Them Owls Know’

Portending Death in Later Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century England

Bibliographic Data

ID8932909
AuthorsHelen Frisby (corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume126
Issue2
Pages196-214
Publication date2015-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0015587x.2015.1047176
OpenAlexW1600578644
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited40

Vernacular death portents and divinatory customs attested in Victorian and early twentieth-century English folklore collections reveal that contemporary, subjective experiences of mortality were more complex than can be accounted for with a simplistic dichotomy between modernity and magical thinking. Instead, magical thinking informed the prediction and prevention of death in both town and countryside, and in some cases up to the eve of the Second World War. Therefore the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modernization of mortality was neither straightforward nor inevitable, highlighting the resourceful creativity which characterized responses to the greatest existential challenge

Art · Creativity · Epistemology · Existentialism · Folklore · Literature · Magical thinking · Modernity · Modernization theory · Political science · Vernacular · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Social Psychology