The History of Halloween A Folklore Society Online Talk, by Prof. Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol) Tuesday 18 July 2023, 18:00 BST Halloween is usually regarded as the creepiest festival of the modern year, a celebration of witchcraft, phantoms and images of fear which comes down to us from a remote a murky pagan past....
‘Folklore, Geography and Environment: Ways of Knowing Water, Landscape and Climate in the Anthropocene’ A Folklore Society Conference Friday 14 to Sunday 16 July 2023 at The Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, 27 High St, Hull, HU1 1NE, and online Scientific knowledge tells us that the Anthropocene’s climate crisis will bring huge changes to the...
A Brief History of Burial Grounds A Folklore Society online talk by Helen Frisby Tuesday 4 July 2023, 18:00 BST Burial grounds are so much more than simply a practical necessity. Not only do they embody our relationships with the dead, they speak to what it means to be human at all. In this talk,...
A Folklore Society Online Talk by Simon Young Tuesday 20 June, 18:00 BST The ‘Wandering Jew’ was an important figure in Christian myth. Cursed by Christ to walk the earth until the second coming, he frequently, between the 1600s and the 1900s, visited Britain. Fortunately for those interested in folk-lore, these visits were recorded in...
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...
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...
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...
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...