Folklore: A journey through the past and present

by Owen Davies, Ceri Houlbrook

A gripping guide to the weird yet everyday world of British folklore.

In this ground-breaking book, two leading experts provide the definitive guide to British folklore past and present.

Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook explore folklore in all its remarkable variations, from village rituals and fairy tales to UFO legends and internet fanfiction. Travelling through a landscape of witches, wizards and wicker men, they reveal how folklore has been researched and written about in the past and show how it continues to be lived in the present. At the same time, they provide the reader with a valuable toolkit for understanding how to interpret the diverse examples given.

The book’s key message is that folklore is much more than the fossilised remains of a distant, rural past. Folklore is and always has been ubiquitous, dynamic and political. It is a living tradition that draws from many sources, including migrant communities, and is forever being renewed and updated.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Folklore

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 2025

About the author

This is the disambiguation profile for authors publishing as Owen Davies.

For the historian see Owen Davies

Reviews

[History Today]

Britain is witnessing a prolonged spell of folklore-related publications. They clutter bookshops with jackets boasting old-style lettering set against linocut illustrations of toads and finches. The contents range from nature and the environment to standing stones and contemporary art, but boast ‘folklore’ as a connective tissue. This publishing trend grew out of British nature writing and contemporary concerns over climate change and sustainability, but was tipped towards folklore by the groundswell of nationalist sentiment that surged following Brexit. Folklore has become a means by which people express ‘coming from somewhere’. To some, it has provided a way of talking about place and identity that feels more authentic than the strident certainties of traditional nationalism. As a result, being interested and participating in folklore has become a quiet form of nationalism.

Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook’s Folklore: A Journey Through the Past and Present is a product of this trend. Its big message is that folklore is not just curiosities to be dug out of the past, but lives among us in both new and familiar forms. This is a good message, and I am pleased to see it, though not surprised: while Davies is a historian and Houlbrook an archaeologist, both have served time with the Folklore Society, where Davies is a former president and Houlbrook edits its justly cherished newsletter, FLS News, which has collected curious snippets of folklore, past and present, for many years. Both teach on the only folklore MA offered in England, at the University of Hertfordshire.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Matthew Cheeseman is Professor of Writing and Folklore at the University of Derby.

[Sir Robbiethehoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does not have the feel of a book you would read for pleasure. A bit too dry and a bit too academic in writing style. A fair number of interesting insights but a whole load of information seems just rather crammed in.

I was not blown away by this offering and would not be quick to recommend. The Reader’s Digest folklore book however, I would recommend hugely for anyone with an interest in folklore.