Friday briefing: Why people are turning to folklore in our disconnected age
In today’s newsletter: Old and new rituals still resonate in today’s folk revival which is being shaped by younger generations seeking spirituality, community and connection to nature
Good morning. What are your plans for this Friday 13th? Will you be edging your way through the day, alert to impending disasters and saluting every magpie you see (a cheerful “good day, captain” works for me). Or will you be powering past the superstition with the insouciance that accompanies the certainty this is, probably, just another day?
Either way, I’ve noticed that folklore – the rituals, traditions and stories we share together – is enjoying a significant revival across our pop culture and community practice, powered by the younger generation and accelerated by online connections.
This explosion in engagement is the opposite of dusty nostalgia but instead focused on very contemporary concerns about connection with both the Earth and each other.
For today’s newsletter, as a major survey charting contemporary folk culture in England comes to an end next month, I spoke to three folklore experts about why these customs still matter. First, this morning’s headlines.
Five big stories
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Technology| Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams and other apps were disrupted for thousands of users for more than nine hours, with Microsoft scrambling to find a solution after initial fixes failed to bring services back online.
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US news| Nvidia’s ousted CEO Jensen Huang and Donald Trump’s commerce secretary are expected to testify before Congress in the coming weeks, as the fallout from Huang’s reported affair with an alleged Chinese spy sparked bipartisan concerns for national security and calls for a tougher stance against Beijing.
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UK news| Young people with disabilities will lose their personal independence payments and will have to apply to a local fund for short-term expenses and equipment, Alan Milburn’s review will recommend.
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UK politics| Nigel Farage appeared on Russell Brand’s US podcast nine months after the comedian was investigated by police over allegations of sexual assault, the Guardian has learned.
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Climate crisis| China has ruled out hosting the Cop33 UN climate summit in 2028 after months of deliberations, leaving the field open for other Asian countries to hold it, the Guardian understands.
In depth: ‘Folklore often sees a revival at points of national crisis’
It’s been hard to miss the wave of representations of folkloric tales and practice in popular media in recent years – think folk horror movies like Hereditary, Midsommar and The Ritual on the big screen, or The League of Gentlemen, the Detectorists and Small Prophets on the small screen.
This has been accompanied by thriving online folk communities, many aimed at gen Z, exploring urban legends, spell-making and paganism, and offline a surge in people actively participating in seasonal calendar customs. There’s the Mari Lwyd local to south Wales, a ghastly skeletal hobby horse who travels around people’s houses in midwinter with a group of wassailers to scare and entertain, and Whuppity Scoorie, a children’s spring festival in Lanark, first documented in the 1890s. And with renewed interest comes an expanded community: Jack in the Green, the annual May Day skirmish in Hastings, has included a LGBTQI+ troupe for 30 years.
Folklorists tracking this revival wanted to learn more, resulting in the National Folklore Survey for England, coordinated by the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University. An ambitious two-year undertaking, which draws to a close in December, it is based around a snapshot study of almost 2,000 participants and provides the most comprehensive picture of contemporary folk culture in England to date.
Dr Diane A Rodgers, the project co-lead, and researcher Dr Sophie Parkes-Nield are still collating their embarrassment of data, but some fascinating trends have already emerged. These include the prevalence of beliefs (one-third of respondents believe that ghosts exist) and that younger age-groups were twice as likely to believe in conspiracy theories, demons and curses as older respondents. There’s also the intergenerational reach of contemporary legends: nearly half of 16- to 24-year-olds believe that Diana, Princess of Wales was murdered as a result of a conspiracy, despite not being born when she died in 1997.
The results also reveal how folkloric practice is woven into everyday life. I’m not alone in my acknowledgment of magpies: 51% do something similar, whether that’s saluting, speaking or spitting.
What is folklore?
“Do you say something when you see a magpie? Do you pick a penny off the pavement? Do you touch wood when you want something to happen?” Rodgers asks me. Absolutely everyone has folklore, she believes, and we see it in small ways every single day: “whether it’s the Christmas pudding recipe annotated by your great-grandma that you make every year, or pupils signing each other’s shirts at the end of the school term”.
