Folklore and Paganism: Virtual Special Issue 5, 2014

Folklore Virtual Special Issues are selections of articles on specific themes published in our journal, selected by our editor Jessica Hemming, and introduced in a podcast written and read by Juliette Wood.

Listen to the podcast and check out the list of featured articles and further reading. The articles are all free for Folklore Society members to download.

Excerpt from the podcast

The idea that folk customs and beliefs were the survivals of an earlier cultural phase was one of the founding theories of the discipline of folklore, and the customs of rural Britain soon came to be regarded by many early researchers as the survivals of an ancient paganism. Sir Arthur J. Evans, the archaeologist famous for his excavations of Knossos in Crete and for his suggestions about the role of the god-king in that civilization, published an extensive article on a megalithic site, the Rollright Stones, situated conveniently near his home in Oxfordshire. In tandem with archaeological analysis of megalithic monuments, there was a growing interest in what folklore might reveal about their origins.

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Featured Articles from Folklore 

Obituaries, Dr Margaret Murray, by E.O. James, vol. 74/4, 1963

Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her and Why? by Jacqueline Simpson, vol; 105, 1994

The Rollright Stones and their Folk-Lore, by Arthur J. Evans, vol. 6/1, 1895

The “Green Man” in Church Architecture, by Lady Raglan, vol. 50/1, 1939

The Allendale Fire Festival in Relation to its Contemporary Social Setting, by Venetia Newall, vol. 85/2, 1974

Sites, Sacredness, and Stories: Interactions of Archaeology and Contemporary Paganism, by Robert J. Wallis & Jenny Blain, vol. 114/3. 2003