The North-West includes the historical county of Lancashire, little Westmoreland and the Lakes. These three counties and particularly Lancashire saw rapid industrialization in the nineteenth-century and extraordinary engineering works in terms of canals, railways and roads. However, fairy-lore and particularly boggart-lore perhaps surprisingly survived into the early twentieth century.
North-Western Fairy Places
Bannister Hall (Preston)
Brownside (Burnley)
Fairy Lane (Northenden/Sale)
Fairy Steps (Beetham)
Little Brooks (Goosnargh, Lancashire)
Mossock Hall (Bickerstaffe)
North-Western Fairy Tales
Tat O’ Swinden: A Boggart Tale of Today
The Flit from Boggart Hole Clough
North-Western Fairy Sightings
A Methodist Boggart at Middleton (Lancashire)?
Beautiful Nature Spirit (Preston, Lancashire)
Boggarts in the Barn (Blackstone Edge, Lancashire)?
Roses and Fairies (Lancashire)
Terrifying Encounter Near Carnforth (Lancashire)
North-Western Fairy Books
Bowker, James Goblin Tales of Lancashire (London: W.Swan Sonnenschein & Co 1883)
Hardwick, Charles Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore (Chiefly Lancashire and the North of England) (Manchester: Ireland & Co, 1872), 124-142
Harland, John and T.T.Wilkinson, Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports &c (London: George Routledge and Sons 1873), 10-12 and 141-142
Harland, John and T.T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-lore: Illustrative of the Superstitioous Beliefs and Practices, Local Customs and Usages of the People of the County Palatine (London: Frederick Warne & Co. 1867), 49-62
Henderson, William Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (London: W.Satchell, Peyton and Co., 1879)
McKay, John ‘The Evolution of East Lancashire Boggarts’, Transactions of the Burnley Literary & Scientific Club 6 (1888), 113-127
Roby, John Traditions of Lancashire, II vols (London: Routledge 1872), I, 375-384, II, 137-171
Thornber, William The History of Blackpool and Its Neighbourhood (Poulton: Smith 1837), 38, 99-104 and 329-334
Turner–Bishop, Aidan ‘Fairy and Boggart Sites in Lancashire,’ Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, (Stroud: History Press, 2010), 94-107