Folklore Fellows

06/05/2026

Chers amis, le prochain ouvrage de la collection FFC est consacré aux contes d’animaux de l’Amérique du Nord francophone. *Le Catalogue raisonné du conte populaire français en Amérique du Nord (Canada et États-Unis), Les contes d’animaux*, de Luc Lacourcière et Margaret Low, est édité par Jean-Pierre Pichette. Il s’agit d’une publication conjointe avec les Presses de l’Université Laval (PUL) au Canada.

[Oui, cette publication Facebook a été traduite à l’aide de DeepL]

Lacourciére, Luc & Low, MargaretLes contes d´animaux. Le Catalogue raisonné du conte populaire français en Amérique du Nord (Canada et États-Unis)Ed. Jean-Pierre PichetteKalevalaseura-säätiöFolklore Fellows' Communications 329Jelgava 2025, 770 pp.

06/03/2026

Latest in the FFC series: The Treatise on Elves by Ólafur of Purkey. Cosmology and Folk Belief in Nineteenth-Century Iceland
Ed. Matthias Egeler and Jón Jónsson

*Warm welcome to the on-line book launch symposium in 16 March, see more in the comments below.*

"In the years around 1830, the lcelandic farmer, fisherman, and scribe Òlafur Sveinsson (1761-1845) set out to prove the existence of the ‘hidden people’ (huldufólk) or ‘elves’ (álfar), which he experienced as an everyday part of his life as a man working the land and the sea. ln order to achieve his aim, he collected memorates, traditional tales, poems, and literary references, focusing on his extended family, neighbours, and acquaintances especially in the fjord of Breiðafjöður in Western lceland. ln doing so, he compiled an ethnography of local traditions about elves, which stands out through its remarkable richness of detail and an attention to context that makes it a testimony not only to Ólafur’s personal beliefs, but also to attitudes towards the ‘hidden people’ in his wider local community. The resulting Treatise on Elves is perhaps the single most detailed account of living folk belief as seen from the inside perspective of a tradition bearer and believer to survive from the whole of pre-industrial Europe."

This book presents the first edition and translation of Ólafur Sveinsson's treatise on elves that makes its text accessible in the way how it was laid out by Ólafur himself. The text is accompanied by an analysis of its social, literary, and economic context that shows the rich contributions which...

13/02/2026

FF Newsletter 60 (Winter 2025) is out!

CONTENTS

Provincializing Modernity 3
Frog

The UNESCO Process Led Kaustinen Fiddle Players to Fruitful Self-Reflection 4
Lauri Oino

Considering Text Ideology 7
Frog

World Philology Union – WPU 14

FFC 328: Explorations in the Violence of Traditions and the Traditions of Violence 16

FFC 329: Luc Lacourcière & Margaret Low: Le Catalogue raisonné du conte populaire français en Amérique du Nord – Les Contes d’animaux 16

FFC 330: Matthias Egeler & Jón Jónsson (eds.) The Treatise on Elves by Ólafur of Purkey: Cosmology and Folk Belief in Nineteenth-Century Iceland – Book & Symposium 17

CFP (DL 15 Feb 2026): 54th International Conference of the Kommission für Volksdichtung | 16th Conference on Traditional Singing 18

Editorial: Whether we view the era of ideologies that are being struggled with today as mainly belonging to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or to a period of five centuries, it is only ‘five minutes of fame’ in the scope of human history. Modernity should be engaged as the provincial phen...

04/02/2026

The long awaited book "Explorations in the Violence of Traditions and Traditions of Violence" (ed. Pertti J. Anttonen in collaboration with Niina Hämäläinen) is now out as vol 328 in the Folklore Fellows' Communications series! At our website you can read the article abstracts, and more about the authors.

The articles in this book are based on papers presented at the 10th Folklore Fellows’ Summer School (2021).

