A Trio of Festive Tales or the Trouble with Trifle

In which we discover that cherries can restore your wealth, spiders  can be the reason for miracles, mulled cider can result in treasure and  that trifle is devoid of folklore. Christmas Pudding, however has plenty  to share. This is the fourth of four seasonal story and festive food related  episodes to take us through December and lead us to the big midwinter  celebration of your choice. I hope you enjoy the slightly different  focus. I will again let today’s story to speak for itself and allow it  to weave its seasonal magic spell. The Stories in this episode are Sir Cleges & The Christmas Cherries, Christmas Tree Spiders and The Apple Tree Man. You can visit my website if you would like my recipe for Pear & Ginger Trifle or to see any of the historic recipes I mentioned.  There are also links and information about all the books I mentioned. As I mentioned in the podcast this will be the last podcast with new content until 18 January as even storytelling, folklore-loving, amateur food historians need a short festive hibernation period.  I have prepared some collections of just the stories from the podcast in case you need something to occupy you whilst you lie on your sofa with a wonderful leftovers sandwich and the world's biggest mug of tea. I hope to see you in the New Year with some wonderful new stories and the folklore and food to accompany them.