritualism

Short thread here

(Perhaps it WOULD except the remit by considering the increased interest in spiritualism by the families of deceased service people after the war - and perhaps during it.)

[Pat Atkins]

10 hours ago, seaJane said:

I've read fairly widely among oral histories of the GW just lately, and all I can say I've come across is the concept of the "fetch," or people seeing family as if alive who turn out to have been dead at the time. @Sepoy recently told me, for example, of Harold Owen's experience, and a friend not on the forum reports similar of one of her family.

There's a Robert Graves poem about a fetch, Corporal Stare, in his (appropriately-named) anthology Faeries and Fusiliers. Ghost stories seem to have been relatively widespread, like the spectral officer ("some said it looked like Lord Kitchener, and others said its face, when turned full on to us, was not unlike Lord Roberts") which broke up a German attack on 2nd Suffolks on 1st November 1916 (reported by "Capt WE Newcome" and recorded in Conan Doyle's The History of Spiritualism Vol II here). Or the equally spectral RAMC officer who saved troops from the effects of gas at Ypres in August 1915 (apparently told to an American clergyman in 1956 and reported in Fate magazine in 1968, - I found it here).

On spiritualism during the war, as opposed to after it, Sassoon (I think) wrote about his upper-class hostess trying to contact her dead son at night while he was on leave.

[knittinganddeath]

Thanks all for your replies! Very interesting that ghosts/fetches were so prevalent, yet that seems to be the extent of it. I wonder if belief in folkloric creatures was already dwindling, and the realities of war then further discouraged that kind of fanciful thinking.

@bierast That is a great postcard and exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping to see, thank you very much for sharing.

[Pat Atkins]

This really is a bit tangential, but that great folklore-creator Tolkien was a subaltern in the war, of course. Anyway, hope there's more to come on this thread, an interesting diversion from the bread and butter stuff of the Forum.

[charlie2]

1 hour ago, knittinganddeath said:

belief in folkloric creatures was already dwindling

I think you have hit the nail on the head. People were more „enlightened“ than previous generations had been. Here in the Harz there are dozens of myths and legends concerning all sorts of „beings“ from Kobolds to giants, no doubt having their origins in the pitch black forests and working by candlelight in the mines but they date back hundreds of years. That said some ww2 aircrew believed in Gremlins - not the ones portrayed in the film but the ones that do exist.  https://www.deviantart.com/rlkitterman/art/The-Gremlins-of-P-R-U-666873347

Charlie

[Pat Atkins]

I had a correspondence with a former RAF pilot, a DFM, who told me aircrew in WW2 in his experience almost always had a totemic item as a lucky charm, and/or superstitious habits (his charm was, I think, a rabbit's foot). He never talked about gremlins, though, perhaps they were so common he didn't think them worth mentioning. I think that kind of superstition is deep within all of us in situations where misadventure may appear to be random, often catastrophic, and commonplace; I should imagine it was much the same in WW1.

However, Charlie's point about 'enlightenment' does seems very likely with relation to folklore. Paul Fussel wrote about the WW1 British servicemen as being the first generation to be widely literate, and I suspect this shift towards the written word will have eroded belief in, and familiarity with, the characters of myth and legend. Or perhaps the urge to believe and encounter remained but the outward form was changed? Maybe ghostly officers striding off towards the attacking Germans or miraculously curing gassed infantrymen, redolent of Victorian literary tropes, simply took the place of the goblins and elves of granny's bedtime stories?

[the_ageing_young_rebel]

I’ve had this book in my “to read” pile for about 10 years so can’t vouch for it. Looking through the index there appears to be ghosts, angels a couple of mentions of other similar things but not really anything else

[pierssc]

In an environment in which one could easily be blown up, buried alive, horribly injured, drowned in liquid mud, gassed, shot, burned to death, bombed, or bayonetted at any moment, surrounded by rats, decomposing bodies and body parts, where enemy soldiers on a trench raid were more likely to slither over the parapet than Grendel, perhaps Trolls were simply not worth worrying about?

[Pat Atkins]

Fair point!

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

I had seen this thread about a week ago, and checked back in today to see whether many people had reported references to folklore creatures. I see that they haven’t, but I also see that @pierssc has made the main point that I was thinking of making, and far more succinctly and eloquently than I could have.

The “Age of Enlightenment” theory for me didn’t quite fit the bill as an explanation for the absence of hobgoblins etc. given that seemingly unenlightened things like superstition (both good and bad) and spiritualism were – as others have said – rife in WW1, while in WW2 it didn’t prevent the birth – albeit tongue in cheek – of the gremlins.

In fact, the emergence of the gremlins in WW2 tends to support Pierssec’s explanation for the absence of trolls in the trenches and the craters of WW1, as the airmen who created the gremlins would have been somewhat removed from the raw horror of warfare, and therefore arguably could be expected to have had more time and inclination than WW1 Infantrymen to conjure malicious spirits.

