Law is Magic: Freemen of the Land and the Magna Carta in a Beauty Salon A Folklore Society online talk by Joel Conn Tuesday 6 June 2023, 18:00-19:30 BST Magic can transform a bundle of handkerchiefs into a bunch of flowers, or divide a person in half. Law can transform your home into someone else’s...
Fertility, Folklore and the Reproductive Body Tuesday 14 November 2023, 09:30-17:00 A free, one-day symposium dedicated to folklore of the reproductive body–fertility, childbirth, contraception, menstruation, and reproduction, including, but not limited to, popular knowledge and belief, folk narratives and contemporary legend, vernacular religion, superstitions, rites and rituals, interdisciplinary perspectives, material culture, and wellbeing. This is a free symposium,...
The 2023 Folklore Society Presidential Address Prof. Owen Davies (University of Hertfordshire) Friday 16 June 2023, 17:30-18:30 ‘A Folklorist Looks at Ice-Cream Vans’ From tales of drugs to enchanting music & monkey’s blood, this tour of the folklore of ice-cream vans will visit some surprising places. The motorized ice-cream van plays a distinctive role in...
Newer Researchers’ Day 2023: Folklore Now! Sponsored by The Folklore Society, The Elphinstone Institute, and the University of Hertfordshire Thursday 25 May 2023, from 10am to 4pm Centre for Folklore, Myth, and Magic in Todmorden, Yorkshire The Newer Researchers Day brings together researchers from all disciplines with an interest in folklore research. It is a...
Saints and Mystics in Legend and Tradition: The Seventeenth Legendary Weekend of The Folklore Society A two-day conference on Saints and Mystics in Legend and Tradition will be held on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 September 2023 as the seventeenth Legendary Weekend of the Folklore Society, at The Chapter House, St Albans Cathedral, Sumpter Yard,...
‘There wis a lady dressed in green’: William Montgomerie’s recordings of children in the streets of Dundee, 1952 A Folklore Society online talk by Prof. Margaret Bennett (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) Tuesday 7 March 2023, 18:00 GMT William Montgomerie and his wife Norah began collecting childlore in the 1920s and 30s as they were interested...
Ghosts of the Goldfields A Folklore Society online talk by David Waldron (Federation University) Tuesday 5 December 2023, 19:00 GMT In this talk, Dr David Waldron will discuss his research into ghost beliefs and stories of the 19th-century goldrush in colonial Victoria, Australia. He will draw on his research into ghost stories as a cultural...
The Legend of Saint Sebastian, the Queer Icon A Folklore Society online talk by Eric Huang, of Saint Podcast Tuesday 23 May 2023 Since the Renaissance, Saint Sebastian has been one of the most depicted saints in art. A 3rd-century Roman warrior (the captain of the Praetorian Guard) he was a closeted Christian who was famously...
Scandinavian Werewolves A Folklore Society online talk by Tommy Kuusela (Institute for Language and Folklore, Uppsala, Sweden) Tuesday 9 May 2023, 18:00 BST In this talk, we will meet the werewolf from Old Norse sources through to contemporary popular culture in Scandinavia. The talk will mostly focus on descriptions of the werewolf as recorded in Swedish...
Lighthouses and the Paranormal A Folklore Society online talk, by Mark Lewis Tuesday 21 March 2023, 18:00 GMT Lighthouses have always had a long association with the supernatural and are the focus for many mysterious stories, often involving murder, suicides or strange disappearances. This talk discusses and attempts to interpret the accounts of ghosts, poltergeists,...