Prior to the emergence of the engine, the horse reigned supreme. It provided the power for transport and to work the land. Horsemen were the most important people in the community, and were very proud of their identity, which they expressed by wearing a special type of clothing. This was a three-piece suit, bespoke made to their requirements. This suit represents an indigenous, vernacular taste, transmitted entirely through oral tradition, and is not the result of factory design. It evolved entirely out of spoken culture, and this paper is based entirely on research from oral sources in Co. Suffolk. It is concerned with the style, the fabric and the specific details if a distinctive form of dress worn by horsemen, and with similar garments found in two other 'horse' cultures, travellers and horsemen in the East End of London in the early 1900s.

Seabirds today are primarily of ornithological and ecological interest. They have long been important, however, in the diet, economy and culture of coastal subsistence communities in peripheral parts of the British Isles. Following earlier studies relating to Scotland and the Faroes, the first part of this paper discusses the fragmentary evidence for exploiting seabirds and their eggs mainly on the Welsh islands and Lundy. With particular reference to auks and Manx shearwaters, it examines hunting equipment/techniques and uses, refers to possible cross-overs with rabbit-catching, and highlights the switch from subsistence and commercial exploitation for food, bait, feathers and oil to antiquarian curiosity and specimen egg-collecting. (Part 2 will focus on the Isle of Man, Part 3 will examine the impact of legislation, environmental factors and cultural change on seabird hunting traditions around the Irish/Celtic Sea.)

(2007). The Scottish Countryside Its Changing Face, 1700-2000. Folk Life: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 157-159.

(2007). The English Countryside Between the Wars: Regeneration or Decline? Folk Life: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 161-163.

Regional customs and the expressions that refer to them are like the scattered pieces of a long-lost puzzle. Each one is unique and somehow meaningful, but makes only partial sense when viewed in isolation. Of course it is rare for every piece of such a puzzle both to survive and to fit in with its neighbour to give a perfect picture. But even when only two or three pieces can be discovered, one will often complement the other and add to its significance. Where more than two or three are to hand and can be carefully matched, the resulting picture, though still piecemeal, will be more than the sum of its parts. One piece will shed light on another, and sensible hypotheses will be possible about the gaps that remain. It may even be possible to attempt a reconstruction of the picture as a whole.

Skylarks have been a feature in British skies for longer then man can remember, and while their flight and song has inspired poets and artists, their flesh, grilled or in pies, whetted many an appetite. As they were sought for food, ways of catching them were devised and improved over time, until, approximately seventy years ago, they were finally afforded total protection. Before the advent of guns, nets were dragged and drawn over the fields at night so that roosting larks flew up and became entangled in them. In some places, larks were flushed towards vertical nets just before darkness fell. During the day, they were snared in horsehair nooses or they were lured to nets. When guns were devised, larks were shot, mostly as they were feeding in flocks. Shooting ‘into the brown’ was a common expression in circles. But sport shooting (shooting at individual larks) was also a popular pastime.

The ‘Danube “Schwabs”’, the name given to the German populations in former Hungary, is also a common term for the people in the seven different regions settled mainly by Germans during the eighteenth century.