Q&a

Tartan check is indelibly associated with Scotland’s identity, but it took centuries to get there. While not a true tartan, the earliest Scottish check is a simple weave in undyed wool, c250 AD and fo

I’m sceptical about news stories you sometimes read of big black cats roaming the countryside. I was, however, tempted to don my boots for a hike I found on the internet titled In the Footsteps of the

I had watched Richard III meet a bloody end at Bosworth, come face to face with a plague victim, stood in the shadow of a mighty trebuchet, and been put on trial for my life. And it was barely lunchti

The term ‘Merseyside’ was coined around the end of the 19th century. In the county reorganisation of 1974 it became the official name for the area that encompassed the boroughs of Birkenhead, Bootle,

Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the

While the original National Folklore Survey from the 1960s was unscientific and open ended, simply asking random people “what do you know to be true?”, its 21st century successor is a very different b