CONTENTS

Preface ....................................................................................................11
Introduction ............................................................................................13
When Tradition and Violence Become Linked
Pertti J. Anttonen
I. Humans and Other-than-Humans in Narrative Violence
Wildly Ours .............................................................................................41
Narrative Violence and Non-Violence Towards Wildlife
Sadhana Naithani
When Violence Moves across Species......................................................59
Charles L. Briggs
Traditions of Violence and the Supernatural Procedural ...........................81
Amelia Mathews-Pett
II. Violence in Oral-Derived Literature, Art and Drama
Heritage, Harassment, and the Epic Heroine .........................................107
Articulations of Violence in the Kalevala’s Aino Poem
Niina Hämäläinen & Lotte Tarkka
“Triumph of Good Over the Evil” ..........................................................141
Violence Redefined in Masked Dance Dramas of India
Ayantika Chakraborty
The Violence of the Mask .......................................................................161
From Greek Tragedy to the Avatar
Terry Gunnell
III. Socially Structuring Conflicts from Country to Cosmos
Violent Displays/Mediatised Violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh War ....193
Nona Shahnazarian
Contexts of Violence ..............................................................................215
Revisiting Aztec Human Sacrifice Rituals
Malay Bera
The Duality of Creation and Destruction..................................................241
Violent Myths as Transitions in the Cosmological Timeline of
Old Norse Mythology
Jesse Barber
Charivari at Shrovetide in Ireland ...........................................................263
Carnivalesque Responses to Modernity
Fionnán Mac Gabhann
IV. Violence of People and Culture on the Move
The Waiting Women of Rajasthan ..........................................................291
Violence and Subversion in Songs and Tales of Separation
Surabhi Jiwrajka Mawandia
Violence and Everyday Interactions .......................................................313
Estonian Return Migrants’ Narratives of Difference and Sameness
Pihla Maria Siim
Narratives and Northern Colonialities ....................................................339
Genealogies of Sámi Folklore Collection in Norway
Stein R. Mathisen
Authors and Abstracts ............................................................................365
Indices
1 Index of Persons .................................................................................375
2 General Index .....................................................................................377

Researchers of vernacular traditions or folklore have a special entrance point into studying violence, as many forms of violence are based on traditions and are justified with a reference to tradition. The challenging point in understanding violence is that it is not always clear what counts as viol...

01/10/2025

The deadline for submissions for the 11th Folklore Fellows' Summer School has been extended! It is now 31 October 2025.

11th Folklore Fellows' Summer School: Interdisciplinarity and Involvement – Enduring and Emerging Sites of the Vernacular. Helsinki and Tvärminne, Finland, 17th–21st August 2026.

23/06/2025

The 11th Folklore Fellows' Summerschool is announced! It's theme is "Interdisciplinarity and Involvement: Enduring and Emerging Sites of the Vernacular", and it will be arranged in Finland (Helsinki and Tvärminne) in August 17–21, 2026.

Important dates:

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2025
Notification of decisions; 31 October 2025
Registration: 1 December 2026
Participation fees due: 1 May 2026
Working papers due: 15 June 2026

Read more 👇

11th Folklore Fellows' Summer School: Interdisciplinarity and Involvement – Enduring and Emerging Sites of the Vernacular. Helsinki and Tvärminne, Finland, 17th–21st August 2026.

05/04/2025

*The FFC sale continues until the end of April*

So far, the campaign's best sellers have been Merrill Kaplan's "Thou Fearful Guest: addressing the past in four tales in Flateyjarbók" (2011), Reidar Th. Christiansen's "The Migratory Legends. A Proposed List of Types with a Systematic Catalogue of the Norwegian Variants" (1992/1958), and Satu Apo's "The Narrative World of Finnish Fairy Tales. Structure, Agency, and Evaluation in Southwest Finnish Folktales" (1995).

See what other FFC volumes there are and get yours at the Bookstore: Tiedekirja for a few Euros!

👉 https://tiedekirja.fi/en/on-sale/ffc-ale

28/03/2025

The new Folklore Fellows' Network Bulletin (FFNB) is out!

Contents:

Will ICH Replace Tradition?
Heidi Henriikka Mäkelä

11th Folklore Fellows’ Summer School Interdisciplinarity and Involvement: Enduring and Emerging Sites of the Vernacular

More a Lore than a Literature
Jonathan Roper

Biomimetic Figurations in Contemporary Biohacking
Antti Lindfors

Book Review: The God Perkūnas of the Ancient Lithuanians
Daiva Vaitkevičienė

FF Communications’ Storage Clearance Book Sale – Most books only 2€!

Editorial, articles by Antti Lindfors and Jonathan Roper, book review, and FFC book sale announcement

14/03/2025

FFC Storage Clearing Sale! – Most books for 2–10 € until April 30th 2025!

Folklore Fellows’ Communications (FFC) is one of the oldest and most significant monograph series in folklore and ethnology. First published in 1910, it currently includes 327 titles, including many works that have had tremendous impact.

The FFC storage space is being greatly reduced. To reduce our stock, we are having the biggest sale in the history of FFC. Almost all books from 2018 or earlier have been discounted to 2–10€.

Our clearance includes 1–3 extra archived copies of many volumes that were out of print for decades.

🔗📗📘📙 Get yours at: https://tiedekirja.fi/en/on-sale/ffc-ale