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The newsletter of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy
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The Newsletter of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy
Jun-Jul 2015
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Contents
Gramarye issue 7 e-book out now 3
Wonderlands: Videos/Pictures/Tweets 5
Alice in Wonderland: an exhibition 14
Upcoming events at the Sussex Centre 15
Sneak peek into Gramarye issue 8 16
A map of folklore in Sussex and the South Downs 17
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Gramarye issue 7 e-book out now
Gramarye issue 7 is now available as an e-book from our online store. To guarantee your printed copy of future issues, please subscribe here.
This issue’s contents include:• ‘LandUnderWave: Reading theLandscapes of Tiffany Aching’,Jane Carroll
• ‘Jacek Yerka's Rhetoric of theImpossible’,JoeYoung
• ‘TheKing’sAmulet’,RosalindKerven• ‘TheSealWife’,JudithWoolf• ‘TheySayEnglandHasNoFolktales’,JacquelineSimpson• ‘MyFavouriteStoryWhenIWasYoung’,SadhanaNaithani• A review of Veronica L. Shanoes’ Fairy Tales, Myth, and
Psychoanalytic Theory: Feminism and Retelling the Tale, NaomiWood
• A review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell, Tom Shippey
• AreviewofDanielGabelman’sGeorge MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity,ColinManlove
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• AreviewofMarinaWarner’sOnce Upon a Time,MartineHennardDutheildelaRochère
• AreviewofMalcolmC.Lyons’Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange,RuthB.Bottigheimer
• A review of Adam Roberts’ The Riddles of The Hobbit, Jane Carroll
• A review of Jelena Curcic’s Serbian Fairy Tales, Joanna Coleman
• AreviewofJonathanWalker’sFive Wounds: An Illuminated Novel,RobinFurth
• AreviewofJ.R.R. Tolkien: The Forest and the City,AlaricHall
Exclusive offerGramarye readers are entitled to 20% off Scrivener software, the project management tool for writers. Just visit http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php and enter thecouponcode‘SUSSEXCENTRE’.
The printed edition of Gramarye 7 is also available from:
• AtlantisBooks(London)• ByreBooks(Wigtown)• EmporiumBookshop(Cromarty)
• Foyles(London)• Kims(Chichester)
• TransrealFiction(Edinburgh)
• Treadwells(London)• Waterstones(Chichester)• WayOutThereAndBack(Littlehampton)
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Wonderlands: Videos/Pictures/Tweets
PGR Symposium, 23 May 2015, University of ChichesterThe day kicked off with a keynote lecture by Professor Diane Purkiss on ‘Ancient Tales and an Early ModernWitch: the Case of Andro, theManWhoKnewTooMuch’.
Twitter reactions:
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After thecoffeebreakwemoved intothefirst twopanels.PanelOne,entitled 'MaterialWonder:Fantasy,EcologyandLanguage',includedPhoebe Chen (picturedcentre),‘SacrilegeandSacrifice:UncoveringEnvironmentalEthicsinOfBeastandBeauty’;Amy Greenhough (pic. left), ‘TheWonderofThisLand:Magicand(New)MaterialityinFairy-TaleFiction’;Mary-Louise Maynes(pic.right),‘Inspiring Wonder: the Imaginative PotentialofChildren’sPoeticNon-FictionTexts’.
Panel Two, 'Re-Imagining the Fantastic: ContemporaryAdaptations of Fairy Tales', included Mara Alperin, ‘Rumpelstiltskin,theMiller’sDaughter,andtheChallengesinWriting aTraditional,MarketableFairyTalewith aModernHeroine’; Karen Graham, ‘Through the Looking Glass:Adaptation asMirror in Contemporary Fairy Tales’; Jessica Miller,‘FairyTaleintoFantasy’.
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After lunch:
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there were two more keynote lectures: Professor John Vernon Lord,‘IllustratingWonderlandandLooking-Glass’(quitedarksowecouldseehisbeautifulillustrationsclearly),followedbyDr Steven O’Brienreadinghis'TheChangeling’.