A lot of us don’t realise we’re participating in folklore, says Parkes-Nield. “If you blow out candles on a birthday cake, if you take part in the ritualised behaviour involved in a stag or hen do, all of those things are folkloric”.
In essence, folklore is the practices, traditions and stories people share together. It encompasses crafts, dance, songs, tales, beliefs. And it usually has an element of received knowledge passed from one generation to the next, and that evolves by word of mouth rather than formalised means.
Folklore is sometimes best explained by what it’s not: not purely historical, not only the paranormal, not just middle-aged white men morris dancing around isolated villages where incomers face ritual immolation.
Indeed, morris dancing is a fine example of the more inclusive aspect of the folk revival: once exclusively male, there are now as many female dancers as men, with the growth of queer and feminist troupes like Boss Morris, who have performed with Wet Leg at the Brit Awards and Glastonbury.
Why are younger people so engaged in folklore?
Folklore can be very analogue, says Parkes-Nield. It’s tangible and, particularly in a post-pandemic world, a way to meet the people on your doorstep – whether it is learning a heritage craft like wheat-weaving, editing a fanzine or visiting local standing stones with other curious neighbours.
And, while folklore absolutely proliferates through digital means – look up WitchTok or #pagan on your social media of choice – it also offers a way of getting offline and meeting people across generations, in a time when so much entertainment is segregated and screen-based.
All of this has pretty obvious positive effects for mental health, as young people in particular struggle in an increasingly disconnected world. And it satisfies a craving for spiritual exploration that extends beyond organised religion – according to recent census data shamanism is the fastest growing belief system in the UK.
In her research, Parkes-Nield sees folklore societies popping up all over the shop – one such is Folk Club, based in south London and set up four years ago by Ellie Dempsey and Elizabeth Bailey. Now in her early 30s, Bailey grew up in the countryside, but didn’t really consider the folk rituals that were part of her childhood until she moved to the capital.
The escalating climate emergency is without doubt tied to the current resurgence, she thinks. “Folklore often sees a revival at points of national crisis, because it’s so much about coming together and connecting with the natural world.”
But, while Bailey also notes an appetite for learning about the seasonal traditions that were once passed down organically, the pull is not backwards. “A big part of the folk revival is that folk is by the people, for the people. That means re-examining some practices, making them more inclusive, and taking the opportunity to update traditions that have stagnated or been co-opted.”
She also draws a direct line between the political roots of folklore and this current iteration, like the Right to Roam protesters summoning Old Crockern, the mythical guardian spirit of Dartmoor, or Extinction Rebellion crowds banging pots and pans. “This is folklore being created.”
The folklore revival has been greeted with scepticism in some quarters, wary of the potential for co-option for a more nationalist or far-right agenda. The academics and practitioners I spoke to are well aware of how “Englishness” has become contentious in recent years, in particular the aggressive use of the St George’s flag by anti-immigrant activists.
But they argue these customs are far from nationalistic – many happen on a more hyperlocal scale than national. Folklore is often historically anti-establishment, and its practices at times suppressed with the same force and misogyny directed towards women accused of witchcraft. There are plenty of calendar customs, for example, cancelled by the establishment because of what was considered to be riotous behaviour by the lower classes. And many traditions were founded by communities wanting to celebrate themselves beyond the dominant culture: the Notting Hill carnival is perhaps the best-known example of this.
Academics talk about “multifolkloric Britain”, says Rodgers. “We can’t track where certain elements of folklore come from because we’ve always had people arriving and leaving, bringing and taking away things. So folklore is naturally diverse and inclusive.”
But the current revival is offering a moment of correction. She quotes the writer David Southwell, creator of the folkloric fantasy Hookland, who argues: “Re-enchantment is resistance”.
