Introduction

Belief in a world beyond the everyday, tangible world and in supernatural beings (fairies, ghosts, werewolves, vampires etc.) is often regarded as one of the essential hallmarks of traditional folk beliefs and practices. Such beliefs can be revealing about the mindset of a particular community and society and how they try to make sense of the world and impose some sort of order on it. In this seminar we will consider the development of beliefs regarding the supernatural in Europe. We will divide into four groups: one will look at folk tales and legends, one will look at ghosts, one at 'monsters' and one will look at witchcraft, magic and paganism.

Seminar Questions

• What do ghost stories, myths and legends reveal about beliefs in the supernatural in Europe?
• How have attitudes towards ghosts changed in Europe since the Middle Ages?
• How has paganism developed in Europe since prehistory?

Required Reading

Folk Tales and Legends

You should each read

Aldhouse-Green, Miranda, The Celtic Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends (London, 2015)Link opens in a new window, Chapter 1
Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

You should also each choose and analyse two folk tales or legends from the following books:

Calvino, Italio, Italian Folktales (London, 2012)Link opens in a new window

Yeats, W. B., Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (New York, 2017)Link opens in a new window

Davies, Sioned, ed. and trans., The MabinogionLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 2008)ink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

Ghosts

You should each read

Davies, Owen, The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts (Basingstoke, 2009), IntroductionLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

and two chapters from the following books:

Joynes, Andrew, ed., Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels, and ProdigiesLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (Woodbridge, 2001)

Chesters, Timothy, Ghost Stories in Late Renaissance France: Walking by Night (Oxford, 2011)Link opens in a new window

OR the two articles below

Menecej, Mirjam, 'The Dead, the War and Ethnic Identity: Ghost Narratives in Post-war Srebrenica', Folklore, Vol. 132, No. 4 (2021), pp. 412-433Link opens in a new window

Simpson, Jacqueline, '"The Rules of Folklore" in the Ghost Stories of M. R. James', Folklore 108 (1997), 9-18Link opens in a new window

Monsters

You should each read

Asmer, Stephen T., On Monsters: An Unnatural History of our Worst Fears (Oxford, 2009)Link opens in a new window, Introduction

and two of the following:

Gelbin, Cathy S., 'The Golem: From Enlightenment Monster to Artificial Intelligence', Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, N0. 69 (2021/2022), pp. 79-94Link opens in a new window

Echeverria, Begona, 'What of the Siren Who Has No Song? Lessons from the Basque Lamina', Western Folklore 75/2, (2016), 165-90.Link opens in a new window

Boudovskaia, Elena, 'Agency and Patriarchy in Carpatho-Rusyn Werewolf Stories', Western Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 2/3 (2019), pp. 151-192Link opens in a new window

Magic, Witchcraft and Paganism

You should choose and read three of the following:

Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Brian Levack, and Roy Porter, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 5: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1999), Part 3, Chapter 1: Controversy c.1680-1800 and Part 3, Chapter 2: Culture and the Supernatural c.1680-1800.Link opens in a new window

Willem de Blecourt, Ronald Hutton, and Jean La Fontaine, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 6: The Twentieth Century (1999), part 1, Section 2: The History of Pagan WitchcraftLink opens in a new window

Davies, Owen, Popular Magic: Cunning Folk in English HistoryLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (London, 2007) - read up to three chapters

Further Reading

Asmer, Stephen T., On Monsters: An Unnatural History of our Worst Fears (Oxford, 2009)Link opens in a new window

Barber, Paul, Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality (New Haven, 2009)Link opens in a new window

Bell, Karl, The Magical Imagination: Magic and Modernity in Urban England, 1780-1914 (Cambridge, 2012)Link opens in a new window

Beresford, Matthew, The White Devil: The Werewolf in European Culture (London, 2013)Link opens in a new window

Besley, Catherine, Ghost Stories in Cultural History (Edinburgh, 2022)Link opens in a new window

de Blécourt, Willem, and Mirjam Mencej, eds, Werewolf LegendsLink opens in a new window (London, 2023)

Brand, John, Observations on Popular Antiquities: Chiefly Illustrating the Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions, ed. Henry Ellis, 2 vols (London, 1813), Vol. 1Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window and Vol. 2Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window.

