This year’s Katharine Briggs Lecture will be given online on Tuesday 16 November, 18:00-19:00 by Prof. Ian Russell (The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen) ‘Peace o’er the World’: Christmas Carolling in the Hope Valley For well over two and a half centuries the performance of distinctive carols has been a feature of the seasonal holiday...
Jeremy Harte (Curator, Bourne Hall Museum, Ewell, and author of the forthcoming Cloven Country: Legends of the Devil in England) talks about the Devil in local legends. ‘I was Satan’s roadie:’ Tracking the Devil in English local lore Part ogre, part buffoon, the Devil of local legend is very different from the theological one. Where...
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...
CHANGE OF LOCATION: NOW ONLINE ONLY Owing to the rising numbers of Covid infections, we have decided to cancel the live event and host the lecture Online Only. The lecture is free: book tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/brother-workmen-solidarity-in-trade-folklore-the-roy-palmer-lecture-2021-tickets-162987998491 In association with Martin Graebe for the roypalmerlecture.org, The Folklore Society is hosting the 2021 Roy Palmer...
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...
Online talk by Dr Paul Cowdell (University of Hertfordshire), Tuesday 8 June 2021, 18:00–19:30 November 23rd is St Clement’s day. The patron saint of blacksmiths, his day was celebrated by processions, dinners, effigies, poetry and appeals for money at village forges and, more rowdily, at dockyard smithies. It also merged with similar celebrations 2 days...
By popular demand, another chance to hear Sophia Kingshill’s talk Mermaids: Fish, Flesh or Fowl, online on Tuesday 30 November 2021, 18:00-19:30 GMT What is a mermaid? Nothing so simple as a woman with a fish’s tail. Mythology, symbolism, literature, art, folktale and ballad have all influenced her development, and male attitudes to women are...