Relics, Saints and Customs follows the folklore people held in their hands and acted out, from the bones of saints venerated for centuries to the charms and secret societies handed down in farmyards and back rooms. Many of these beliefs sat quite comfortably alongside the church, and tracing them through the records shows how old English traditions bent and survived long after they were supposed to have died out.
“The dead, shrivell’d hand, as she clasps it with gleeAnd now, with care, The five locks of hairFrom the skull of …