Brewster, Scott and Thurston, Luke, The Routledge handbook to the ghost story (New York, 2018)Link opens in a new window

Briggs, Katharine M., British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler (London, 1977)

Briggs, Katharine M., A Dictionary of British Folk-tales in the English Language, 2 vols in 4 (London, 1970-1971)

Bruce, Scott G., The Penguin Book of the Undead (London, 2016)

Boudovskaia, Elena, 'Agency and Patriarchy in Carpatho-Rusyn Werewolf Stories', Western Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 2/3 (2019), pp. 151-192Link opens in a new window

Campbell, J. F., Popular Tales of the West HighlandsLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1860-1862)

Carr-Gomm, Philip, and Richard Heygate, The Book of English Magic (London, 2009)

Carrassi, Vito, The Irish Fairy Tale: A Narrative Tradition from the Middle Ages to Yeats and Stephens, trans. Kevin Wren (Lanham, MD, 2012)Link opens in a new window

Chesters, Timothy, Ghost Stories in Late Renaissance France: Walking by Night (Oxford, 2011)Link opens in a new window

Clarke, Roger, A Natural History of Ghosts (London, 2013)Link opens in a new window

Crowe, Catherine, The Night Side of Nature: Or Ghosts and Ghost Seers (1848), Vol. 1Link opens in a new window and Vol. 2Link opens in a new window

Davies, Owen, A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination and Faith during the First World War (Oxford, 2018)

Echeverria, Begona, 'What of the Siren Who Has No Song? Lessons from the Basque Lamina', Western Folklore 75/2, (2016), 165-90.Link opens in a new window

Edmundson, Melissa, Women's Ghost Literature in Nineteenth-century Britain (Cardiff, 2013)Link opens in a new window

Epstein, Saul, and Sara Libby Robinson,The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 1/2 (2012), 232-51.Link opens in a new window

Evans, George Ewart, and David Thomson, The Leaping Hare (London, 1972)

Evans, George Ewart, Horse Power and Magic (London, 1979)Link opens in a new window

Gelbin, Cathy S., 'The Golem: From Enlightenment Monster to Artificial Intelligence', Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, N0. 69 (2021/2022), pp. 79-94Link opens in a new window

Glassie, Henry, ed., Irish Folktales (New York, 1985)Link opens in a new window

Green, Miranda, The Gods of the Celts (Gloucester, 1982)Link opens in a new window

Green, Richard Firth, Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church (Philadelphia, PA, 2016)Link opens in a new window

Groom, Nick, The Vampire: A New History (New Haven, 2018)Link opens in a new window

Haase, Donald, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales, 3 vols (Westport, Conn., 2008)Link opens in a new window

Handley, Sasha, Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth-century EnglandLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (Abingdon, 2016)

Hing, Richard, et al., eds, Folk Horror Revival: Urban Wyrd 2: Spirits of Place (Durham, 2019)

Hoggard, Brian, Magical House Protection: The Archaeology of Counter-WitchcraftLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 2019)

Hunt, Robert, Popular Romances of the West of England, 2 vols (London, 1865), Vol. 1Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window and Vol. 2Link opens in a new window

Hutton, Ronald, Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain (New Haven, 2009)Link opens in a new window

Hutton, Ronald, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present (New Haven, 2017)Link opens in a new window

Hutton, Ronald, Pagan BritainLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (London, 2013)

Hutton, Ronald, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan WitchcraftLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 1999)

James, M. R., Collected Ghost Stories, ed. Darryl Jones (Oxford, 2013)

Jarvie, Gordon, ed., Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Harmondsworth, 2008)

Kuusela, Tommy, 'Spirited Away by the Female Forest Spirit in Swedish Folk Belief', Folklore, Vol. 131, No. 2 (2020), pp. 159-179Link opens in a new window

Lesiv, Mariya, The return of ancestral gods: modern Ukrainian Paganism as an alternative vision for a nation (Montreal, 2013)Link opens in a new window

