Yesterday, I talked a bit about finding out that some of my childhood rhymes had overseas roots and the surprise that it was. Today, I’d like to share some more rhymes; these should be more local, and I’ve categorised them according to when they were heard/shared. The original rhymes are presented with the English translation… Read More Singapore Folklore #2: A Collection of Schoolyard Rhymes
Starting school around the turn of the century meant several things: a cool 2000 Micky Mouse notebook (beginning my lifelong habit of never finishing a notebook I started writing in), a longstanding question about which century exactly it was (which never got answered because I never bothered to ask), and of course, school. There were… Read More Singapore Folklore #1: Schoolyard Rhymes from Overseas
I chanced upon this book while browsing online and because I cannot resist a folktale collection (and more importantly, because I do not own any folktale books from Korea), I decided to pick it up! A Purse Full of Tales is a collection of twenty one folk tales from both North and South Korea. Apparently,… Read More Book Review: A Purse Full of Tales by Chan Young Kim and David Carter
“Myths are the darkest and brightest incarnations of who we are. They slip into our dreams and underpin our reality.” I can’t quite remember how I found The Library of Legends but I was swept away by this heartbreaking novel that expertly melded historical fiction and folklore. Set in 1937, during the second Sino-Japanese war,… Read More Book Review: The Library of Legends by Janie Chang
It’s pretty hard to look for books about Japan and not come across Lafcadio Hearn’s works. Well, I somehow managed to avoid it until recently, when I was looking for books on Japanese folklore and stumbled across this collection of essays of his. Divided into roughly two parts, Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan comprises of 18 essays… Read More Book Review: Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan
A long time ago, when dragons still roamed the earth, there was a local lord of the manor named Piers Shonks. One day, he returned home from a holiday to discover a dragon was terrorising his village and desiring the peace of his village, he made battle with the dragon and finally defeated it. The… Read More Book Review: Hollow Places by Christopher Hadley
Last year, I listened to the BBC podcast Incident at Ong’s Hat and found it fascinating. So when I found this book, Legend Tripping Online, I was intrigued. It covers Ong’s Hat and the Incunabula Papers AND it’s from a folkloric point of view, which you know are two topics that I’m interested in. Legend… Read More Book Review: Legend Tripping Online by Michael Kinsella
When I first heard of the Folklore podcast, I decided to start from the first episode, which turned out to be on Slender Man. Intrigued, I googled the Contemporary Legends journal mentioned in the episode and found this book that was based on the journey/ Slender Man Is Coming is a collection of essays on… Read More Book Review: Slender Man Is Coming Edited by Trevor J. Blank and Lynne S. McNeill
“But folklore isn’t only about the past. It grows, flowers and seeds every day, because of our innate desire to control our world by means of satisfying narratives.” Have you ever wondered how Terry Pratchett came up with Discworld, with all its wonderful (and sometimes strangely familiar) customs and history? As it turns out, folklore… Read More Book Review: The Folklore of Discworld by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson
As you are probably aware, I’ve always been interested in myths and legends, as well as folklore more generally. This year, I’ve been trying my best to read up on folklore as a field and well… it’s time for me to start talking about it on the blog. But first, what is folklore? The online… Read More Exploring Folklore