Devoted to the Study of Folklore and Tradition

The Folklore Society (FLS) is a learned society, based in London, devoted to the study of all aspects of folklore and tradition, including: ballads, folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, childlore and children's folklore, folk arts and crafts, popular belief, folk religion, material culture, vernacular language, sayings, proverbs and nursery rhymes, folk medicine, plantlore and weather lore.

Next Folklore Society Event

CANCELLED: Folklore, Learning and Literacies

24-26 April 2020
UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

Photo: Marc Armitage

CANCELLED: The Annual Conference of the Folklore Society, and Annual General Meeting 2020. Due to the uncertainties arising from the spread of COVID-19 virus we have decided to cancel this year’s conference. We hope to be able to reschedule the conference at a later date Keynote speaker: Prof. Michael Rosen: “‘Don’t say that!’ –...

More events coming up

The Sky in Legend and Tradition

Other Folklore Events and Calls for Papers

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CFP: RAI2020 – Folklore, Geography and Anthropology: ways of knowing water/landscape/climate in the Anthropocene

Start date: 4th Jun 2020
End date: 7th Jun 2020
British Museum, SOAS, RGS - London, UK

The Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2020 conference will be held 4 to 7 June 2020 at the British Museum, Clore Centre, SOAS, Senate House and Royal Geographical Society. It includes a panel bringing together scholars from folklore studies, anthropology and geography. This panel explores Other kinds of water/landscape/climate knowledge from scholars outside the hard geo-sciences,...

VIXEN TOR: Celebrating the Fierce Women of Folklore

Start date: 20th Jun 2020
End date: 20th Jun 2020
Exeter Phoenix

A sister event to the Hell Tor Film Festival gothic weekend which ran last year, Vixen Tor is a one-day event designed to celebrate women in folklore. Talks from female folklorists, talks about female folklorists, a specially made film presentation from Doc Rowe and a workshop on Charms and Childbirth are part of the daytime line-up, rounding off with an interview and acoustic set w...

FEECA 2020 – Connection, Creativity, Community: Insider-Outsider Perspectives

Start date: 3rd Jul 2020
End date: 5th Jul 2020
University of Aberdeen

Do you call yourself an ethnologist, a folklorist, an ethnomusicologist, a community activist, or anything in between? Do you work in a university, a cultural organisation, or in the third/non-profit sector? This conference aims to create a space to explore the purposes of this kind of work. Often the role combines academic research and community-based, socially engaged practic...

Returning to the Green of England: English calendar customs in the post-Brexit, digital village

Date: 9th Jul 2020
Cantor Building, Sheffield Hallam University

CALL FOR PAPERS – Deadline: 23rd April 2020 This one-day symposium, hosted by Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Contemporary Legend, seeks to explore the influence and impact of England’s calendar customs on contemporary communities, and what their continued performance means for us today. We actively encourage dialogue between disciplines and areas of study, and wel...

Folklore Fellows` Summer School 2020 “The Violence of Traditions and the Traditions of Violence”, Call for Applications

Start date: 17th Aug 2020
End date: 23rd Aug 2020
University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Joensuu

The 10th Folklore Fellows` Summer School is hosted by the School of Humanities at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) in Joensuu, 17-23 August 2020. Folklore Fellows` Summer School 2020 "The Violence of Traditions and the Traditions of Violence" will provide the participants with an inspirational forum for learning and critical discussion on the violence of traditions and the...

COMELA 2020 – The Conference on Mediterranean and European Linguistic Anthropology

Start date: 2nd Sep 2020
End date: 5th Sep 2020
The American College of Greece

Call for Abstracts - The COMELA 2020, The Conference on Mediterranean and European Linguistic Anthropology 2020 Following the growth of The Global Network for Linguistic Anthropology, we announce The COMELA 2020, The Conference on Mediterranean and European Linguistic Anthropology 2020. Purpose and Structure - Over 500 scholars globally will gather to present papers and engage...

Archives, Access, Ethics and Fraud

Start date: 21st Oct 2020
End date: 23rd Oct 2020
Meertens Institute, Amsterdam

A SIEF Archives Working Group Conference 'Archives, Access, Ethics and Fraud' will take place in Amsterdam, October 21 – 23, 2020. The Call for Papers can be found here: http://www.theomeder.nl/SIEF2020/CfP.pdf. The deadline for abstracts is April 1st, 2020....

Celtic Myths and Folkores in the Anglophone World

Start date: 6th Nov 2020
End date: 6th Nov 2020
Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Chambéry, France

Interdisciplinary workshop entitled "Celtic Myths and Folkores in the Anglophone World", organised by Noémie Beck (the University of Savoie Mont Blanc, Chambéry, France) and Frédéric Armao (the University of Toulon, France), Senior Lecturers in British and Irish History, specialised in Celtic myths and folklores. The workshop will take place on November 6, 2020 in the Universit...

Folklore Society News

CANCELLED: Folklore, Learning and Literacies Conference 24-26 April 2020

The Folklore Society regrets to announce the cancellation of our Folklore, Learning and Literacies conference, 24-26 April 2020. This because the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) situation is only likely to get worse in the medium term, and there is considerable uncertainty about what its consequences will be. The Society’s trustees have decided that it is necessary, in...

Folklore Society Library: new accessions 2019

Click here for a list of our library accessions for 2019 most of these books will be added to our collections at University College London library and will be available for loan to FLS members and UCL students as soon as they have been added to UCL’s online library catalogue. A few of these books...

The Katharine Briggs Award 2019

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Katharine Briggs Award 2019 is Guy Beiner for his book Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (published by Oxford University Press). Congratu;ations Guy Beiner and OUP

Katharine Briggs Award 2019–Short List

We are very pleased to announce the short list for this year’s Katharine Briggs Award. The short listed entries are (in alphabetical order): Guy Beiner, Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography in Ulster (Oxford University Press) Ronald James, The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation (University of Exeter Press) Nigel...

Announcements

Calendar Customs in Fiction

Sophie Parkes-Nield, a PhD student at the Centre for Contemporary Legend, Sheffield Hallam University, is searching for calendar customs represented in fiction. If you’ve spotted a custom in a novel or short story, please email her at sophie@sophieparkes.co.uk or tweet her via https://twitter.com/sophparkes

Fund-Raising for The Folklore Society

Following our move to 50 Fitzroy Street, the Society’s annual costs for office accommodation have significantly increased, so we are inviting all members and friends of The Folklore Society to support us by making donations via our Charities Aid Foundation page at CAF Donate: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/11322

The Folklore Society office has moved to 50 Fitzroy Street

Our new office address is: The Folklore Society, 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT, tel. +44 (0)203 915 3034 Office hours: Tuesday to Friday from 13:30-5:30 pm (and at other times by appointment). Our staff are part-time, so please let us know in advance of your visit in case we’re working away from the office...

MA in Folklore Studies at University of Hertfordshire

Exciting news for anyone wanting to turn their interest in folklore into an academic qualification: the University of Hertfordshire are now offering a Folklore Studies MA, which will run both part-time and full-time. For further details on the programme of study and how to apply, please see: https://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/ma-folklore-studies

Concealed revealed

The Concealed Revealed, a strand of the Inner Lives: Emotion, Identity and the Supernatural, 1300-1900 Project, is hoping to produce an extensive catalogue of concealed objects and domestic apotropaic devices, from shoes and cats to timber marks, across Britain. Dr Ceri Houlbrook, of the University of Hertfordshire, is not only seeking information about these objects but is also aiming to...