-
Seeing the Obscene: The Protective Power of Display in the Fig-Hand Amulet Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Leticia Cortina Aracil
The amulet known as higa, which reproduces a hand gesture known by the same name, belongs to an ancient family of Mediterranean amulets intended to prevent or counteract the evil eye through an obs...
-
The Celtic New Year and Feast of the Dead Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Ronald Hutton
At the opening of the twenty-first century it was an established orthodoxy in books about ‘the pagan Celts’ that they celebrated their New Year at the feast known in Irish as Samhain, which later b...
-
Heremod and Óðinn: From Beowulf to Snorri’s Prose Edda Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Leonard Neidorf
This article reassesses the sources pertaining to Heremod (Hermóðr) in order to explore the nature of his relationship with Óðinn. In Beowulf, Heremod is presented as a Danish tyrant without any ov...
-
Gustav Henningsen (1934–2023) Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Willem de Blécourt
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
A Folklorist Looks at Ice Cream Vans Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Owen Davies
Of all the commercial road vehicles that have toured the streets and tourist spots of Britain, Ireland, America, and Australia over nearly a century, none elicit more popular reminiscence and senti...
-
Taxonomizing Goblins from Folklore to Fiction Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Matt King
During the medieval and early modern periods, folkloric goblins were often presented as multifaceted creatures with unclear origins and as nebulous markers of the preternatural. Beginning in the 18...
-
Vernacular Knowledge: Contesting Authority, Expressing Beliefs Folklore Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Richard Jenkins
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
The Befana is Returning: The Story of a Tuscan Festival Folklore Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Juliette Wood
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
The Art of the Grimoire: An Illustrated History of Magic Books and Spells Folklore Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Juliette Wood
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
The Wounded Storyteller: The Traumatic Tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann Folklore Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Juliette Wood
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
Aradale: The Making of a Haunted Asylum Folklore Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Owen Davies
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2024)
-
Kyoto’s Gion Festival: A Social History Folklore Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Ben Grafstrom
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2023)
-
John Michael Vlach (1948–2022) Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 John E. Price
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
A Bibliographic Itinerary of a Festival: The Case of the ‘Bugiada and Mouriscada’ of Sobrado, Portugal* Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Carmo Daun e Lorena
This article presents a Portuguese Midsummer festival—the ‘Bugiada and Mouriscada’ of Sobrado, also known as São João de Sobrado (Saint John of Sobrado)—examining the event through the scholarly li...
-
The ‘Black Gentry’: The Rookery and the Folklore of Desertion Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Simon Young
Between the Restoration and the Second World War, rookeries had a special status in Britain and Ireland. They were closely associated with landowning families and rooks were protected in parks and ...
-
‘Folk’ in the Age of Algorithms: Theorizing Folklore on Social Media Platforms Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Guro Flinterud
Over the past few decades, folklore scholars have demonstrated that online expressions and performance play a role in folklore studies and that folklore thrives in digital spaces. However, theoriza...
-
‘The Stars Know Where He Is’: World-Making, Wayfaring, and Navigational Theory in Southern African |Xam Forager Folklore Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Andrew Skinner
Forager societies have had a profound influence on the natural world as modernity has come to know it, engineering environments over the course of millennia through consistent interventions in the ...
-
Vigilant Signage and the Ephemeral in the Magical Landscape of the Moluccas: An Analysis of Nuaulu Scare Charms Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Roy Ellen
Scare charms, in Ambonese Malay matakau, have long been a feature of the Moluccan landscape, but are little documented. They are erected by landowners or resource-owners either in response to infri...
