Devoted to the Study of Folklore and Tradition

All issues of our newsletter FLS News, from No.1, 1985 to the most recent issue, are now available as pdfs in the Members area of our website, as well as earlier newsletters 1980-83, and Derek Froome’s index of FLS News Nos.1-50, 1985-2006. Just log in to the Members only area: https://folklore-society.com/wp-login.php If you’ve forgotten your log...

Congratulations to our Assistant Librarian Dr Tina Paphitis who is soon to begin a three year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oslo. Tina will continue to work for us remotely as Assistant Reviews Editor for Folklore. We are seeking to appoint a new part-time (2 days a week) administrative assistant to carry out administrative...

Henry Glassie: Field Work: at The Folklore Society Click here to buy a ticket to watch the film for £4.99 (UK only) Directed by Pat Collins Documentary | English/Portuguese | 105 min Distributed in the UK by New Wave Films From the director of Song of Granite and Silence comes this new documentary study of the...

We are delighted to announce that the winner of The Katharine Briggs Award 2020 is William G. Pooley, Body and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century France: Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914, published by Oxford University Press. And the runner-up is Jonathan L. READY, Orality, Textuality, and the Homeric Epics: An Interdisciplinary Study of Oral...

Dr Ross Macfarlane has very kindly compiled a list of all of our past Presidents on the Wikipedia entry for The Folklore Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folklore_Society#Presidents Thanks Ross

We are pleased to announce the shortlist for the Katharine Briggs Award 2020, which was postponed from last November to 23 February 2021. The shortlist is in alphabetical order: Karl BELL (ed), Supernatural Cities: Enchantment, Anxiety and Spectrality (Boydell Press) Deirdre MASK, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power...

Unfortunately, owing to pandemic conditions, we were not able to solicit entries to make a 2020 award viable. We remain committed to the Award, however, which seems to be more important than ever given the situation confronting publishers, and will be holding it in 2021. We are extending the eligibility period this year, to cover...

Here’s an item from our newsletter FLS News no. 92, November 2020, by Andrew Bennett: NEW CUSTOMS: CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS Folklorists are good at looking at old customs, and particularly vanishing ones; we should pay more attention to emerging ones. Take Christmas decorations for example. Decorative mistletoe, holly, and Christmas trees have been around at least since...

After the publication of John Hines’s review of Anatoly Liberman’s book In Prayer and Laughter: Essays on Medieval Scandinavian and Germanic Mythology, Literature, and Culture (Paleograph Press, 2016), in Folklore 131, no. 3 (September 2020), Prof. Liberman sent us the following response, and Prof. Hines sent the reply that follows the response below. Response:  Author’s...

Here is our fourth and final post for a special weekly blog series we’ll be running over the next few weeks, showcasing some of the wonderful talent of people who have recently completed or are currently undertaking the MA in Folklore Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. Throughout this series you will see some great folklore-inspired...

Here is our third post for a special weekly blog series we’ll be running over the next few weeks, showcasing some of the wonderful talent of people who have recently completed or are currently undertaking the MA in Folklore Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. Throughout this series you will see some great folklore-inspired work,...

As a welcome to our new Folklore Society President, Prof. Owen Davies, the following articles published by him in our journal Folklore will be available to download free from Friday 23 October until 31 December 2020: ” Witchcraft and the Somerset Idyll: The Depiction of Folk Belief in Walter Raymond’s Novels” (Folklore, vol. 126, 2015):  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587X.2015.1006955...