Shara Atashi, freelance writer and translator, will tell of the Persian poet Fayez-e Dashti, known as the “fairy-stricken vagabond.” The legend of Fayez was put together by the people of Bushehr from the poet’s double-couplets, in which he sang of the visitation of a fairy, his falling in love with her, their bond, his breaking...
Prof. Owen Davies’ Presidential Address 2021: ‘Finding the Folklore in the Annals of Psychiatry’ Before psychoanalysts delved into the realm of fairy-tales during the twentieth century, early psychiatrists had been busy analysing and diagnosing a range of folklore beliefs. They considered the belief in fairies, witches, ghosts, and devils to be archaic and intellectually redundant....
Following a recent documentary film portrait of the celebrated American folklorist and ethnologist Henry Glassie, ‘Henry Glassie: Field Work’, the Folklore Society are pleased to host a conversation with Henry himself and Doc Rowe, himself a dedicated field worker in folklore and tradition in the UK. We will host this event via Zoom and there...
Prof. Richard Jenkins (University of Sheffield) asks ‘Who was Mother Shipton? Was she a real person? How did she end up as the theme of a visitor attraction in Knaresborough, Yorkshire?’ This talk will trace the development of ‘Mother Shipton’ as a legendary figure: from the prophetess of seventeenth-century Civil War pamphlets, to the presiding...
Dr Ceri Houlbrook (University of Hertfordshire), will talk about the Boggart of Boggart Hole Clough, Manchester. The Boggart was living quite happily in its nineteenth-century rural dell. But what happened when its rural dell became a Manchester suburb? Not far from the little snug smoky village of Blakeley, or Blackley, there lies one of the...