-
Index to Folklore 133, 2022 Folklore Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Paul Cowdell
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
‘Gan qey bedenî yeno çi mana’ (What the Soul Means for the Body): Collecting and Archiving Kurdish Folklore as a Strategy for Language Revitalization and Indigenous Knowledge Production Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Joanna Bocheńska, Farangis Ghaderi
Abstract Folklore-collecting initiatives in Turkey and Iran have become increasingly popular over the past decade. In this article we present a historical overview of folklore-collecting practices and focus on more recent developments in this field. While Kurdish folklore has been perceived as a cornerstone of Kurdish national identity and as a source of information on Kurdish history, today’s collectors
-
A Sociocultural View of Estonian and Slovenian Proverbs on Alcohol and Drinking Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Saša Babič, Piret Voolaid
Abstract This article explores Estonian and Slovenian proverbs related to alcohol and drinking with the aim of interpreting these proverbs in their broader sociocultural context and analysing the controversies embedded in proverbs on this topic. Considering that alcohol is not consumed in the same form everywhere, the article examines Slovenian material as representative of the geographical region
-
Fenrir’s Fetter and the Power of Stories Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Katherine Langrish
Abstract This lecture concerns the sometimes underrated power of stories to influence us, an influence that depends upon factors such as how closely a tale adheres to what we consider either possible or desirable. I examine legends, fairy tales, the gruesome urban legends children tell at sleepovers, and those stories handed down in families, communities, and nations which confer a sense of common
-
‘He Could Raise and Lay Ghosts at His Will’: Victorian Folklorists and the Creation of Early Modern Clerical Ghost-Laying Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Brendan C. Walsh
Abstract Folk legends of brave clergymen confronting terrifying apparitions in fields and houses can be heard all throughout rural England. Situated in the early modern period, these tales establish the archetype of the ‘conjuring parson’ and perpetuate the spiritual tradition of ‘ghost-laying’: the exorcism of ghosts. Clerical ghost-laying, however, is a spiritual tradition without a well-founded
-
‘When You Try to Tell People about Climate Change, and They Start Making Memes about You’: The Meaning-Making in Greta Thunberg Internet Memes Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Anastasiya Fiadotava
Abstract This article discusses humorous memes dedicated to climate change activist Greta Thunberg. The analysis of the 264 memes illustrates that Thunberg’s environmental agenda is not central among the memes’ topics. Many memes use the catchy phrases in Thunberg’s speeches, recontextualizing them to achieve humorous effects. While some memes aim at ridiculing Thunberg personally, others use her image
-
The Cooked Child: Urban Legends and Ancient Myths from the Malayo-Polynesian-Speaking World Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Gregory Forth
Abstract In several publications J. H. Brunvand has discussed an ‘urban legend’ labelled ‘the baby roast’. While treating this as an American tale current in the 1970s that spread to urban locations in Europe and elsewhere, Brunvand also mentions much older Malayo-Polynesian narratives from the South Pacific exhibiting the same theme—a child-minder mistaking an infant for food and cooking it. Yet he
-
Dan Ben-Amos (1934–2023) Folklore Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Simon J. Bronner
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
-
Arthur in Early Welsh Poetry Folklore Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Jessica Hemming
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
Theorizing Folklore from the Margins: Critical and Ethical Approaches. Folklore Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Paul Cowdell
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2023)
-
The Nanteos Grail: The Evolution of a Holy Relic Folklore Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Antone Minard
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2023)
-
Basilisks and Beowulf: Monsters in the Anglo-Saxon World Folklore Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Jeremy Harte
Published in Folklore (Ahead of Print, 2023)
-
Rituality and Social (Dis)Order: The Historical Anthropology of Popular Carnival in Europe Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Francisco Vaz da Silva
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Ethan Doyle White
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
Grimm Ripples: The Legacy of the Grimms’ Deutsche Sagen in Northern Europe Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-21 JoAnn Conrad
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
A Cultural History of Fairy Tales Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Juliette Wood
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
Building Magic: Ritual and Re-Enchantment in Post-Medieval Structures Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Ethan Doyle White
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
The Archaeology of Burning Man: The Rise and Fall of Black Rock City Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Ceri Houlbrook
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
The Ancient English Morris Dance Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Ronald Hutton
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
Discovering Robin Hood: The Life of Joseph Ritson—Gentleman, Scholar and Revolutionary Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 David Matthews
