The Folklore Podcast

Episode 177 - LORE OF THE LAND: BRITISH ACADEMY

The Folklore Podcast

Show Notes

In May of 2025, I was honoured to be asked by the British Academy to chair the final panel in their 'Folklore Reimagined' series, 'Lore of the Land'. This panel was titled 'Stories of wetlands, woods and weather'.

How have landscapes been represented and perceived throughout time? What do the stories we tell about our environments reveal about ourselves? And how can our historical relationship with the land help us reconsider our connection to the natural world today?

The panelists for this discussion were Professor Melanie Giles FBA, British archaeologist specialising in Iron Age Britain; Fiona Stafford FBA, Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford; and Marilina Cesario, Professor in the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s University Belfast.

You can watch the original filmed panel on the British Academy's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej60YO1_qrI

The Folklore Podcast has been committed to producing high quality free folklore content for almost a decade, bringing you access to the world's experts in the subject. To help us to keep doing what we do, please consider supporting us with a small monthly subscription on our Patreon page, where you can find more subscriber-only content. Please visit www.patreon.com/thefolklorepodcast and help to fund the podcast for the future.

More from The Folklore Podcast

Oct 7, 2026

In this very special milestone episode of The Folklore Podcast, we reunite the key cast members from the 1989 Nigel Kneale TV adaptation of Susan Hill's classic ghost story, THE WOMAN IN BLACK to discuss the production and their memories of it.

Sep 21, 2026

This episode of The Folklore Podcast is sponsored by Moon and Bird Books.

Sep 2, 2026

The Ancient Ways: A Year of Folklore, Traditions and Rituals to Reconnect with Nature is a debut book from second generation new-age traveller and hedgewitch Seren Hawley-Plows. In the book Seren explores how, in the past, humans' lives centred around the rhythms of the natural world and how doing the same can help you to lead a more connected and fulfilled life. The Ancient Ways is structured around the seasons and pagan festivals and aims to be an empowering guide to reconnecting with the natural world through its mythology, folklore and ancient tradition.

Aug 20, 2026

We visit the circus in this episode of The Folklore Podcast. Specifically, we are guests of Paulo's Circus where, after watching a traditional circus performance, we interview Kenny Darnell, son of the current circus owner and part of a family with circus heritage going back many generations.

Jul 16, 2026

We explore folk medicine of two different historical periods, the tenth and the seventeenth century, in this episode of The Folklore Podcast.

See all episodes →