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Panel Three, 'Gossip from the Forest: Spirits of Place inFantastical Fiction', included Jennifer Reid, “Where this proude Robin and his yeomen rome”: Self-Government intheGreenwood’;Nick Campbell, ‘Spirits of Place: ANewPerspective on William Mayne’; and Victoria Tedeschi, ‘Fantastical Forests and Enchanted Environments: EvaluatingEnvironmental Identity inVictorian Editionsof theGrimms’FairyTales’.
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Panel Four, 'Crossing the Borders: Creative and CriticalExplorations of Wonder', included Elizabeth Bennett (pictured left), ‘Souterrain: A Journey Underground in theSussexLandscape’;Stephe Harrop(pic.right,notincludedinvideo), ‘Borderlands,Wonderlands and Janet’s Baby: TellingaNewTamlane’; andKevan Manwaring (pic. centre), ‘TheKingdomofDreams–theUncannyWorldsofGrahamJoyce’
PanelFive,'WonderlandandNarnia:JourneysThroughScreen,Page, and Pack',includedKaren Mahony(picturedright)fromtheBabaStudio's‘AVeryCuriousProject:TheAliceTarot’,Ellen Cheshire(pic.centre),‘WhichWay?FilmInterpretations
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ofAlice inWonderlandbyThreeAuteurs’; andAishwarya Subramanian (pic.left),‘(Anti-con)Quest:AnticolonialStruggleandColonialGazeintheChroniclesofNarnia’.
Panel Six, 'TheWorld’s Fantastic: StoriesGlobal, Local andFantastical',includedMariam Zia,‘OfAnimalsandMonsters:The World of The Adventures of Amir Hamza’, Sara Helen Binney, ‘FolkloreandtheFantastic inOrkney and The Snow Child’, and Siddharth Pandey, ‘Novel Imaginations,ImaginaryNovelties:Understanding theGlocalismof IndianEnglishFantasy’.
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The day concluded with a storytelling session featuring (clockwise from top left) Jo Blake Cave, Joanna Coleman,MichaelO’LearyandAbbiePalache.
This event was kindly sponsored by www.Zharmae.com –getyourfictionfix!
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Alice in Wonderland: an exhibition of illustrations
A selection of illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by John Vernon Lord and MervynPeake is now on display in the University of Chichester's OtterGallery.Theexhibitionispartofthenationwide celebration of Alice's150th anniversary, and runs in associationwiththe'Wonderlands'symposium mentioned above.
This is a free event running until September. For the gallery'sopening times please visit http://www.chi.ac.uk/otter-gallery/visit-us
Some of John Vernon Lord'sillustrations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland(Artists’ChoiceEditions,2009)andThrough the Looking-glass (Artists’ChoiceEditions,2011).
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Upcoming events at the Sussex Centre
Kate Mosse. 'The Taxidermist's Daughter' Thursday 8 October 2015, 5.15-6.30 p.m., room tbcInspired by the folklore and mythology of Sussex landscapes and seascape – anda homage to Kate’s childhood passion
for a museum of taxidermy in Sussex – The Taxidermist’s DaughterisaGothicthrillersetinFishbournein1912,asthefloodwatersarebeginningtorise.TheChichester-based bestselling novelist will celebrate paperback publication of her latestNo. 1bestsellerby sharingherwriting trade secrets: from old legends and ancient Sussex folklore, explaining how her research into taxidermy and bird mythology inspired by novel, and how landscape and Gothic fantasy provide the back drop forcreating a novel.A unique event to hear Kate talking in her home town
aboutthenovelsetinFishbourneandChichester.
Tickets£5/£3concessions;freetoUniversitystaffandstudents.Contact [email protected] for more information.