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Ross MacFarlane
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
What Folklorists Do: Professional Possibilities in Folklore Studies Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Ceri Houlbrook
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws and Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities. Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-06 Timothy J. Burbery
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Ceri Houlbrook
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends Folklore Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Karl Bell
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
The Folklore Buried in Dictionaries Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 David Hopkin, Jonathan Roper
Abstract Dictionaries are an unexpected, and underused, source of folklore data. In this introduction to a selection of articles addressing the virtues and peculiarities of such a repurposing of dictionaries, the authors raise some general issues and briefly sketch the wider intellectual and social historical background to the compilation of dictionaries, especially in Europe in recent centuries, that
-
Decolonizing Dictionaries: The Telling Agendas of North Sámi Dictionaries Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Thomas A. DuBois
Abstract The role of lexicographers of Davvisámegiella (North Sámi) in the historical colonization and present-day decolonization of Sámi society is examined. The careers and agendas of dictionary makers—both Sámi and non-Sámi—from the late eighteenth century until the present are surveyed, with attention to the ways they include and portray elements of folklore in their dictionaries and other works—including
-
The Catalan–Valencian–Balearic Dictionary as a Source of Folklore Data Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Jonathan Roper
Abstract Decades of work enabled A. M. Alcover (and subsequent collaborators) to produce a monumental dictionary of Catalan. The work is rich in folklore due to the nature of its often oral sources and presumably also due to the predilections of Alcover, a collector of folk song and, especially, folktales. In Alcover we thus have a prominent example of a lexicographer-folklorist, but he also represents
-
Joost Halbertsma’s 1872 Lexicon Frisicum and the Relationship between Men and Women in Nineteenth-Century Friesland Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Anne Dykstra
Abstract This article deals with the relationship between men and women as expressed in the Frisian–Latin Lexicon Frisicum (1872), compiled by Joost Hiddes Halbertsma (1789–1869). The article begins with a brief outline of the Frisian language, then introduces Halbertsma and his dictionary. The main part of the article tries to draw a picture of the relationship between men and women in nineteenth-century
-
Folk Illusions in The Dictionary of American Regional English: Text, Context, and a Triangulation Method for Cognitive Folkloristics Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Claiborne Rice, K. Brandon Barker
Abstract We examine The Dictionary of American Regional English as a possible source for folk illusion data. Recognizing a known children’s folklore trick, ‘Jack and Jim’, as a folk illusion, we investigate the nature of the change blindness illusion featured in the form as we describe the benefits of our interdisciplinary triangulation methods for cognitive folkloristics. Ultimately, we argue that
-
Folklore in Regional Dictionaries: Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Examples from England Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Jonathan Roper
Abstract Dictionaries are an increasingly acknowledged source of folklore data. For countries with early literacy, industrialization, and urbanization, such as England, this richness is evident for early modern and, especially, nineteenth-century dictionaries, such as those published by the English Dialect Society. Although not as numerous as before, regional dictionaries have, nevertheless, continued
-
Elizabeth Campbell Stewart (1939–2022) Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Thomas A. McKean
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 2, 2023)
-
The Fairies in Cape Breton: Our Beliefs and Tales Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-30 Simon Young
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 4, 2023)
-
Mythology and Nation Building: N. F. S. Grundtvig and His European Contemporaries and Northern Myths Modern Identities: The Nationalisation of Northern Mythologies Since 1800 Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-18 JoAnn Conrad
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
Charms, Charmers and Charming in Ireland, from the Medieval to the Modern Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Rosemary Power
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
Robin Hood: Legend and Reality Folklore Pub Date : 2023-05-04 Thomas H. Ohlgren
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
The Boggart: Folklore, History, Place-Names and Dialect Folklore Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Jeremy Harte
Published in Folklore (Vol. 135, No. 1, 2024)
-
Musics Lost and Found: Song Collectors and the Life and Death of Folk Tradition. Folklore Pub Date : 2023-04-26 Paul Cowdell
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
The Routledge Companion to English Folk Performance Folklore Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Michael Heaney
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals Folklore Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Sirio Canós-Donnay
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)
-
The Celtic Myths That Shape the Way We Think Folklore Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Jessica Hemming
Published in Folklore (Vol. 134, No. 3, 2023)