Folklore A Journey Through the Past and Present

A gripping guide to the weird yet everyday world of British folklore. In this ground-breaking book, two leading experts provide the definitive guide to British folklore past and present. Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook explore folklore in all its remarkable variations, from village rituals and fairy tales to UFO legends and internet fanfiction. Travelling through a landscape of witches, wizards and wicker men, they reveal how folklore has been researched and written about in the past and show how it continues to be lived in the present. At the same time, they provide the reader with a valuable toolkit for understanding how to interpret the diverse examples given. The book's key message is that folklore is much more than the fossilised remains of a distant, rural past. Folklore is and always has been ubiquitous, dynamic and political. It is a living tradition that draws from many sources, including migrant communities, and is forever being renewed and updated. -- .

About the author

Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Art of Grimoire and Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum (both 2023). He has been described as Britain's foremost academic expert on the history of magic. Ceri Houlbrook is Senior Lecturer in Folklore and History at the University of Hertfordshire. Her books include The Magic of Coin-Trees (2018), Unlocking the Love-Lock (2021) and Ritual 'Litter' Redressed (2022). In addition to her scholarly work, she writes folklore-inspired fiction.

Product details

• Authors: Owen Davies, Houlbrook Ceri, Owen Houlbrook Davies, Ceri Houlbrook
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 23.09.2025
• Subject: Non-fiction book; Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries
• EAN: 9781526180384
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-8038-4
• Pages: 368
• Subjects: Feng Shui, Robin Hood, Halloween, UNESCO, Fake News, Harry Potter, Social Media, The Wicker Man, mermaid, National Identity, Hobbit, Narnia, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Folklore & Mythology, Ramadan, National Trust, Ufos, Doctor Who, Ossian, King Arthur, Witches, fanfiction, Creepypasta, Beowulf, Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Dragons, Discworld, Fairy Books, Ghosts, Wickerman, British & Irish history, Folklore, myths & legends, Eid, Goblins, Wizards, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Fingal, fairies, C. S. Lewis, Hogmanay, Burns Night, Lord of the Rings, britishness, History and Archaeology, Witchtok, Folk Horror, Folklore studies / Study of myth (mythology), Mudlarking, Olwen, His Dark Materials, English Heritage, Museums & museology, Psychogeography, Culhwch, Mabinogion, Sympathetic Magic, cryptids, Witch Trials, knights of the round table, British folklore, alan garner, Chupacabra, Ben Wheatley, Stone Circles, A Treasury of British Folklore, Loch Ness Monster, morris dancing, ronald hutton, hobgoblins, Sea Shanties, bhangra, boggart, The Green Knight, mummers, digital folklore, Beast of Bodmin Moor, The Princess and the Goblin, The King of the Golden River, oral ballads, May Queen, Merlin, Merry Men, Gentleman's Magazine, black face, John Aubrey, Once upon a Forest, Eel Queen, Ballie Gifford prize, Isles of Wonder, Queen's Death, internet folklore, London Olympics 2012, fanlore, ritual year, April Fool’s, Plough Monday, April Fools’, The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Henry Bourne, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Popular Antiquities, Eel King, calendar customs, the Round Table