Folklore Matters

For folk horror fans, Kier-la Janisse needs no introduction. She’s a Canadian publisher and producer, and an executive for Severin Films. She's the founder of The Miskatonic Institute for Horror Studies as well as the author and editor of a tonne of excellent books, including the seminal work about representations of female madness on screen House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography...

A very special episode to close series two: Dave Clarke and Andrew Robinson interview Professor John Widdowson at home in the Peak District. For many listeners, John will need no introduction. John has been at the forefront of Folkloristics and dialect studies in the UK for decades. Following degrees from Oxford, Leeds and Memorial University, Canada, John founded the Centre for English Cultural T...

It’d be daft of us if we didn’t speak to our very own Dave Clarke. Probably best known as a world expert on UFOs, Dave has also researched a whole host of other folklore-related stories, trends, ideas and concepts, writing numerous books and appearing frequently on documentaries and podcasts (including most recently Sky’s The Alien Autopsy Scandal ). His new book on the folklore of space is out ne...

Anna Milon and Christopher Ohge are two researchers working on a collaborative project between UK and German universities that seeks to create a digital tool that helps researchers navigate large folk narrative collections. Project StoryMachine is in its infancy, but its capabilities are already pretty exciting. Anna and Christopher tell us more here. To find out more about StoryMachine, visit the...

Why is folk culture in the spotlight in the UK at the moment? What are the most exciting things going on? Do we have to think about how folk culture is organised and presented, and what are the differences between folk culture and the folk scene? The Folk Union is a fascinating project that has grown exponentially. You can read more about it here, and buy some of the pamphlets Mike discusses: http...

Dave and Diane had the pleasure of meeting Jack Werner at the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR) annual conference in Stockholm and knew he’d made a fascinating future guest for Folklore Matters. Jack is the presenter of the Swedish version of Uncanny – he tells us how to pronounce the Swedish title properly in the episode! – and has been researching contemporary legend...

Klára Feikusová is a Czech scholar with a penchant for horror on screen, especially folk horror, so we were delighted when she stopped by Sheffield on her trip to the UK and agreed to appear on the podcast. Klára mentions legendary Czech film director František Vláčil in the podcast. If you’d like to know more about him and his works, please visit: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/f...

Welcome back to Folklore Matters! We're delighted to be bringing you more compelling interviews with people working with folklore in myriad ways, from academic research to popular culture. To kick off series two, we meet Dave Brewis, a filmmaker with over two decades of experience in filming calendar customs in the UK and in France. His recent series, Gatherings, examines six UK customs in detail....

Now that our first ever series of Folklore Matters is out there, hosts and researchers, Diane Rodgers and Sophie Parkes-Nield, give a quick overview of their favourite moments.

Professor Helen Wheatley is a legendary television scholar who has published seminal books, such as Gothic Television , the award-winning Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure , and more recently Television/Death , a study of death, bereavement and dying on television. In this episode of Folklore Matters - the final episode of series one - Helen joins Diane Rodgers in the studio to...

Folklore is massive on social media, and around May Day and Halloween, you may have seen films and photographs of people dancing on their own or in small groups to celebrate seasonal change. If so, it may have been at the instigation of artist and activist, Lucy Wright, our guest in this latest episode of Folklore Matters. Lucy is a prolific polymath: academic, musician, artist, and writer. In thi...

This special episode of Folklore Matters is a recording of a live event at Off The Shelf 2025, at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield . Part of the National Folklore Survey for England team, Professor Owen Davies and Dr Ceri Houlbrook published a groundbreaking book in 2025, entitled Folklore: a journey through the past and present . This episode presents Owen and Ceri live in conversation with Da...

Contemporary discussions of folklore soon arrive at cult film The Wicker Man . In this episode of Folklore Matters, David, Sophie and Diane meet Dominic Hardy, son of Robin Hardy, director of The Wicker Man , to learn about the film's lasting cultural legacy, but also the film's impact on Dominic's family. Dominic, with his brother, Justin, produced a film and recently published a book, both entit...

It's time to catch up with another Sheffield Hallam colleague, this time photographer, folklore researcher and lecturer, Andrew Robinson. Andrew’s fascinated by the visual representation of custom and tradition in England, along with the folklore, myth and legend associated with photographs and photographers. He's recently been working with David on the Calvine UFO - more in this episode - and has...

The profile of folklore in England has never seemed bigger. In Folklore Matters, folklore researchers, David Clarke, Sophie Parkes-Nield, and Diane Rodgers, want to find out more about people’s interests in the folklore of the country, how they’re working with it, collecting or documenting it. This introductory episode sets out what listeners can expect from Folklore Matters, and a little more abo...

Richard Bradley is a librarian at Sheffield Hallam University, where Folklore Matters hosts, David Clarke, Sophie Parkes-Nield, and Diane Rodgers, are based. But in the world of folklore, Richard is known as 'Weird Derbyshire' and has been researching, attending and documenting the folklore and customs of Derbyshire for the past decade. He's published four local history books including 'Secret Che...