Treasure hunt

“It finds you, not the other way.”

The comment is from Pip S Cree on a question I posted on the Folk Horror Revival Facebook group, a community of 31,000 members discussing all aspects of folk horror (think films like The Wicker Man).

My question was about a book, the Reader’s Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain, first published in 1973. Tell me about your copy of this book, I wrote. Tell me how you found it.

“I only paid about £3 for mine,” says Tim Shewan. “This would have been about 20 years ago. I hadn’t heard of it before I found it in a charity shop in St Albans, and I was mesmerised when I opened it, particularly the illustrations and depths of subjects covered.”

Tom Everett was fascinated by the book in his school library, and 25 years later found a copy on eBay for £15. “I dip into it like a religious person might dip into the Bible, and feel like a teenager again every time.”

Sara Mason’s copy sat in a bag of books in her home for years, part of a decluttering session by her father-in-law. Then she joined Folk Horror Revival and saw people talking about the book. “I had a feeling we had a copy. The spine was lovingly nibbled off by our pet rabbit.”

Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain is not exactly one of the rarest grimoires in the world; you could go to Abe Books or eBay right now and get a copy, mostly around the £80-£100 mark. But that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the game.

Folklorists have apportioned a grail quest to finding the book; the only real way to obtain one is through the wild hedge-magic of stumbling across one in a charity shop for just a couple of quid.

I’ve been searching for it for a few years now, but it has eluded me like a will o’ the wisp in a dark forest. I’d never even seen the book in the flesh. It was with this in mind that on a hot summer day I took myself off to Farsley, a small village six miles west of Leeds.

Farsley is the home of Truman Books, an independent bookseller that puts on Midsummer Weird, billed as “a day of strange fiction, folklore and the uncanny”. It takes place at the Old Woollen, in the same complex as Sunny Bank Mills, home of The Great British Sewing Bee.

Inside the dark, cool confines of the Old Woollen a series of panel discussions are taking place, and there is also the Folklore Funfair. That’s run by Bunty May Marshall and George Parr, who together put out the folklore magazine Hwaet — an old English word, roughly sounding like “whatt”, once used as a call to attention before a bard launched into another tall tale.

“The book is just a beautiful thing to hold,” says Marshall of the Reader’s Digest volume. “It’s the cover and the content and the illustrations… it feels like you’re holding the folklore Bible.”

Parr agrees. In fact, when the pair first started dating some years ago, he gave Marshall a copy. Recently they came into possession of two more copies, and raffled them off for £2 a ticket online, raising £3,000 for the Gaza Soup Kitchen charity. The rising appetite for the book is symptomatic of the resurgence in folklore, says Marshall. “People are suddenly realising they want to connect with nature again, to switch off screens, to just be human again,” she says.

“People are drawn to the old stories,” nods Parr. “Folklore offers them a fresh look at the landscape all around them.”

Later in the afternoon I’m introduced to Martin Roberts, a quiet, unassuming, intelligent man from Stoke-on-Trent harbouring a secret: he’s the Reader’s Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain whisperer. He can’t seem to stop finding copies.

“I’ve found five in the last couple of years, I think,” he says. “Never paid more than three quid. Last one was a pound.” I goggle at him. Five? Roberts says he has a copy he carries around in the car. “It’s a bit battered, but do you want to look at it?”

As he goes to get it, I reflect on Pip S Cree’s Facebook comment. “It finds you, not the other way.” Roberts comes back with a book that has certainly seen some action. There is no spine and the front cover is hanging off. That said, it feels like a momentous occasion. And then, this man who I have never met before simply says: “Why don’t you take it? It’s yours.”

Illustration by Oscar Ingham/Observer Design