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Browsing by Author "Houlbrook, Ceri"
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‘Because other people have done it’: Coin-trees and the aesthetics of imitation
Houlbrook, Ceri (2016-01-01)This paper considers the centrality of imitation in relation to British coin-trees, which are exactly what their name suggests: trees which have been embedded with coins. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the ... -
Chetham's Library as a Cabinet of Curiosities
Houlbrook, Ceri; Powell, Michael (The Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 2023-09-30) -
The Concealed Revealed: The ‘afterlives’ of apotropaic deposits
Houlbrook, Ceri (2018-04-01) -
Des pieces de monnaie au cadenas : Un spectre des depots contemporains
Houlbrook, Ceri (2018-12-01)Ritual deposition is as much a feature of the present as it was of the past. In fact, it could be argued that it is a more widespread feature, with folk assemblies emerging prolifically worldwide. From roadside memorials ... -
Finding Love: The Materialities of Love-locks and Geocaches
Houlbrook, Ceri; Parker, Adam (2020-09-25)This paper is the product of a collaboration between a folklorist researching the global phenomenon of love-locks (padlocks attached to public structures in declaration of romantic commitment) and an archaeologist who also ... -
Folklore: cultural roadmaps to creating, perpetuating, resolving and evolving peace and conflict
Bastet, Tatiyana; Houlbrook, Ceri (2023-06-22)Given folklore’s quiet pervasiveness in all our lives, it is unsurprising that it has often been used to think through the big issues faced by a community. Folklore is at once a useful lens, permitting focus and diverse ... -
‘For All of Your Protection Needs’: Tracing the witch-bottle from the Early Modern Period to TikTok
Houlbrook, Ceri; Phillips, Julia (2023-03-30)In the Early Modern Period, witch-bottles were a magical-medical remedy for bewitchment, prescribed by cunning-folk. Filled with pins, nails, and the victim’s urine, the bottles were then heated or buried, counteracting ... -
From guard cats to shoes up chimneys: how to protect your home from witches, fairies … and burglars
Houlbrook, Ceri (2016-07-20) -
From Popular Culture to Popular Custom, and Back Again : A love-lock's tale
Houlbrook, Ceri (2019-12-01)Walk over a major bridge in a Western city and chances are you will come across at least one or two love-locks. These are padlocks inscribed with names or initials and attached to a public structure, typically by a couple ... -
Introduction: Building Magic : Ritual and Re-enchantment in Post-Medieval Structures
Houlbrook, Ceri; Davies, Owen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021-09-21)Buildings contain many secrets and hidden histories concealed from the human eye. We may think we know our homes intimately and then one day renovations, the cleaning of an old chimney, or the investigation of an obscure ... -
Lessons from Love-Locks: The archaeology of a contemporary assemblage
Houlbrook, Ceri (2017-11-30)Loss of context is a challenge, if not the bane, of the ritual archaeologist’s craft. Those who research ritual frequently encounter difficulties in the interpretation of its often tantalisingly incomplete material record. ... -
The Love-Lock Charm: Folklore and fashion
Houlbrook, Ceri (2020-07-01)As inexpert on the subject of French fashion houses as I am, even I recognised the handbag of the woman passing me on the street as a Louis Vuitton. That was not what caught my attention though. It was, instead, the ... -
The Materiality of Magic: An artifactual investigation into ritual practices and popular beliefs
Houlbrook, Ceri; Armitage, Natalie (Oxbow, 2015) -
The Mutability of Meaning: Contextualising the Cumbrian coin-tree
Houlbrook, Ceri (2014-04-04)This paper examines the mutability of the ‘meaning’ of folklore, as articulated by Lauri Honko. It aims to illustrate the amorphous and ambiguous nature of customs and traditions by considering the multiple ‘meanings’ ... -
The Other Shoe: Fragmentation in the Post-medieval home
Houlbrook, Ceri (2017-05-01)Deposits are not always recovered whole; many are found broken and damaged. The obvious explanation is that such objects were accidentally broken; however, some have been interpreted as having been deliberately damaged by ... -
The Penny’s Dropped: Renegotiating the contemporary coin deposit
Houlbrook, Ceri (2015-03-16)This article examines the status of coins as contemporary deposits in the British Isles. With a focus on both historical and contemporary sites, from the Neolithic long barrow of Wayland’s Smithy, Oxfordshire, to the ... -
Revealing the Ritually Concealed: Custodians, Conservators, and the Concealed Shoe
Houlbrook, Ceri; Shawcross, Rebecca (2018-04-19)Concealed shoes are footwear purposely concealed within domestic buildings. The motivations behind their concealments are unknown to us, but the prominent theory suggests that shoes were employed as apotropaic (evil-averting) ... -
Ritual, Recycling, and Recontextualisation: Putting the concealed shoe in context
Houlbrook, Ceri (2013-02-01)The concealed shoe is, possibly by design, shrouded in mystery. All that is known for certain on this subject is that a large number of shoes, usually old and damaged, were concealed in various, unconventional locations ... -
Ritually Recycling the Landscape
Houlbrook, Ceri (Routledge, 2019-09-05)This chapter demonstrates how even seemingly isolated landscapes can be beset by cultural and environmental changes. It explores how such landscapes are adapted to accommodate changing rituals and, vice versa, how rituals ... -
Saints, Poets, and Rubber Ducks: Crafting the Sacred at St Nectan’s Glen
Houlbrook, Ceri (2016-11-11)This paper focuses on St Nectan’s Glen, Cornwall, where layers of ritual deposition imply a long history of spiritual significance – an implication that is debunked by a diachronic examination of the site, which reveals a ...