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Sneak peek into Gramarye issue 8
A review of
The Last Wolf of Scotland
Niall McDevitt
The talentedpoet/musician/artistMacGillivrayhaspublished a debut collection which offers readers theliteraryequivalentofashamanicinitiation.Thedisturbing starting point of the book is the self-
pennedstoryofRobertMcGee,whoasaboyin1864wasscalped by Sioux warriors, speared, tomahawked, shot, and left for dead, but who later recovered to make a living in a BuffaloBill'sWildWestCircus.AterrifyingphotoofMcGeeaccompanies his terrifying text, and the poems which follow areimaginedastheinnerswansongofthequasi-dismemberedScottish 13-year-old. You expect an epic, but the bookunfolds as a cycle of lyric poems, each with an elusive episode cocooned within its linguistic silk.
Subscriptions to Gramarye are available from the University ofChichester'sonline store.
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A Map of Folklore in Sussex and the South Downs
Sussex Day, 16 June 2015, saw the launch of a free, download-able, interactive map of Sussex folklore on our website. This mapisaprototype;thefinalmap,illustratedbyAbi Daker, will be relaunched in October 2015 with celebratory events across theSouthDownsNationalPark.Ifthereareanyfolktalesorvariants we have missed from the map that you would like to seeincludedinthefinal,[email protected] isbasedprimarilyonProf. JacquelineSimpson's
book, The Folklore of Sussex. One of the most interesting thingsaboutplacingthefolktalesonamaphasbeenfindingtheareasmostdenselypopulatedbyghostsandwitches!
Ghost stories are the most popular folktale across Sussex and the South Downs. Sunken bell stories make a close second, although this is partly because, around Alfoldean, one sunken bell story has been claimed by several surrounding villages.TheSouthDownsNationalParkisparticularlyfullofghosts and buried treasure, with witches and fairies following a close second.
The South Downs National Park had the most folktales, with 63 folktales listed on the map, as well as 36 events marked on the folklore calendar, nine of which are still celebrated today. This may be because it is more rural than other areas
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ghosts
Sunken bells
Witches
The Devil
Treasure
Fairies
Giants
Folkloricdeaths
Churchfoundation
Dragons
Standingstones
Blackdogs
KingArthur
SouthDownsNationalParkWest SussexEastSussex
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Key:
<40 folktales per 20km <5 folktales per 20km
This map shows how the folktales and traditions of Sussex and the South Downs are particularly dense around the coastwhereWestandEastSussexmeet, theareasaroundShoreham,Lancing,BrightonandLewes.
ofHampshireandSussex,sooldersuperstitionsandoraltaleshaven'tbeenlostthroughthemoremobilepopulationsfoundin urban areas.
The folktales are distributed very evenly between West Sussex(52)andEastSussex(51).EastSussexhasafewmoreevents on its folklore calendar (35), including nine that arestill celebrated. Brighton, in particular, is a hotbed of folklore. West Sussex has 30 events on the folklore calendar, of which seven are still celebrated.
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Our survey says ...TofindoutwhatpeoplealreadyknewaboutSussexfolklore,we selected fivepiecesof folklore from across the area of Sussex and the South Downs that we felt were fairly well known. We then asked respondents about these pieces of folklore, offering them multiple choice answers.
Less than a quarter of respondents to our survey living in Sussex and the South Downs had heard of some of its most famous lore,includingtheLyminsterDragon,theoldSussexfairies,themakingoftheDevil'sDykeandtheMistletoeBride(whichisactuallyanationaltale).
Respondents were actually more knowledgeable of Sussex and the South Downs if they lived outside of the area (athirdhadheardofthefolklore),althoughrespondentsfromoutside of Sussex tended to already follow the Centre and be interested in folklore.
Our lowest results were for the under-20s (zero correct results). So we really want to promote the map to schools, through the help of professional story tellers and other engaging activities, to spread these folktales to a new generation.
Explore local folklore with our mapFollowusonFacebook, Twitter or join our mailing list to be alertedwhenthefinalmapisrelaunched.
