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Articles from the blog

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

Soundscapes and Folklore in East Asia

  • 24/10/2024
  • 10:00-17:00
  • Online and at 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT

https://www.therai.org.uk/images/Folk_village_-_Korea.jpg

Soundscapes and Folklore in East Asia The Folklore Society and The Royal Anthropological Institute: Eighth ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ Symposium Date:  Thursday 24 October, 2024 Time:  10:00 to 17:00 Location: 50 Fitzroy Street,  London W1T 5BT The seminar series ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ encourages empirical and conceptual dialogue between the two related disciplines of folklore and anthropology....

More Folklore Society events coming up

The Katharine Briggs Lecture and Book Award 2024Folklore Without Borders: November Meeting30 Years in Avalon: Fieldwork and Vernacular Religion in GlastonburyRising Tides: Water Beings as Agents of Change in Environmental ActivismMore events 

Announcements

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

Folklore query? Ask the Folklorists

If you have a folklore enquiry, contact us and we will try our best to answer it or to refer you to someone else who can. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @FolkloreSociety and on our Folklore Society Facebook page

Our Latest Blog Posts

October 15, 2024

Folklore Without Borders: November Meeting

Folklore Without Borders: November Meeting 14-15 November 2024 Online and at 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT The Folklore Society are hosting a two-day symposium for the Folklore Without Borders research network on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 November. The symposium will be blended and take place online and in person at the Royal Anthropological...

October 15, 2024

Dracula Returns: A Conference and Celebration. Call for Papers

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...

October 7, 2024

Announcing 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...

More blog posts

 

Other Folklore Events and Calls for Papers

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Future Folk Archetypes
  • Start date: 3rd Sep 2024
  • End date: 2nd Nov 2024
  • Portico Library, Manchester

Future Folk Archetypes is a newly commissioned trio of works by Lucy Wright re-imagining existing seasonal folk customs as manifestly contemporary beings, whose evolutions represent the diversity of folklore not currently included in the Portico's collection. Folk collectors in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century sometimes overlooked or disregarded traditions associated wi...

Dark Side of Folklore and Folkloristics: 13th International Conference of Young Folklorists
  • Start date: 9th Oct 2024
  • End date: 23rd Oct 2024
  • Vilnius, Lithuania

Since the beginning of time, the existence of the light was inseparable from the darkness. In folklore material of various cultures, darkness could take the shape of a mythological being or to be perceived as looming threat and danger. It could inhabit words, deeds, and wishes, enabling people to believe in dark magic, curses, actions that could bring harm and misfortune. It could a...

Fairy Encounters in Medieval England: Landscape, Folklore and the Supernatural
  • Start date: 21st Oct 2024
  • End date: 21st Oct 2024
  • Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester, College Lane, Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus

Fairy Encounters in Medieval England: Landscape, Folklore and the Supernatural Jeremy Harte Monday 21st October 2024, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Cloisters Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester Whether manifesting as fairies, revenants, local saints or fiends, medieval fairies came in stock types: goblins, lovers, hunters, pygmies, dogs, indescribable shape-shifting objects. Just ...

More events and call for papers