Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2000: Judges' Report

Folklore, Oct, 2001 by David Hopkin

The Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for 2000 was presented at University College London by Folklore Society President, Professor W. F. H. Nicolaisen, on 7 November 2000. The award ceremony followed the annual Katharine Briggs Lecture, which on this occasion was given by Dr Clare Gittings of the National Portrait Gallery on the subject of "Funerals, Faith and Folklore in Early Modern England."

There were again twenty-four entries to the competition, of which nine made the shortlist. Shortlisted but not ranked were: A People Bewitched: Witchcraft and Magic in Nineteenth-Century Somerset, by Owen Davies (Lusty Hill Farm); Displaying Faith: Orange, Green and Trade Union Banners in Northern Ireland, by Neil Jarman (Institute of Irish Studies); and Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia, edited by Linda Welters (Berg). All three were commended for providing fascinating case studies of particular aspects of folk or popular culture.

The two Honourable Mentions were Fadwa El Guindi's Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (Berg) and Penelope Gouk's Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (Yale University Press). The former is a highly scholarly and meticulously researched anthropological study of an often misunderstood area of cultural tradition. The latter scrutinises a relatively obscure aspect of the history of magic with exceptional rigour and breadth of research.

Unusually, the judges this time selected three titles to share the position of runner-up: The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come, edited by Frances Carey (British Museum Press); The Triumph of the Moon, by Ronald Hutton (Oxford University Press); and Death in England, by Peter Jupp and Clare Gittings (Manchester University Press). The first book is an illustrated collection which demonstrates the power of the visual icon in cultural history and explores the pervasiveness of images of the Apocalypse. Both the illustrations and the essays impressed the judges as being of exceptional quality. The Triumph of the Moon is a serious history of modern pagan witchcraft, which was commended for both its readability and its depth of scholarship. It makes a significant contribution to folklore studies in examining many of the Romantic impulses of British culture which led not only to modern paganism, but also to the emergence of folklore as an academic discipline. Death in England collates a large number of primary sources to provide a comprehensive study of attitudes to death since prehistoric times. The range of sources included is impressive and the resulting volume is an important reference work of mortuary customs.

Out of this excellent field, the judges unanimously selected as winner Diarmuid O Giollain's Locating Irish Folklore: Tradition, Modernity, Identity (Cork University Press). This exceptional book is both a history of the discipline and an exploration of the relationship between folklore and national identity. The author establishes folklore's vital place in contemporary understanding of culture and tradition by contextualising the traditional within modern scholarship. The judges were additionally pleased to be able to give the Award to a work on a subject which lies at the very heart of folklore studies.

The judges and convenor, as always, extend their thanks to all the authors and publishers who contributed to the success of the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2000. It is this continuing support which makes the Award a recognised measure of excellence in folklore studies.