Mugwort Lore

I examine Gaelic ‘folk’ cures for insanity in the Highlands, first reflecting on the fact that this is an under-researched subject and then examining the cures described in various collections of Highland folklore. The paper looks at two of the most popular sites in the Highlands for curing madness, St Fillan's Well in the south-east Highlands and Loch Maree in the north-west, discussing the similarities and differences in the accounts of cures taking place in these locations. The nature of these accounts suggests a fluid and socially negotiable oral tradition that existed until at least the late nineteenth century. The power of these particular geographical locations in a narrative framework of curing and healing madness persisted for several centuries, even as specific practices changed over time and older supernatural belief systems faced shifting paradigms of medicine and psychiatry.     

Van Gulik's The Lore of the Chinese Lute Revisited*

In this article I propose a critical examination of van Gulik's The Lore of the Chinese Lute (LCL) in respect to its bibliographical sources and consequent aesthetic contentions. Despite being arguably the first academic monograph on the ideology of qin and historically a major non-Chinese source for the study of qin in general, the LCL does not represent van Gulik's mature thinking on qin. The LCL is limited by objective circumstances surrounding its writing and flaws in van Gulik's bibliographical engagement. His study of the musicology of Yueji on the basis of inaccurate translation and a neglect of the Neo-Confucian reading of Yueji, his hypothesis of Daoist dominance and Buddhist or Indian influence in the practice of qin with mistaken evidence, his skepticism of the truth of the literati tradition with fundamental bibliographical flaws, all require reconsideration. The current lacuna in the critical investigation of the LCL not only urges contemporary researchers to continue where van Gulik left off, but also calls for new research projects on qin and Chinese literati music in general.     

North African Bird Lore: New Light On Old Problems

In many parts of the world one encounters a disapprobation of living beings, either animals or humans, walking, jumping, or otherwise crossing a corpse. Nearly as widespread as aversion to the act is one supposed consequence: the corpse is believed to become reanimated. Drawing on a variety of cases, this article describes the distribution of the idea both in ritual practice and myth and establishes its fundamental form. Consideration is given to how far the representation can be traced to cross-culturally common features of mortuary ritual and common ideas about spiritual entities and non-human animals. As none of these approaches sufficiently accounts for the disapprobation or the concomitant belief in reanimation, it is then shown how an explanation can be found in equally widespread and possibly universal tendencies of human cognition, including an experience of newly deceased persons as incompletely dead and therefore transitional between life and death, and an association, expressed in many different languages, of traversal with transgression.     

The Lore of Liu An and the Authorship of the Huainanzi

This article provides an alternative approach to the issue of the Huainanzi's authorship by exploring how it was related to the Liu An lore emphasizing him as a talented writer. Beginning with a redefinition of the concept of the author in early Chinese literature, the article first examines how Liu An as the author of the Huainanzi functions as the key to our understanding of the text in previous scholarship. The article then moves to investigate the materials relied upon by previous scholarship in defining Liu An as the author of the Huainanzi. The investigation reveals the conflicting messages in different sources regarding when and how Liu An was hailed as a talented writer, what the neipian would likely be, and whether or not Liu An presented the Huainanzi to the Han court. Finally, this article examines the formation of the Liu An lore, in which he is portrayed as a prolific writer especially associated with esoteric writings of the time, and argues that it is this Liu An lore that has defined the Huainanzi's authorship.     

谈先秦时期的"民"与"俗"

按照追本溯源的原则,弄清楚先秦时期“民”与“俗”的起源与概念等问题应当是很有意义的事情。不揣翦陋,试谈以下问题,以供专家参考。     

The Highgate Cemetery Vampire Hunt: The Anglo-American Connection in Satanic Cult Lore

The purpose of this paper is the study and analysis of a fairly widespread false idea. I mean to take seriously one of these shreds of lore that are by and large known to everyone, and try to understand the traits that make it seductive and convincing. It seems to me that the main problem set by false ideas is that they are rooted in the collective consciousness.

The false idea chosen as an example asserts that the image of the murderer is retained on a victim's retina after death and can be retrieved through photography. In tribute to Edgar Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, I have chosen to designate this assertion as “The Tell-Tale Eye.” Our journey through this false idea will lead us towards a legend built around a technical process, that of photography, but also towards the seductiveness of a magical thought, in which it is the victim's own body that accuses the murderer.     

