Flying Saucery: How UFOs Landed in the British Isles A Folklore Society Online Talk by Dr David Clarke (Sheffield Hallam University), and Andrew Robinson (Sheffield Hallam University) Tuesday 1 July, 19:00 BST Sightings of and belief in the existence of Flying Saucers (later UFOs and now UAP) first began to emerge from the USA in 1947 and are...
How to Create Sanctuary Now? A Folklore Society online talk by Professor Dame Marina Warner Tuesday 15 July, 19:00 BST Sanctuary for someone fleeing for their life operated as a sacred principle in classical antiquity, and offered protection to fugitives from the law in medieval times in Europe, until the Reformation. In times of mass...
Lying in Legend and Tradition: The Nineteenth Legendary Weekend of The Folklore Society Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 September, Tullie House, Carlisle, CA3 8TP 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...
Violet Alford’s Pyrenean Festivals and Antonin Artaud’s Peyote Dance: Travels in Search of Authentic Performance A Folklore Society Online Talk by Prof. Peter Harrop (University of Chester) Tuesday 9 September 2025, 19:00 BST In the 1930s, an English folklorist and a French theatre director, made individual journeys in search of authentic performance. The English folklorist...
50 Years of Plant-Lore Collecting A Folklore Society online talk by Roy Vickery Tuesday 23 September 2025 19:00-20:30 (BST) In the 1970s, Roy Vickery, a professional botanist, became dissatisfied by the publications then available on the folklore of plants. All too often these regurgitated Victorian material, and there was an overriding implication that our ancestors...
Underground Folklore of Britain and Ireland–Sacred Sites A Folklore Society online talk, by Joanne McFall Tuesday 7 October 2025, 19:00-20:30 This talk will present and discuss six major sacred sites in Great Britain and Ireland. Many were created in Neolithic times, becoming vital sites in Celtic times and still utilised in the present day. The...
From a Cornfield to the Gothic: An Appreciation of the Scarecrow A Folklore Society online talk by Juliette Wood Tuesday 21 October 2025, 19:00-20:30 What is it about the scarecrow that gives it such potential? Does it depend on its position in folk culture, or on an ancient meaning or ritual usage, or because we...
Call for Papers: ‘Revisiting Oral Narrative: Anthropology, Folklore and History’ Ninth ‘Folklore and Anthropology in Conversation’ Joint Seminar The Folklore Society and The Royal Anthropological Institute Date: Thursday 23 October, 2025. Time: 10 AM to 5 PM. Location: 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT and online via Zoom The annual seminar series ‘Folklore and Anthropology...
Sally the Seal, Roboto, and Other Traditional Helper Figures in Family Life A Folklore Society online talk by Simon Gall Tuesday 4 November, 19:00 GMT Folklorists and ethnologists have long written about how parents borrow, adapt, and use traditional figures to engage their children in various ways. John Widdowson, for example, wrote about the great...
The Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Lecture and Book Award 2025 will take place on Tuesday 11 November, 6.30pm, at Swedenborg Hall, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH. Our lecturer this year is Professor Terry Gunnell, Professor Emeritus in Folkloristics at the University of Iceland, who will talk about ‘Returning the Legends to the Landscape and...
On Social Life and Stories: Traditional Tale-Telling in 1970s Rural Iceland A Folklore Society Online Talk by Rosemary Power Monday 1 December 2025, 19:00-20:30 The talk covers some of the aspects of life in an Icelandic valley in the period in question, with knowledge of folklife and practice, farming changes, songs, singing-style, oral anecdotes and...
More new Folklore Society events coming soon!