Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland

Description

This collection explores folklore and folkloristics within the diverse and contested national discourses of Britain and Ireland, examining their role in shaping the islands’ constituent nations from the eighteenth century to our contemporary moment of uncertainty and change. This book is concerned with understanding folklore, particularly through its intersections with the narratives of nation entwined within art, literature, disciplinary practice and lived experience. By following these ideas throughout history into the twenty-first century, the authors show how notions of the folk have inspired and informed varied points from the Brothers Grimm to Brexit. They also examine how folklore has been adapting to the real and imagined changes of recent political events, acquiring newfound global and local rhetorical power. This collection asks why, when and how folklore has been deployed, enacted and considered in the context of national ideologies and ideas of nationhood in Britain and Ireland. Editors Cheeseman and Hart have crafted a thoughtful and timely collection, ideal for students and scholars of folklore, history, literature, anthropology, sociology and media studies. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 Grimm Ripples: The Role of the Grimms’ Deutsche Sagen in the Collection and Creation of National Folk Narratives in Northern Europe 3 Forest Murmurs: Wood and Wild in the Making of England 4 The Last Earl of Hallamshire: Legend, Landscape and Identity in South Yorkshire 5 Anarchy in the UK: Haddon and the Anarchist Agenda in the Anglo-Irish Folklore Movement 6 ‘Powerful and Sovereign Medicines . . . Virulent Poisons Also’: Arthur Machen, Occultism and the Celtic Revival 7 Visions of English Identity: The Country Dance and Shakespeare-Land 8 Embodied Englishness in the Inter-War Morris Revival 9 A Scottish Volk? Folklore, Anthropology, Race and Nationalism in Inter-War Scotland 10 Photographic Surveys of Calendar Customs: Preserving Identity in Times of Change 11 Folklore as MacGuffin: British Folklore and Margaret Murray in a 1930 Crime Novel and Beyond 12 Et in Arcadia Ego: British Folk Horror Film and Television 13 Bloody Europe: Brexit and the Making of a Myth 14 Folkloric Landscapes and the Heroic Outlaw: Robin Hood, Boris Johnson and Extinction Rebellion 15 ‘Our Community Could Start Our Own Traditions’: The Commingling of Religion, Politics and the Folkloresque in a Far-Right Groupuscule 16 Blood, Blots and Belonging: English Heathens and Their (Ab)uses of Folklore 17 The Tale of Hanan the Tailor: Storytelling in Times of Change Notes on Contributors Index