Filming Fairies: Popular Film,Audience Response and Meaning in Contemporary Fairy Lore

This study examines the idea of fairy lore (faery) as a modern concept with personal and humanistic overtones transmitted through mass media phenomena such as films. Analysis of the relationship between folk and popular culture has become increasingly sophisticated and has widened our appreciation of the ways in which mass-culture audiences use tradition to shape popular culture. Fantasy films draw on recognised traditional elements, but the significance of these elements has been mediated through nineteenth-century interpretations of fairy lore. Contemporary audiences are more likely to be exposed to such legends and beliefs in the context of mass media than by any other means, and visualisation of fairies in fantasy films is closely linked to these modern interpretations of traditional material. For cinema audiences, the idea of faery is no longer a traditional and immediate response to experience, it already carries overtones of nostalgia for the past, childhood innocence, utopian societies or sexual discovery. However, personal response and exegesis of this material, reinforced by repeated viewing, access to Internet sites and related activities such as role-play and merchandising, means that the interactions of these virtual communities can transmute and insert themselves into daily life through a shared appreciation of fantasy worlds. The ways in which these consumers of mass culture resemble or differ from a folk audience presents an interesting arena for understanding folklore as a living contemporary phenomenon.     

解读"井"的学问--读《中国的井文化》

世间有各种各样用途和形制的井,而水井,自古以来是人们须臾无法离开的,一旦没有了水井,人们的生命就会受到威胁。而如今在城市里生活的人,通常吃的水是水龙头里流出来的“自来水”(实际上并非“自来”,吸取自江河之水者有之,吸取自井水者亦有之),对于他们(特别是青少年)来说,吃水的水井,大概是比较陌生的事物了。但我敢说,在我国的大部分农村里,水井却依然是人们生存的必需之物。     

Wildmen on the Cyberfrontier: The Computer Geek as an Iteration in the American Wildman Lore Cycle

This paper argues that the image of the computer geek that took shape around the turn of the twenty-first century borrowed elements from earlier American constructions of the wildman. In particular, the geek, like prior wildmen, compressed ideas about four conflicting values: liberty and danger, authenticity and fakery.     

捕捉纤毫毕现的美 钟茗的昆虫图赏

<正>《昆虫记》的作者法国昆虫学家法布尔,以毕生的时间和精力,详细观察并用文字记录了多种昆虫的生活,将昆虫鲜为人知的生活和习性生动地揭示出来,让众人有机会去了解它们。而在数码时代的今天,更多的人选择利用手中的镜头来探索昆虫的世界,关注它们的一动一静,将它们的繁衍、蜕变、老去凝结成一个个     

捕捉纤毫毕现的美 钟茗的昆虫图赏

<正>《昆虫记》的作者法国昆虫学家法布尔,以毕生的时间和精力,详细观察并用文字记录了多种昆虫的生活,将昆虫鲜为人知的生活和习性生动地揭示出来,让众人有机会去了解它们。而在数码时代的今天,更多的人选择利用手中的镜头来探索昆虫的世界,关注它们的一动一静,将它们的繁衍、蜕变、老去凝结成一个个     

动物考古学中的昆虫研究

《动物考古学中的昆虫研究》是一篇动物考古学研究新领域的介绍文章。考古研究显示,昆虫与古代人类生活的关系十分密切,田野考古发现的一些特殊的遗迹现象或遗物可能与人类利用昆虫的行为有关。昆虫遗存是动物考古学的研究对象之一,对此可以进行多方面研究,如复原古气候和古环境,古生物的地理分布,遗迹形成的时间,遗址埋藏的过程,古代人类的生活水平和驯养家畜的行为,等等。在我国已经开始从动物考古学的角度对昆虫遗存进行研究,例如,在青海大通长宁遗址的浮选结果中就出现了炭化的昆虫遗骸。     

新形势下的新定位--关于民俗学的"民"与"俗"的新思考

民俗学作为一门科学发展到现在已经有近两百年的历史了。从这个学科诞生的那天起,关于“民”和“俗”的定义的争论就一天也没有停止过。因为这是所有民俗学家都无法回避的问题,它确实关乎民俗学学科的基本定位和发展方向。     

Insect Clay Geophagy in Sierre Leone

Field study in eastern Sierra Leone shows that 50% of pregnant women regularly consume clay found in the interior of termite mounds. Some 40 to 80 grams of clay are eaten per day. Another, but less commonly used, geophagical source of clay is the nest of the mud daubing wasp. Both clays provide important amounts of minerals and trace elements essential for fetal development. It is concluded that the practice is a cultural response to nutritional need.