The power of folklore in reclaiming female stories.

How can myths, legends, and fairytales help us to reclaim the voices, experiences, power, and desires of women in the past?

While women have often been ignored in the official histories of peoples and states, their presence has loomed large in myths, legends, and fairytales, all of which come under the umberella of ‘folklore.’ Throughout the centuries these stories have been used by writers to peak beneath the surface of official history and patriarchal societies to glimpse the powerful presence of the feminine both as an alternative to the male-dominated institutions of church and state, and as the contested landscape which those institutions sought to control.

Focusing on the myths, legends and fairytales produced during the Middle Ages, we’ll explore the ways in which stories of goddesses, fairies, witches, and female warriors served to both enforce and resist societal norms. Finally, we’ll ask what these stories can tell us about how society has conceptualised the feminine as a site of power and desire as well as danger.