The Sky in Legend and Tradition
- 4th and 5th September 2021
- Medieval Hall, Cathedral Close, Salisbury SP1 2EY
Wikimedia Commons: Flammarion engraving 1888, 2017 colorised version Wikipedia user Houston Physicist
The Sky in Legend and Tradition
The Fifteenth Legendary Weekend of The Folklore Society
Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th September 2021
The Medieval Hall in Cathedral Close, Salisbury SP1 2EY
The flying pigs are knocking on Heaven’s door while thunderbirds circle the Merry Dancers and a woman standing on the moon bends over Endymion. Dragons release thunderbolts as parachuting nuns descend on Area 51. We’re walking in the air with flying ointment at the back of the North Wind when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a firedrake on a flying carpet. Horse and hattock! call the broomstick witches – Icarus is felled by elfshot but the Night Voyage is bright as St. Elmo’s fire on Jacob’s ladder, Bifrost trembles and a third part of the stars flame amazement. Let Phaethon saddle Pegasus and the Wild Huntsman chase Seven Whistlers through the Pearly Gates, for these late eclipses of the sun and moon are no twinkling little stars. Waft her, angels, to the skies where rain goes away in the sundance of Easter morning, there are gremlins in the chariots of the gods and Fata Morgana will buy us a stairway to Heaven.
Registration is £60 for the full weekend. To register, contact Jeremy Harte at [email protected].
Programme
Saturday
9.30 Registration and coffee
Session 1
10.00 Diana Coles, Aliens at Heaven’s Gate
10.30 Ernie Warner, Creation myths of the sky
11.00 Tea and coffee break
Session 2
11.30 Fionnuala Carson Williams, Sailors’ jackets and mackerel skies… a look at the sky in weather sayings in Ireland
12.00 Tommy Kuusela, The rainbow in Scandinavian myths and legends: From Old Norse mythology to rural folklore of the 19th century
12.30 Hazel Barron-Cooper, Dragon skies over Northumbria and Durham
13.00 Break for lunch
Session 3
14.30 Gail-Nina Anderson, Comets and Stars in Art
15.00 Gordon Casely, A place name on Mars
15.30 Sara Hannant, ‘Lunation’: about the moon
16.00 Tea and coffee break
Session 4
16.45 David Clarke, Nigel Kneale, Quatermass and the Ancient Astronauts legend
17.15 Janet Dowling, Myths of the Pleiades
17.45 Keith Shipton, Chaucer among the Stars
Sunday
10.30 Morning coffee
11.00 Lucy Hornberger, Japan’s Shinto sky gods and goddesses
11.30 Michael Abiodun Saheed, Sky: examining Yoruba concepts through psychology
12.00 TBC
12.30 Break for lunch
13.30 A folkloric tour of Salisbury