We use cookies to improve your website experience. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies.

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

Seafarers and Sea-Fearing: Nineteenth-Century Maritime Folklore

  • 20/05/2025
  • 19:00-20:30
  • online talk
Oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, c.1810, of a sailing ship foundering in a heavy sea

J.M.W. Turner; via Wikimedia Commons

Seafarers and Sea-Fearing: Nineteenth-Century Maritime Folklore A Folklore Society Online Talk by Dr Karl Bell (University of Portsmouth) Tuesday 20 May, 19:00 BST Focusing on maritime folklore in the 19th-century Atlantic, this talk considers the ocean as both a natural and supernatural space, one full of signs, omens, and otherworldly encounters. Given the way mariners...

More Folklore Society events coming up

The Mountain Who Stumbled, and the Lake Who Eats GirlsConnecting Folklore, History and Theory in the 21st Century: Irish FolkloreFolklore and the SensesFlying Saucery: How UFOs Landed in the British IslesMore events 

Announcements

The National Folklore Survey

In Charlie Cooper’s new series Myth Country (streaming on BBC I-player), the actor and writer reveals his passion for folklore and how the peculiar rituals and traditions of this country ‘bring people together’. Far from being outdated and trivial, folklore is, he says, ‘very much alive and thriving on social media’. The National Folklore Survey funded by UKRI...

Folklore without Borders

Folklore Society council members Dr Matthew Cheeseman and Dr Paul Cowdell have been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to run a research network through 2024. The network aims to understand how to embed greater equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within UK folklore. It hosts an international knowledge exchange on folklore theory, method,...

Fionn Folklore Database

Announcing the recently launched Fionn Folklore Database. The hero Fionn mac Cumhaill is said to have defended Ireland and Scotland from foreign and supernatural threat during a legendary third-century Golden Age. The stories and songs about him and his warrior band, the Fianna, form the most prolific body of narrative in the Gaelic tradition, spanning...

Ethics Guidelines for Collecting Folklore

Ethical guidelines for good practice in collecting, archiving and sharing folklore material. Folklore collection originally developed and flourished at a time when research ethics, and questions about intellectual property, were given little thought. Contemporary expectations demand that folklorists (and other researchers) pay attention to such matters. With this in mind, the Folklore Society suggests the...

Courses in Folklore Studies

Here’s a selection of courses and classes on folklore studies at various different levels, ranging from learning for fun to Masters and PhD. A History of Folklore: an online course from The Folklore Society Ever wondered where ‘folklore’ comes from? Who were the founders of our subject and how does their influence still shape what...

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

Our Latest Blog Posts

April 8, 2025

Echoes of Padstow project website now live

The Echoes of Padstow project is inspired by the incredible audio-visual collection of Doc Rowe, who first visited Padstow in 1963. It has become Doc’s life-long work dedicated to recording, collecting and preserving traditions such as Padstow’s May Day. The Echoes of Padstow website celebrates Padstow, its people and their Obby Oss May Day tradition....


March 25, 2025

The Folklore Society’s Doc Rowe Award 2025

We have renamed, revised and relaunched our biennial non-print media award’ as ‘The Doc Rowe Award’ in honour of his six decades of recording, filming and photographing seasonal events throughout the UK. Submissions are invited for the 2025 Doc Rowe Award, to be presented in November after this year’s Katharine Briggs Lecture. For more details...


February 24, 2025

Folklore Reimagined LATE

Folklore Reimagined: 2025 events at The British Academy April-May 2025 British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AH How have global folklore traditions, stories, and customs shaped our identities? And what does contemporary folklore look like? Delve into fascinating topics like the lore of our landscapes, the importance of sung history, and how crafting...

More blog posts

 

Other Folklore Events and Calls for Papers

Please submit this online form if you would like us to publicise your event on our website.

 

Dracula Returns: A Conference and Celebration

  • Start date: 15th May 2025
  • End date: 18th May 2025
  • Derby Museums

CALL FOR PAPERS Dracula Returns: a conference and celebration Derby Museums 15–18 May 2025 In 1924, at the world premiere in Derby, Dracula stepped onto the stage. He was charming and suave, a different vampire to the monster of Bram Stoker’s novel. When the curtain rose, Hamilton Deane's adaptation debuted Dracula in evening dress and cloak. The monstrous nosferatu of t...


Call for papers: Transnational Folklore: Rethinking the Nineteenth-Century History of Folklore Studies

  • Start date: 22nd May 2025
  • End date: 23rd May 2025
  • Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis at LMU Munich

Organised by: Frauke Ahrens (Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, LMU Munich), Fabiana Dimpflmeier (Department of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara), and Christiane Schwab (Institute for European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis, LMU Munich). The historiography of folklore studies has been traditionally conduct...


The 36th NEFK – Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference 11-14 June 2025 | Turku, Finland

  • Start date: 11th Jun 2025
  • End date: 14th Jun 2025
  • Åbo Akademi University and Turku University in Turku, Finland

NEFK2025 – ”Nordic 2.0 and beyond” The 36th international Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference will take place at Åbo Akademi University and Turku University in Turku, Finland. It is time to meet again at the Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference. The 36th edition of the conference aims to reconnect with the roots of NEFK. We therefore invite all Nordic scholars, a...

More events and call for papers