Folklore and the Senses: Hybrid conference of The Folklore Society in collaboration with the Department of Folklore and Ethnology, University College Cork, Ireland The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2025 Friday 20 June to Sunday 22 June 2025 At University College Cork, and Online We know the world through our senses, but how we sense is...
Elias Ashmole and the Cottingley Fairies: from ‘An Excellent Way To Gett A Fayrie’ to Princess Mary’s Gift Book A Folklore Society online talk by John Clark (Curator Emeritus, Museum of London) Tuesday 18 March 2025, 19:00 The three butterfly-winged ‘dancing fairies’ in the first photograph taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths at Cottingley Beck...
Folklore Without Borders: November Meeting The Folklore Society are hosting a two-day symposium for the Folklore Without Borders research network on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 November. The symposium will be blended and take place online and in person at the Royal Anthropological Institute, 50 Fitzroy St, London W1T 5BT. Anyone can attend and there...
Royal Funerals: A History A Folklore Society online talk by Helen Frisby Tuesday 4 March 2025, 19:00 GMT This talk with Dr Helen Frisby, author of the Shire book Traditions of Death and Burial, explores the funeral customs of English/British monarchs from Anglo-Saxon times to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. Some of...
Saint Valentine, the Ersatz Patron of Love A Folklore Society online talk by Eric Huang Tues 18 February 2025, 19:00 GMT Explore the legend of a Roman-era martyr and saint whose holy day is also a secular holiday, a day in which couples around the world buy each other flowers, chocolates, and other tokens of...
The Calendar Custom and Contemporary Fiction A Folklore Society online talk by Sophie Parkes-Nield Tuesday 4 February 2025, 19:00 GMT How could, or even should, a writer approach intangible cultural heritage such as the calendar custom in their creative work? This talk is based on Sophie Parkes-Nield’s doctoral research that examines the role and impact...
‘They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!’ AI Approaches to Folklore and Political Storytelling A Folklore Society online talk by Timothy R. Tangherlini Tuesday 21 January 2025, 19:00 GMT At a US presidential debate, Donald Trump trotted out a well-known rumor about refugees eating the pets of people living in the communities where they...
Rising Tides: Water beings as agents of change in environmental activism A Folklore Society online talk by Veronica Strang Tuesday 10 December 2024, 18:00 GMT In early human history, when all societies worshipped ‘nature’, serpentine deities personifying the powers of water had central roles in stories of cosmic origin, and in beliefs about how life...
30 Years in Avalon: Fieldwork and Vernacular Religion in Glastonbury A Folklore Society online talk by Marion Bowman Tuesday 29 November 2024, 18:00 GMT To some people, Glastonbury is simply a small, if odd, market town; to others it is the Isle of Avalon, the place where King Arthur was taken for healing after his...
Fairy Encounters in Medieval England A Folklore Society Online Talk by Jeremy Harte Tuesday 8 October, 18:00 BST A thousand years ago, the barriers that kept life safe from the other world were thin–too thin. Those who fell asleep in the fields at noon or walked aboard at Midsummer lay open to supernatural caprice. Voices...