The Newsletter of the
Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy Aug-Sept 2014
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Contents
Gramarye issue 5 out now ...
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Events at the Centre, 2014-15
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Wonderlands PGR conference
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Folklore Map of Sussex and the South Downs
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Chichester Meets the Elphinstone
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Other Upcoming Conferences
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Scotland's International Storytelling Festival
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Hobbit Day and Tolkien Week
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Gramarye issue 5 out now ...
This issue’s contents include: • ‘The Case of the Ebony Horse’ (Part I), Ruth B. Bottigheimer • ‘By Fynnon Ddu’, Katherine Langrish • ‘Fairy-Tale Adaptation in Jim Henson’s “The Storyteller”’, John Pazdziora • ‘Two Tales from Odds and Sods’, Stephen Badman • ‘“Iron is Stronger than Grief, but Love is Stronger than Iron”: Reading Fairy-Tale Emotions through Words and Illustrations’, Maria Nikolajeva • ‘My Favourite Rhymes and Stories when I was Young: Idaho Folklore in the 1940s’, D.L. Ashliman • A review of Cristina Bacchilega’s Fairy Tales Transformed? Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder and Mar tine Hennard’s Reading, Translating, Rewriting: Angela Carter’s Translational Poetics, Sadhana Naithani • A review of Karl Bell’s The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures, Scott Wood • A review of Jack Zipes’ The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang, Lili Sarnyai 3
• A review of Kate Bernheimer’s xo Orpheus: Fifty New Myths, Catriona McAra Not to mention images by Walter Crane, Edmund Dulac, Charles Folkard, Brian Froud, Warwick Goble, Arthur Rackham and Binette Schroeder. To order your copy go to our online store, or you can purchase a copy from the following bookshops: • Atlantis Books (London) • Byre Books (Wigtown) • Dave’s Comics (Brighton) • Emporium Bookshop (Cromarty) • Foyles (London) • Haslemere Bookshop • Kims (Chichester) • Nemetona (Montrose) • Practical Magick (Knaresborough) • Transreal Fiction (Edinburgh) • Treadwells (London) • Waterstone’s (Chichester) • Way Out There And Back (Littlehampton) • White Witch (Waltham Abbey) • Word Power (Edinburgh) 4
Events at the Centre, 2014-15
Our events this year are kindly sponsored by:
Dr Darren Oldridge, 'Fairies, Imps, Goblins and Bogies in Early Modern England' Thursday 23rd October 2014, 5.15-6.30 p.m., Cloisters Dr Darren Oldridge teaches History at the University of Worcester. He is a specialist in early modern religious history, with a particular interest in witchcraft and the Devil; his most recent books are The Devil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press: 2012) and The Devil in Tudor and Stuart England (2nd edition: History Press 2010). At present he is writing a study of the supernatural in early modern England, to be published by Routledge next year. Tickets ÂŁ5/ÂŁ3 concessions, free to University staff and students. 5
Jacqueline Simpson, 'Folktales of England' Tuesday 4 November, H149, 3-5 p.m. England's foremost living folklorist, Folk lore Advisor to Terry Pratchett and the Centre's Visiting Professor of Folklore, Jacqueline Simpson will present an introduction to England's folktales. England has rather more folktales than people assume, including many local and migratory legends, though they are mainly Sagen not Märchen. Tickets £5/£3 concessions, free to University staff and students. Dr Steve O'Brien, 'British and Irish Folktales' Wednesday 21st January 2015, 5.15-6.30 p.m., Room H144 Editor of the London Magazine, Visiting Fellow of Creative Writing at Chichester, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Steve O'Brien will be presenting his retellings of British and Irish folktales. His poetry collections include Dark Hill Dreams and Scrying Stone. Tickets £5/£3 concessions, free to University staff and students.
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Kate Mosse Spring 2015, tbc
(Image credit: The Telegraph)
Kate Mosse is the multi-million bestselling novelist whose book Labyrinth was #1 in UK paperback for six months and was named one of the Top 25 books of the past 25 years by the bookselling chain Waterstones. Translated into thirty languages and adapted as a major television film on Channel 4 at Easter 2013, it was followed by the equally successful Sepulchre and Citadel, and several short story collections. For all events, e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk for more information or to book your tickets.
