Featuring stories of strange ghosts, fearsome hags and even a potential UFO sighting, one of the earliest collections of Manx folklore and fairytales has been re-released.

’Ghosts, Bugganes and Fairy Pigs’ is a re-issue of a 1904 book, originally titled ’Manx Notes and Queries’, compiled by a German folklorist, Karl Roeder, who took an interest in Manx customs during the late Victorian period.

Over a four-year period, Karl collected stories, mainly from the poet Edward Faragher, famously known as Ned Beg Hom Ruy, and printed them as weekly columns in local newspapers before publishing them as a book.

It contains the first written accounts of many of the famous Manx fairytale creatures, such as bugganes and the Fynodderee, alongside many more hidden or forgotten stories.

Tales of a fearsome caillag, or witch, crawling out of bushes at Fistard, or mysterious, fortune-bestowing pigs are mixed with many stories, handed down and shared through generations, of visitations by ghosts, or even by the lil’ fellas themselves.

There is also an account, first published in 1902, about a man who walked from Ballakillowey towards the Sloc, and saw what he described as a ’burning wheel of fire in the sky’, which disappeared at speed into the night sky.

This story is now acknowledged, under modern interpretation, as one of the first written accounts of a UFO sighting reported in the British Isles.

The book was also a major source of inspiration for the famous Manx folklorist, Sophia Morrison, whose own book of Manx Fairytales was released in 1911.

James Franklin, education officer with Culture Vannin, said that he felt the original book was one of the most important collections of Manx folklore in existence, and it was fitting that it should be reprinted.

’There are no other books like it, as it is folklore written straight from the mouths of the people,’ said James.

’It is written unfiltered, and the stories in it are genuinely fantastic.

’These stories are what gave the Manx landscape a meaning and significance, and they help transform the countryside you see from into one that is bursting into life with these stories.

’By publishing them I feel we are really giving these stories back to the Manx people.’