Boggarts at Longshaw!

A Day of Boggarts

What day? Sunday February 17th 2013

When?

Session 1: 10.30 - 12.30 (needs booking - meeting at the Moorland Discovery Centre, Longshaw) 

Session 2: 1.30 - 3.30pm (no booking needed - meet at the Visitor Centre)

Where? Longshaw Estate, National Trust

Getting there: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/longshaw/

Useful link: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/longshaw/things-to-see-and-do/events/

Cost and booking

morning: price: Adult £8, Child £5 cost includes activities, soup & a roll. Booking Essential (through the Trust - use the link above)

afternoon: activities are free but car parking charges may apply (no booking needed)

Exploring with Stories here will join the bigger event at Longshaw marking the opening of their Boggart* Play Trail. Exploring with Stories will be on hand to tell some Boggart Tales and do a bit of Boggartt detecting - looking for signs of boggart life, adventures and mishaps….

In the morning workshop there will be Boggart stories, Boggart building and other twitchy activities

* Boggarts? if you're not sure then a word of explanation might help…Boggarts are the awkward cousins of the fairies. You'll have read Fairy Stories, we are sure and you will know that Fairies are often beautiful. Boggarts aren't. And that fairies are sometimes kind. Boggarts aren't. And that fairies sometimes grant wishes. Boggarts? Not a hope!

But Boggarts are exciting, naughty, lumpy, bumpy, hairy and stary….Boggarts are fun

Away with the Faeries!

and we were! on a hot, steamy day in the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, there were visitors everywhere. Picnics were eaten, streams splashed in. Dogs chased balls and balls chased ducks and ducks chased anyone who might have bread concealed about their persons

you never know just who might be watching

or what something might do with your hat! a troll picnic

and among all this bedlam, who would have thought that there were still small quiet corners where the watchful watched.....

Our intrepid goblin-hinters, faerie followers and troll-huggers (more than a hundred in the day), peered and pried and found clues (tiny witch's broomsticks, stray goblin ears and troll eyebrows and even scales from a mermaid's tail!)

Under the bridge,
An old troll sits,
Fishing in the river for shoes

The wicked witch of the waters
Lives in a willow tree
Watching the water and wishing she was by the sea

Faerie team in determined action

Our discoveries gave us new stories, new friends to meet. Natalie always brings chips when she comes to the Gardens so she can share fish and chips with a troll. Unfortunately, Adam realised that a lot of the ducks (see above) are actually faeries, transformed by some cheating goblins who then had a party, got drunk and fell over. The fountain is, of course, a faerie bath and when the faeries are bathing, the ducks flee because a) who would want to see a naked faerie? and b) short-sighted faeries have been known to use ducks instead of sponges

musicians of all ages helped charm the monsters from our imaginations

by the end of it all, it felt hard to tell the difference between human and non-human.....

BOOKLOG
References used:
The Fairies (poem) by William Allingham
The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony Di Terlizzi and Holly Black
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
one of our hunters brought Natalie, the Christmas Fairy with her as a book to recommend