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Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/ Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy PGR Symposium, 23 May 2015, University of Chichester Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this event is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, although other scholars and the general public will be welcome. We are delighted to announce that Professor Diane Purkiss of Oxford University, who is also a creative writer of fantasy fiction (under the pseudonym ‘Tobias Druitt’), will give the Keynote Lecture, five years after her inaugural lecture at the Sussex Centre in 2010. Other speakers may include Alice illustrator John Vernon Lord and creative writer and storyteller Steve O'Brien. The day will close with a series of performances from professional storytellers which engage with the theme of wonder lands. Call for Papers We are seeking papers which explore all aspects of reading, writing, and telling fairy tales and fantasy. In particular, we invite discussion of wonder lands in fantastical literature, classic and modern fairy tales, and contemporary oral storytelling. Possible topics of focus include, but are not limited to: • Other worlds, otherworldliness, Wonderland, and wonder lands • Relationships between reading, writing, and/or telling fantasy 8
• Contemporary scholarship in children’s and adult’s fantasy literature • Storytelling as a vehicle for the fantastic • Practice and performance of fairy tales • Fantastical non-fiction • Relationships between real and imagined wonder lands • Meta-textual conversations with classic fantasy literature • Imagining the fantastical world through illustrations and picture books We also welcome paper submissions or panel presentations which include a creative or performative element. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words (or panel proposals of 1,000 words) and a short personal bio to the organisers, Joanna Coleman, Joanne Blake Cave, and Rose Williamson at wonderlands.symposium@gmail.com. The deadline for submission will be 31st January 2015. Registration dates will be announced on the Sussex Centre website in the near future at http://www.sussexfolktalecentre.org.
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Folklore Map of Sussex and the South Downs
Here's a sneak peek at our free downloadable map of Sussex and South Downs folktales and traditions, to be released Summer 2015. With hyperlinks to parking and places to eat, visiting the haunts of witches and black dogs, strange tumuli and lost, still-ringing church bells has never been easier. Folklore Quiz! Please help us to find out whether this map will be useful in pro足 moting this area's rich folklore heritage by completing our quiz! 11
Chichester Meets the Elphinstone by Elizabeth Rainey The Inaugural Steppin Steens o Knowledge Folklore, Ethnology, and Ethnomusicology Conference at Aberdeen University was a splendid event, marked by a lone piper at Crathes Castle and a thoughtful keynote delivery on ‘How Musicians Align their Practice with Publics’ by Byron Dueck, from the Open University. It was organised with a great deal of enthusiasm, including contributions on the Shetland Boat, Unicorns and Scottish Fiddle Music among many other themes, allowing early-career researchers to network and have their voices heard by a sympathetic peer group. The inclusive nature of the conference and the wide variety of presenters was a
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reassuring aspect of the Scottish-led organisation, with Sara Reith’s paper on Stanley Robertson, ‘Journey, Progression and the Application of Traveller Traditions’ to my mind the most memorable piece, delivered with a great deal of care. Other delegates came from France, Turkey, the United States Sri Lanka and Australia and were all made very welcome by the volunteers. As a first-time visitor to the city, I was struck by the openness of the place, its green expanses and dramatic coastline. As Aberdeen Grammar was attended by Lord Byron, the local topography of the city no doubt inspired his work. Rain-soaked days and a series of guided walks and excursions punctuated the papers and talks, as did the eclectic catering service – purveyors of haggis, local mussels and salmon to researchers. Aberdeen undergraduate robes are shorter than others, according to one local tale, because of the murder of a university disciplinarian by his charges – or maybe mitigate that to accidental death. Other stories of the violent history of the region were revealed by the dramatic ruins of Dunnottar Castle, clinging onto the cliff face, scene of a massacre of Covenanters (see photo). Links with the Elphinstone Institute and the Sussex Centre seem to be fruitful, since the over-arching rubric study of Folklore produces such exciting local stories, performances and contrasting interpretations of narratives. Therefore, students working in the field may continue this initial contact online or in the supportive Chichester and Bognor research arena. 13
Other Upcoming Conferences
Folklife Studies Annual Conference 11-14 September, Killarney, Rep. of Ireland The annual conference is a friendly four-day event held at various locations in Great Britain and Ireland in September. It includes papers by Society members and eminent guest lecturers and study excursions to local sites of interest. The conference provides an unique opportunity for the exchange of ideas and information on an informal basis. http://www.folklifestudies.org.uk/category/conference/