MacKillop, James, A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford, 2004)Link opens in a new window

MacKillop, James, Myths and Legends of the Celts (Harmondsworth, 2005)Link opens in a new window

McCorristine, Shane, Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-seeing in England, 1750-1920Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (Cambridge, 2010)

Maier, Bernhard, 'The Celtic and Germanic West and North', in Josef Lossl and Nicholas J. Baker-Brian, eds, A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity (Hoboken, N. J., 2018), pp. 99-114.Link opens in a new window

Marshall, Peter, Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story (Oxford, 2007).Link opens in a new window

Menecej, Mirjam, 'The Dead, the War and Ethnic Identity: Ghost Narratives in Post-war Srebrenica', Folklore, Vol. 132, No. 4 (2021), pp. 412-433Link opens in a new window

Morrison, Sophia, Manx Fairy TalesLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (London, 1911)

Nahmad, H. M., A Portion of Paradise and other Jewish Folktales (New York, 1970)

O'Connor, Anne, 'To Hell or to Purgatory? Irish Folk Religion and Post-Tridentine Counter-Reformation Catholic Teachings', Bealoideas 80 (2012), 115–41Link opens in a new window

Ó Súilleabháin, Seán, A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Dublin, 1942)

Owens, Susan, The Ghost: A Cultural History (London, 2017)

Paciorek, Andy, et al., eds, Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies, 2nd ed. (Durham, 2018)

Palmer, Roy, The Folklore of Warwickshire (London, 1976)

Poewe, Karla, 'Scientific Neo-paganism Then and Now: From Ludendorff's Gotterkentnis to Sigrid Hunke's Europas Eigene Religion', Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 14, No, 3 (1999), pp. 387-400Link opens in a new window

Rhys, John, Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1901), Vol. 1Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window and Vol. 2Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

Roud, Steve, The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland (Harmondsworth, 2003)Link opens in a new window

Schnurbein, Stefanie v., Norse revival : transformations of Germanic neopaganism (Boston, 2016) Link opens in a new window

Scovell, Adam, Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange (Leighton Buzzard, 2017)Link opens in a new window

Simek, Rudolf, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (Cambridge, 1993)

Simpson, Jacqueline, '"The Rules of Folklore" in the Ghost Stories of M. R. James', Folklore 108 (1997), 9-18Link opens in a new window

Smith, Andrew, The Ghost Story, 1840-1920: A Cultural History (Manchester, 2013)Link opens in a new window

Stiffler, Muriel W., The German Ghost Story as Genre (New York, 1993)

Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London, 1973)

Vickery, Roy, Vickery's Folk Flora: An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants (London, 2019)

Warner, Marina, Once Upon A Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale (Oxford, 2016)Link opens in a new window

Westwood, Jacqueline, and Jacqueline Simpson, eds, Haunted England: The Penguin Book of Ghosts (Harmondsworth, 2008)Link opens in a new window

Wisker, Gina, Contemporary Women's Ghost Stories: Spectres, Revenants, Ghostly Returns (Cham, 2022)Link opens in a new window

Young, Simon, and Ceri Houlbrook, eds, Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies - 500 AD to the PresentLink opens in a new window (London, 2017)

Zipes, Jack and Russo, Joseph (ed. and trans.), The collected Sicilian folk and fairy tales of Giuseppe Pitre (Hoboken, 2008)Link opens in a new window

Zipes, Jack, ed., The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford, 2000)Link opens in a new window

Zipes, Jack, The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (Princeton, N.J., 2012)

Electronic Resources

The Rest is History Podcast: Ghosts (24/6/21)Link opens in a new window

The Rest is History Podcast: Hallowe'en and Modern Paganism (1/11/2021)Link opens in a new window

The Rest is History Podcast: Stonehenge, Ancient Ritual and the origins of Paganism (2/11/2021)Link opens in a new window

The Battersea Poltergeist - BBC Radio series/podcastLink opens in a new window

The Folklore Podcast: PerchtenLink opens in a new window (discussing female monsters/spirts from the Alps)

In Our Time: The UnicornLink opens in a new window