What else we’ve been reading
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Influential parts of the right-wing manosphere that helped to re-elect Donald Trump are now declaring him “vain and venal and indecisive”. To understand why, read Sam Wolfson’s brilliant analysis of how Trump lost the men. Dipo Faloyin, newsletters team
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Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff speaks to the elite footballers who are training through their pregnancies and returning to play soon after giving birth, as sports science slowly begins to chip away at decades of misogyny and research exclusion. Natalie Morris, newsletters team
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I really enjoyed Imogen West-Knights’ charming deep dive into the attempts by the staff of Hartshead Moor East to save Britain’s worst service station. Dipo
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I loved Melissa Hellmann’s fascinating exploration of the tradition of Black camp meetings, born of slavery, they now function as “a place for spiritual kinship for generations of Black families and friends” in the US. Natalie
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More TV shows should open up about the mysteries of their writer’s room, as Peter Bradshaw does after speaking to Succession’s Jesse Armstrong. Dipo
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Sport
Football| Harry Kane’s penalty on the night he earned his 126th cap gave England a 2-1 victory against Croatia and progress to the Nations League quarter-finals.
Rugby league World Cup| England’s rugby league wheelchair team go into Friday’s final against France hopeful of retaining their title – and inspiring more to take up their fast-growing, compelling sport.
Cricket| Australian captain Pat Cummins has flatly denied Usman Khawaja’s claims that the entire Australian cricket team was implicated in the 2018 sandpaper scandal in a defiant appearance at a press conference.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
Film
Prima Facie (in cinemas now)| ★★★★☆
An adaptation of the international stage hit stars a commanding Cynthia Erivo as Tessa, whose career defending rape suspects is undermined by experience. Read Peter Bradshaw’s full review.
Music
Blackhaine: Saints in the Wethouse | ★★★★☆
His Playboi Carti collabs may have dragged Tom Heyes out of the underground, but this bracing debut remains far from the mainstream, full of garbled barks and walls of noise. Read Alexis Petridis’s full review.
TV
Mums v Big Pharma (BBC iPlayer)| ★★★★☆
Janet Williams and Emma Murphy both had children with disabilities, then started doing some digging and uncovered a jaw-dropping medical fiasco that rivals thalidomide. Read Lucy Mangan’s full review.
Game
Tanuki: Pon’s Summer | ★★★★☆
This gentle game of fixing and fetching, in which you play as a furry post office worker on a BMX, has a slow, calming magic that delights in routine and restoration. Read Christian Donlan’s full review.
The front pages
“Nvidia chief quits after claims of affairs with ‘spy’ and employee”, is the Guardian’s front page today, while the FT goes with “Huang exit plunges Nvidia into crisis”.
The Times leads on “Six women say they too were preyed on by Brand”, the Sun writes “Monster’s mansion”.
The i Paper has “Britain set for a new deal with the EU”, the Mail’s take is “Staggering cost of PM’s EU reset”, and the Express says “PM’ ‘obsessed with selling us out to the EU’”. The Telegraph says “Taxman to hound bereaved for decades”, the Mirror has “100 knives off our streets every day”, and Metro writes “Not so flush now”.
The Latest
Why Democrat Scott Colom’s victory in Mississippi Senate race was so historic
Mississippi has elected the Democrat Scott Colom in a historic race in the traditionally deep-red state, making him its first Black senator since shortly after the US civil war. The closely contested race was called more than a week after the US midterms, with Colom running against the Republican incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith. How did Colom’s grassroots campaign win despite limited early backing from national Democrats? Lucy Hough speaks topolitics and democracy reporter George Chidi.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Datacentres are usually built without the consent of locals, consume vast amounts of electricity and water, and enrich rapacious tech companies.
But in Falun, Sweden, stands a datacentre with a difference. Made from wood, its electricity supply is 100% renewable, its back-up generators run on a fossil-free biofuel, and it pumps its excess heat into Falun’s local district heating system. These are just a few of its sustainable credentials.
Its creation was also initiated by government with local benefits built in, such as 60% of its capital expenditure being invested locally in areas such as education, training and youth activities.
Datacentres may be an inevitable part of our digital future, but Sweden’s approach shows there might be a kinder way to get there.
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until Monday.
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