Exploring Folklore
Want to learn more about folklore?
These posts come from the “Exploring Folklore” section of my newsletter, Notes on Writing Folklore-Inspired Fiction. (Posts are published to my website after the newsletter is sent out, but are dated to match the newsletter date.) If you enjoy my blog posts, you might like my newsletter. It delivers folklore and writing updates straight to your inbox.
For a list of general folklore topics included in the blog, please use the category drop-down list below:
-
Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Inspired by Faerie Folklore
For the novel I’m working on, I’ve been incorporating faerie folklore into the plot, characters, and worldbuilding. There are many different ways a writer might draw from folklore—by adapting tales to create a new story, by using folklore motifs to deepen the plot, by incorporating folkloric creatures as characters—the possibilities are endless. Shakespeare and Faerie
-
Nursery Bogies: Folkloric Creatures that Influenced Behavior in Children
Over the centuries, stories of frightening characters have been used to scare children into following the rules and keep them out of dangerous situations. These type of monsters and folkloric creatures are known as nursery bogies. They embody a variety of different character types—from mischievous to terrifying to even dangerous. On the whole, they were
-
The Noson Weu: Bringing Together Knitting and Folk Tales
Are you a knitter? Or perhaps you like to crochet? My maternal grandmother taught me how to crochet a chain when I was young, but that was about as advanced as I got. I do remember that she and my great-grandmother crocheted blankets—some they kept, some they gave to family, and some they sold. I
-
The Unicorn Rests in a Garden as Part of the Hunt for the Unicorn Tapestries
The tapestry known as The Unicorn Rests in a Garden has fascinated me for much of my life. A print of it hung on the wall of my childhood bedroom, and I remember spending a great deal of time examining the flowers, admiring the unicorn, and wondering what the letters “A” and “E” meant. I lost track
-
The Legend and History of the Unicorn
I had originally planned to explore the subject of unicorns as a way to discuss a piece of medieval art that I’m very fond of. However, once I began digging into the research for it, I discovered that what I wanted to share with you would be too much for this month’s post. (It was
-
Apple Trees and British Folklore
When I make my grocery shopping list for holiday dinners and ask my family if they’d like a pie, their eyes grow as large as pie tins, and they answer with a resounding, “Yes!” When I ask what flavor of pie they’d like, the one flavor almost everyone agrees on in our family is apple.
-
Faerie Morality and Its Influence on Humans
In researching faerie folklore for my creative writing, I have discovered that faerie morality was quite complex. Not only did faeries follow their own belief system, they also expected the humans they interacted with to follow it as well. Faerie-approved behavior was often rewarded, but mortals needed to take care not to upset the faeries,
-
Cŵn Annwn: Welsh Supernatural Hounds
Cŵn Annwn are Welsh supernatural hounds whose howls served as a death omen to those who heard it. Death portents are quite common in Welsh folklore. According to Delyth Badder and Mark Norman, authors of The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts, Cŵn Annwn “represent perhaps one of the oldest omens within Welsh tradition.” The Welsh name for these hounds, Cŵn Annwn,
-
Changelings in European Folklore
One of the oldest aspects of European faerie folklore is the belief that faeries desire human children and often steal them away from their mortal parents, replacing them with changelings. Early changeling stories appear in medieval texts and continue through the 20th century. Unlike fairy tales, stories involving changelings are considered to be legends: the