CfP for 'There and Back Again: Tolkien in 2015' The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State University (20-1 February 2015; deadline 1 October 2014) http://cmrs.osu.edu/events/pcdp/2015-tolkien/cfp
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The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the Ohio State University invites abstracts and panel proposals for its second academic conference on Popular Culture and the Deep Past, devoted this year to the works of and world surrounding J.R.R. Tolkien. In keeping with the PCDP idea, this will be a full-fledged conference, itself nested in a broader 'carnival' of popular and traditional cultural events and activities, including food- and culture-ways demonstrations, exhibits of artwork, books, and manuscripts, combat, gaming, and cosplay. (If you wish to submit a proposal for a non-academic presentation or activity, or otherwise participate in 'Tolkien Day' as an organizer or volunteer, please see our separate 'Tolkien Day' CFP at cmrs.osu.edu/events/pcdp/2015-tolkien/carnival.) The American Folklore Society Conference, 5-8 Nov Fairy-tale related papers at Sur La Lune. CfP for the 'Enchanted Edwardians' conference (deadline 5 December), to be held at the University of Bristol, 30-1 March 2015. This invites 300-word proposals for papers on any aspect of the theme ‘Enchanted Edwardians’, from scholars working in all fields of British culture c.1895-1914. Full information here. 15
CfP: Vernacular Religion, Folk Belief, and Traditions of the Supernatural 23-28 March 2015, Macau This international academic conference promotes underÂstanding of why and how folk belief and supernatural experiences occur as well as how they may be compared across cultures and genres. Papers are particularly encouraged on urban traditions and comparisons between supernatural narratives belonging to religion, folk belief, science, and entertainment. For more information see http://www.islanddynamics.org/
Folklore:Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow CfP: The Folklore Society’s AGM Conference 2015, 17-19 April 2015, Sheffield University. This conference seeks to address key questions within our discipline in terms of its identity and selfdefinition, its practices and, by extension, its future. Placing British folklore scholarship in its broader international framework, the conference seeks to identify and strengthen the reciprocal relationships that exist throughout our discipline. http://www.folklore-society.com/events/folklore-yesterdaytoday-and-tomorrow 16
CfP: Tolkien at Kalamazoo, May 2015 The paper sessions are: • Tolkien’s Beowulf: This session will focus on the recent publication of the translation by his son Christopher, how it relates to other Tolkien works and to Tolkien’s mythology. • Tolkien and medieval Victorianism: examines influences on Tolkien’s scholarship and mythology by Victorian writers, genres, and culture. • Tolkien as linguist and medievalist: focusses on Tolkien’s linguistic and medieval influences as sources for his scholarship and the construction of his legendarium, as well as Tolkien’s own invented languages. http://www.mythgard.org/2014/06/cfp-tolkien-at-kalamazoo-2015/ Exhibition: Making of Mordor, Wolverhampton 20 Sep 2014 – 17 Jan 2015 Exploring links between the Black Country of the early 1900s and JRR Tolkien’s fantasy land of Mordor, this exhibition brings together paintings, photographs, film and writing inspired by the industrial powerhouse of the West Midlands. As well as images from Tolkien’s sketchbooks, first editions of The Lord of the Rings and iconic illustrations by Ted Nasmith, the show includes contemporary works by Richard Billingham, Brian Griffin and internationally acclaimed installation artist Olafur Eliasson. http://www.tolkiensociety.org/2014/08/making-of-mordorexhibition-in-wolverhampton/ 17
Scotland's International Storytelling Festival, 24 Oct-2 Nov Part of Homecoming Scotland 2014, this year’s festival aims to share the vibrant stories of Edinburgh. Dive into the world of Robert Louis Stevenson in an event that combines music and the poetry, diaries and letters of Scotland's best-loved author, or enter the darker side of history with an exploration of the Scottish witches were they devil worshippers, healers, or gender rebels? And every evening, join storytellers around the hearth for a relaxed, traditional session of sharing tales. As well as the best Scottish storytellers, international guests will once again gather at the festival to create spaces for sharing tales across cultures. A particular highlight of this year’s festival will be All Hallows Eve, the Night of Samhain, the Gaelic festival that was the precursor to Hallowe'en. This year, the Scottish International Storytelling Festival will celebrate this special night with an event around the hearth, storytellers and musicians gathering together to welcome the winter and the spirits of the past. http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk/news/scotlands-stories 18
Hobbit Day and Tolkien Week
Tolkien Week was invented by the American Tolkien Society and is always around September 22, Hobbit Day, as Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday, the date of the Long-expected Party, was on 22 September. Brisbane The Brisbane Tolkien Fellowship are celebrating with a Hobbit Picnic in the Park, Hobbit Story Time, Middle-earth Barefoot Bowls, An Evening in Middle Earth and various library events. http://proudfootesq.com/tolkien-week-celebrations-2014/
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If you have any queries or feedback about this newsletter, please contact Heather Robbins at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk
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