My “The Folk-lore of North Staffordshire” has had its annual update, with new or expanded entries. It’s a free comprehensive annotated bibliography in PDF. Currently in version 1.7 (December 2021, for 2022). At 40 pages it should be printable as a 10-sheet booklet, around which you can put card covers. Please update any local copies you may be keeping.
Download: staffordshire_folklore-17.pdf
Merry Christmas to readers of this blog.
Not quite a card, but feeling festive all the same. It’s a slot-in ‘Chromatrope’ from a Victorian ‘magic lantern’ show, an early form of slide projector. The wheel was turned by the lanternist and a big kaleidoscope pattern was projected.
I found a few more recent Tolkien papers / chapters which seemed of interest to me, two in open access:
* “Tolkien: sobre la trascendencia desde el corazon artistico”. Part of a 2021 Spanish-language volume of essays whose title translates as The Absent Presence: God in Contemporary Literature, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha. (Gives the initial appearance of being about the discovery of earendel, but this is quickly skipped over and the text is actually a survey-study of the creation elements in The Silmarillion).
* “Finnic tetrameter in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Story of Kullervo in comparison to W.F. Kirby’s English translation of the Kalevala“. (A close line-by-line study, comparing the “chunks of poetry” in Tolkien’s Story with Kirby’s 1907 translation).
* Tolkien and Auden, a study in Russian with an English abstract available… “… examines the main stages of the relationship: Auden’s studies at Oxford University, where Tolkien was one of the lecturers and examiners of the poet, and the friendship that arose several decades later on the basis of a common interest of the former student and the professor in Old English poetry, as well as Auden’s deep interest in the epic novel The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s works in general. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of Tolkien’s letters to Auden, which are characterised by a confidential, friendly tone. It is noted that these letters are an important source of information about the reasons, history and ways of writing of Tolkien’s works. The situations behind specific letters are revealed through engagement with additional sources.”
New on Hathi, Magic in modern London (1925). A serious Folk-lore Society study of enduring superstitions and related lore in London.
Such a pity no-one ever did the same for Stoke. Though here you can see a variety of items suggesting at least relic folk-beliefs circa 1900. The two carved owls atop on the side-posts, the green-man like faces on the wrought iron flanking the door, the four mirrors in the window, and the spread eagle (or possibly a mythic bird, as it seems to have a peacock’s head) above all. Actually it might even be a large duck.
My new book Tolkien and the Lizard: J.R.R. Tolkien in Cornwall, 1914 was sold in ebook as a time-limited fundraiser for my larger book on Tolkien.
Update: My thanks to the nine people who purchased copies of the Cornwall ebook. As of Sept 2022 the much larger book is now published, and it includes ‘Tolkien in Cornwall’. The new book is available to buy now, from this page.