Folkbyte July 2026

Greetings, and mòran taing for taking the time to read my newsletter. This is the July 2026 edition of Folkbyte, and I'll begin it by welcoming the new students assigned to explore the Folklore & Fiction archive! I understand that part of your assignment is to learn about folklore using various resources, so please let me know if you need help with mine. I'm glad to know you're making good use of it.

Dispatches from the Word Mines

I'm back from the International Society for Folk Narrative Research Conference. My paper "Passion, Empathy, and Action: A Critical Introduction to the Climate Fiction Writers League" was well-received among many good papers in my panel, which itself was titled "Narrative Ecologies: Folklore, Fiction, and Cultural Response to Climate Change." It will be your Special Dispatch later this month, so I won't discuss it here.

Among my favourite papers was the one delivered by fellow panellist Merlijn Verduin, a scholar from the Netherlands who discussed climate grief. He said that eco-grief is a constellation of emotions and practices with an anticipatory element that imagines what can never be. (Isn't all grief like that in some way; an emotional response to what can never be?) But he also suggested that while the loss of what can never be is a "relational rupture," we can learn new ways of co-becoming with the Earth. Another favourite was delivered by a pair of scholars I immediately admired; Jagriti Upodhyaya and her sister Manosame Upodhyaya, whose Hinduism underpinned a passionate defence of trees as sentient beings. Jagriti remarked at one point that climate grief is all well and good, but it was 42C when she left India for the conference, the Himalayan ice pack is melting, and she can only get fresh water every four days. So what can we do about the climate crisis?

But perhaps the most validating of the papers came from Jaana Kouri, a Finnish scholar who is also a practising animist and shaman, like me. Her paper was titled "Mother of Water," and it began with an etymological discussion of "Veen Emonen" the early Finnish mother of water and "Väinämöinen" the culture hero whose name is related to slow moving water. She went on to discuss the difficulty of writing about ritual states (agreed completely, I still haven't written about the High Seat ceremony last year) and said she recently held writing classes that instructed students to ask a body of water what it wanted in an effort to help them co-imagine with the natural world. (Note to Self: Teach a class at the intersection of animism and creative writing that instructs students to ask the natural world what it wants, and credit Jaana Kouri for giving me this phenomenal idea.)

In other news, next week I'm off to Maiden, Mother, Crone, an annual Pagan women's gathering in Nova Scotia where I'll be delivering a workshop on the folklore of spell-craft. I'm presently writing the "Charm" chapter of The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore, so the timing is grand. I'll have news late this year or early next about a folklore of magic class you'll be able to attend as well in cooperation with a great educational organization I can't name until the class is scheduled.

Last, but certainly not least, I have for you a recent review I wrote for Sarah Avery's second edition of Tales from Rugosa Coven, which is presently available for pre-order. As an author myself, I rarely review books unless the book in question is really special in some way. But I've loved Tales from Rugosa Coven for ten years, and I'm delighted that Candlemark and Gleam asked me to weigh in on this very special collection of novellas. You'll find the review on the publisher's website, and you can also read it right now:

The world loves all things witchy; lit candles, flowing robes, black eyeliner, silver jewelry, and spooky secrets. It’s a costume to safely slip into when the cool kids are watching and stow in a cupboard when the neighbours come ’round for tea. But real Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, and other Pagan practitioners bear the stigmatization of those neighbours, make hard decisions about whether or not to be “out” at work, and learn to navigate in a society built for other people’s religions. Sarah Avery knows this, and in Tales from Rugosa Coven, she thoughtfully represents Pagans and our communities in three magical novellas. Avery’s characters show up for grieving coven mates on a weekday afternoon with a casserole in the car. They go to therapy for help with obsessive compulsive disorder only to be told the beliefs and practices that sustain them are part of the problem. They throw the tarot for one another like they mean it. But beyond these graceful character sketches and others, Sarah Avery demonstrates a nuanced understanding of contemporary Pagan folklore. The language and enactment of various rituals, the use of astrological calendars in day-to-day planning, the belief structures of different Pagan denominations, and many other folkloric elements are woven into stories that accept the ways we enchant the world and ask what would happen if the world enchanted us right back. I wish I had known about this perfect collection of novellas when it was first released so I could have recommended it to you then. But better late than never. I am delighted to recommend the second edition of Tales from Rugosa Coven, a book I love all the way down to my Heathen bones.

This Month on Social Media

I was away last month travelling, so there was no Special Dispatch and no video. But this month's video is already up if you'd like to have a look before I post it around to all of the usual places. It's on the folklore of Baldur's Gate III, and you can watch it here.

There are actual cherries ripening on the trees I planted last fall. Only a few, but still! And the garlic in my garden is huge. I'm hoping to make homemade vegan garlic rolls for Lughnasa, because what is Lughnasa without homemade bread, I ask you? If I do, and they turn out well, I'll share a photo next month. In the meantime, I send you bready blessings for the early harvest.

Beannachdan,
Ceallaigh