the Witchery Society

Dear Reader,

Welcome back. I am so glad you’re here. 

I thought the most logical place to start was with folklore proper. I get so many questions about what it is (and isn’t) that, well… here we are. If I’m honest, there are some people who trying to folklore-splain to me so, we might as well get this out of the way right off the bat.

First of all, folklore does not mean false, made up stories (sort of), lies, fiction, or any of the pejorative things you might think of when you hear the word. There are places where folklore cross over with falsehoods but it’s usually in place where a group has pushed back against a dominant group. So, if you study ethnography you’ll learn about Indigenous populations who deliberately shared made up information with ethnographers. As folklorists, we might study that but we’d also acknowledge that the misinformation was a reasonable response to the colonial gaze. There are other examples. In my own work, people who feel that their stories won’t be believed because they are outside of the dominant narratives will be misleading etc. I support them to do that. It’s our job, as researchers, to create an environment of safety and trust. If we don’t, that’s on us. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll revisit this down the road.

Second, folklore is not just limited to myths and fairy stories (though they are part of the academic discipline). And again, myth does not mean fiction. Often myths (and fairy stories) started out as teaching tools to convey a particular and important part of cultural knowledge, are often allegorical, and contrary to our modern perception, many people in the ‘old world’ knew them to be allegories. One example that might be a bit controversial is that in the medieval period, the average person understood that the Christian Bible was allegorical. You might say that they understood the Bible better than the average modern person. I will speak more to that later, I guess.

Third, the discipline is also called folkloristics. So if you see folkloristics, it’s the same thing. Some people started using that as a term to help distinguish it from what people usually think of when they hear folklore. I don’t know if it helps. I mean, the other problem is what do we call those in our discipline? We’re still folklorists so, I have no criticism of using it but also don’t do so myself. 

Fourth, while folklorists are aware of the historical record, it’s not the most important aspect for us. This is really important because it’s a key differentiation from historical scholarship and can put our work at odds with historians’ work. So that’s a thing. In many ways we look at similar things, material culture, ritual, practices, social experiences and events, and so on. Same with archeology – we do look at material culture, like archeologists, but our gaze is different. I think I will dig further into this later on. I spent years studying Northern European Spiritualities/Paganisms and one of the chief areas of conflict is some historians and archeologists will be frustrated because: there’s no evidence for X. But what I want to know is what people are doing now and what their perception of the record/history is. Anyway, like I said, more on that to come!

In fact, this might be the perfect place to stop for now. I will continue with part 2 in the next post where we will talk about what folklore is and maybe even the origins of folklore as an academic discipline. That said, please always keep in mind that my training is oriented in the Northern European lens. I will aim to include scholars from other parts of the world and it’s something I am reflecting on a lot these days.

Alright folx, that’s it for today. Take good care,

Colleen