Hello, and welcome to the Folklore & Fiction newsletter. In this edition, I'm writing about folk customs with help from scholars Richard Sweterlitsch and Wayland Hand, author Naomi Novik, and friends Vigdís Andersen and Sveinn Svavarsson, among others. This edition of the newsletter marks a departure from folkloric belief and the beginning of a broad-strokes introduction to various folklore genres designed to fill the rest of the year. Each of the upcoming topics is widely studied by folklorists, but because they're less immediately applicable to writers, I'll only be glossing them. However, the structure of the newsletter will remain the same, and my hope is that you'll find something useful in the material for world-building, setting, and dialogue. Next year, I'll be starting something altogether new!
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