WW2 airmen dreamed up gremlins to explain mysterious malfunctions of their machines. At the Front in WW1 the cause of the horror was either completely obvious, or the soldiers of either side had no need to look further than the unseen, but ever-present, enemy in the opposing trenches to find their bogeyman.

[pierssc]

I wasn't sure whether my post had killed this thread or simply stunned it!  Thanks to @A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy for giving it a boost as I hope this subject still had some life in it.  Actually I have some sympathy for the "Age of Enlightenment" view - being superstitious, and believing in spiritualism and ghosts, seems to me to come into a quite different category than a belief in creatures like hobgoblins and their kin, particularly when there were real dangers aplenty to hand.  I suspect that such beliefs may have survived - perhaps still survive - for longer in isolated communities in places like Norway than elsewhere.  

 

But while traditional trolls and such monsters may have been redundant in WW1 (or you could say were subsumed into the enemy in general) I wonder whether some of their lesser brethren may have survived and could be found in a different guise?  

 

I'm thinking of the spy or franc tireur, believed to be either sending messages to the enemy in some ingenious manner - for example by flashing lights, moving windmill sails, ploughing a field or hanging up washing in a particular way - or causing fires, breakdowns, and other unexplained things.  And also his/her relative, the enemy soldier disguised as a member of your own army who appears at a crucial point in order to sow confusion.   I'm sure I recall many threads on here giving examples of situations in which an officer (usually, conveniently, from a different regiment, and so unidentifiable) allegedly appeared in the thick of some bloody action and ordered soldiers to retire.  Reading accounts one is often struck by the confidence with which such things are reported as fact.  

 

Could it be said that the spy and mystery officer took over functions that might once upon a time have been attributed to imps or sprites or the like (I am probably using the wrong terms) and fulfilled an underlying human need to attribute blame for something to a convenient scapegoat, real or imaginary?

 

 

[charlie2]

4 hours ago, pierssc said:

fulfilled an underlying human need to attribute blame for something to a convenient scapegoat, real or imaginary?

Which goes back to the time when humans became capable of thinking beyond belly full/reproduction. Enlightenment does have an important influence in what is believed, only a couple of hundred years or so before ww1 witches were still being burned at the stake as they possessed some knowledge that wasn‘t generally understood. Volcanic eruptions are known to have another cause than some entity being aggrieved.  Surely if we were not better educated/Enlightened we would still be believing such things.

How many times does one read in the War Diaries or histories that it was the neighbouring Platoon/Company/Battalion etc that caused the problem?

What is superstition? I ride motorcycles and always put the left glove on before the right, if I inadvertently put the right on one I take it off and start again with the left. Is that just a habit or is there some underlying superstition which I subconsciously believe will keep me safe? Maybe I am superstitious but I do not believe in Kobolds or other malicious beings (with the exception of the Mother-in-Law ).  

 

 

[FROGSMILE]

There is a great focus on WW1 related science fiction and fantasy writing by numerous authors at the following link, including some very famous ones: https://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com

I am surprised by just how many there are and they certainly seem to fall within the context of this thread.

[knittinganddeath]

I must have messed up my notifications, as I didn't mean to abandon the discussion so completely. Sorry, everyone!

9 hours ago, pierssc said:

I suspect that such beliefs may have survived - perhaps still survive - for longer in isolated communities in places like Norway than elsewhere.  

This is something that I've been thinking about since replies to this thread started coming in. My husband thought that his great-grandparents' generation, born around 1880-1890, would have been the last generation to truly believe in fae folk, but they're still quite present in Norwegian art, stories, and music, etc. Sometimes modernity & Christianity feel like a very thin veneer here. Perhaps of note is that Icelanders, Norwegians' brother people so to speak, have in this century diverted roads so as not to interfere with fae habitats.

Weirdly, in WWII there was a concerted effort by the Nazis to use werewolves to spread fear: The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII

 

24 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

WW1 related science fiction and fantasy writing by numerous authors

Thanks for this, I'll check it out...and maybe join their ranks one day ;-)

[FROGSMILE]

2 minutes ago, knittinganddeath said:

I must have messed up my notifications, as I didn't mean to abandon the discussion so completely. Sorry, everyone!

This is something that I've been thinking about since replies to this thread started coming in. My husband thought that his great-grandparents' generation, born around 1880-1890, would have been the last generation to truly believe in fae folk, but they're still quite present in Norwegian art, stories, and music, etc. Sometimes modernity & Christianity feel like a very thin veneer here. Perhaps of note is that Icelanders, Norwegians' brother people so to speak, have in this century diverted roads so as not to interfere with fae habitats.

Weirdly, in WWII there was a concerted effort by the Nazis to use werewolves to spread fear: The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII

 

Thanks for this, I'll check it out...and maybe join their ranks one day ;-)

With your incredible language skills I believe you’d be extremely successful.