‘She could sit and spin those stories all night!’: The Midwife Effie Currie (1867-1942), Her Hero Tales and Women Storytellers in Gaelic Tradition A Folklore Society Online talk by Dr Tiber Falzett (University College Dublin) Tuesday 7 February 2023, 18:00 GMT This talk will focus on a collection of a dozen hero tales taken from...
Dead Men Tell Tales: Bogs, Bog Bodies, and Bog Queens A Folklore Society online talk by Sophia Kingshill Tuesday 24 January 2023 at 18:00 GMT Peat bogs have a remarkable power of preservation.Bodies dating from the Iron Age, dug up from bogs in Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the UK, have been mistaken for recent murder...
Gliding in the Churchway Paths: Corpse Roads and the Origins of the Right to Roam A Folklore Society online talk, by Professor Stuart Dunn (King’s College London) Tuesday 10 January 2023, 18:00 Burial of the dead posed a problem in the medieval and early modern countryside: getting the body from the place of death to...
Dr Ceri Houlbrook (University of Hertfordshire) explores the tradition of children writing letters to Santa Claus. Online talk, Tuesday 13 December 2022, 18:00 This talk traces the history of the folkloric custom of writing letters to Santa Claus and other Western personifications of Christmas. When did it start? Where is it practiced? What folklore surrounds...
Dr Chris Duffin (The Natural History Museum) talks about some of the folklore and beliefs associated with fossils, which have a surprisingly diverse folklore history. Online talk, Tuesday 22 November 2022, 18:00 GMT Fossil bones and amber are the subject of a wide range of classical, local and oriental myths, including the Homeric Cyclops, the...
Doc Rowe’s film of the lecture can be watched on YouTube The Katharine Briggs Lecture on Tuesday 8 November at 18:30 at The Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. This year’s speaker is Katherine Langrish, author of historical fantasies and essays on folklore and fairy tales, ‘Fenrir’s Fetter and the Power...
What is Folklore? Online talk by Prof. Richard Jenkins (University of Sheffield) Tuesday 25 October 2022, 18:30 BST Folklore in Britain, and its study, seems to be in increasing danger of being understood by the public – particularly on the Internet – as ‘ghosties, ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties’…with a bit of witchcraft, paganism, and Gothic...
Dr Paul Cowdell’s online talk, Tuesday 11 October, 18:00 BST, examines why ghosts are commonly shown in sheets, though this is unrepresentative of most experiences or beliefs. All historical discussions of ghosts feature some comment on what they are wearing. Some of the most frequently mentioned imagery – like ghosts in white sheets, or images...