Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present

Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present examines British traditions across ritual, performance, storytelling, legends, folk medicine and beliefs about the natural world. Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook also consider supernatural traditions, landscape rituals, childlore and domestic life, showing how folklore has been studied as well as practised.

The later chapters turn to broadcasting, digital culture and national identity, bringing fairy tales and village customs into contact with UFO legends, internet fanfiction and traditions shaped by migrant communities. Across these subjects, the authors present folklore as a living, changing and sometimes political part of everyday life, rather than simply a survival from a rural past.