Folklore inFolklore: Trends Since 1959

Abstract

This is the one hundredth volume of Folklore to appear under that title, hyphenated or not; it is also now thirty years since my distinguished predecessor, Professor E. O. James, looked back over his long editorship to discuss the history of the Journal and some of the principles guiding it (Folklore 1959, 382-93.) It seems appropriate to mark these anniversaries by another retrospective editorial glance, and consider some trends observable in Folklore since 1959-both the continuities and the new developments. Already in 1959, Professor James noted, folklorists who had been trained as anthropologists were 'a dwindling minority' and 'possibly doomed to extinction'. The two disciplines have drawn even further apart since then; the heyday of their interconnection has been recalled in recent articles by William Bascom (1983, 163-172), S. J. Bronner (1984, 47-74), and Andrew Duff-Cooper (1986, 186-205). Nevertheless, the Journal has until very recently contained many papers describing oral genres, customs and beliefs from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Polynesia, the West Indies, and the Amerindian peoples. The proportion of space given to such material has recently been reduced, a survey of Folklore Society members in 1986 having shown that most felt it too remote from their own concerns. However, it has not been entirely eliminated; 'cross-fertilization with allied disciplines is always highly beneficial,' to quote Professor James again, and one need look no further than a recent article by James Bynon on Berber bird-lore (1987, 152-174) to see how non-European traditions can be directly illuminating for our own. Folklore from other European countries and North Americans of European descent has always found a place in our Journal; it provides a context essential to the understanding of British material, and, in many cases, European countries still displayed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a richer range of beliefs, customs and tales than were then observable here. Among many contributions of this kind over the past thirty years, special mention must be made of those describing material which language barriers would otherwise make inaccessible; for instance, articles by T. P. Vukanovi' on Balkan customs and beliefs (1959, 394-7 and 468-76; 1960, 306-16; 1981, 43-53); Lisa Warner on Russian folk plays (1971, 185-206; 1973, 38-50; 1976, 209-15); Bela Gunda on the magic of Hungarian herdsmen (1970, 286-92); Tuinde Zentai on Hungarian graveyards (1979, 131-40); David Summers on Romanian beliefs (1972, 321-8); Harry Senn on Romanian werewolves (1982, 206-15); Gustav Henningsen on Danish witchcraft (1982, 131-7). Amulets and apotropaic devices from Austria and Bavaria have been described by Ellen Ettlinger (1965, 104-17); some from Malta by G. Zammit-Maempel (1968, 1-16); some from Naples by V. Berry (1968, 250-7). The history of folklore studies in Finland was the subject of an authoritative survey by Lauri Honko (1979, 141-52). Canada is represented by a paper on 'Newfoundland Mummering' by Margaret Robertson (1982, 176-180). From the United States have come not only papers on specific topics from that country's traditions, but also stimulating discussions of folkloristic principles and problems of methodology of general relevance, as in papers by J. H.