Lying in Legend and Tradition: The Nineteenth Legendary Weekend of The Folklore Society

I saw a peacock with a fiery tail, and may this bread choke me if the moon landings were not filmed on Mars. When the crows flew off, they lifted the tree over nine red-hot ploughshares. Helen was never at Troy at all, she was hidden in an old manuscript drawer disguised as Duke Gorlois. Do you doubt me? No, said the king. I am the owl-catcher and I tell you there will be a great flood. Perkin Warbeck ate my homework but a clever doctor made the snake come out, so I left my heart in a bag at home. I was the Grand Duchess Anastasia and I have a million (1M) dollars for your bank account. Do you doubt me? No, said the king. I am a hereditary and traditional moonraker, the hands are Esau’s but the voice is Mak the sheepstealer. You shall not die until you come to Jerusalem where the best is at the bottom. I was in the Terrestrial Paradise when the bishop was awarded the whetstone. Do you doubt me? No, said the king. Mr. Fox has spun five skeins today and hidden the brandy under the cradle. My master the Marquis of Carabas will climb this unsupported rope until Pinocchio’s eyes drop out. You think I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury but your paper has been rejected for plagiarism. You’re a liar! said the king, it’s accepted at the Legendary Weekend.

Join Jeremy Harte and Sophia Kingshill for our two-day conference on Lying in Legend and Tradition, to be held on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th September as the nineteenth Legendary Weekend of the Folklore Society, at Tullie House in Castle Street, Carlisle, CA3 8TP.

The conference fee is £35 for speakers, £70 for others attending, and no nine-pound notes please.

If you would like to attend please contact the organisers, Jeremy Harte and Sophia Kingshill: jrmharte@gmail.com and skingshill@gmail.com, or write to The Folklore Society, 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT.

Programme

Saturday 6th September
9.30 Registration and coffee
First session
10.00 Rosalind Kerven, ‘Would You Rather Marry a Bear or a Tree? Shape-
shifting Lovers in World Folk Tales’
10.30 Ella Paul, ‘The Lie and the Laüstic’
11.00 Coffee at conference

Second session
11.30 Hannah Straw, ‘“I appear to any one like a Counterfeit”: the 2 nd Earl of
Rochester, Dr Bendo, and the History of a Hoax’
12.00 Robert Halliday, ‘The Princess Caraboo’
12.30 Joel Conn, ‘“Please Help Me/Beloveth One”: Advance Free Fraud or
“419 Scams” as Folklore’
13.00 Break for lunch

Third session
14.30 Diana Coles, ‘The African Prince and the Faerie Queen’
15.00 Holly Elsdon, ‘The Taxil Hoax’
15.30 Gail-Nina Anderson, ‘Fakelore’
16.00 Tea at conference
Fourth session
16.45 Alessandra Curtis, ‘“Ghosting up” against the Sensitive Plate’
17.15 Dan Melling, ‘The Pub Liar and the Limits of Truth: Storytelling, Social
Capital, and Folklore in the Public House’

Sunday 7th September
10.30 Coffee at conference
11.00 Dawn Brissenden, ‘Nessie in the News: British Cryptid Hoaxes and
Modern-Day Fake News’
11.30 Alan Murdie, ‘Ghosts of the Broads – Hoax of the Broads’
12.00 Short break for lunch
12.30 Tour of Carlisle Castle