Greetings, and mòran taing for taking the time to read my newsletter. This is the March 2026 edition of Folkbyte, and I'm writing it while I record poor VHS audio (the video has degraded) of a 1980s UK TV production about stone circles, people who paint their experiences with extraterrestrial orgies, and mail-order medical maggot kits. I think I've reached peak folklorist.

Dispatches from the Word Mines

I'll be finishing the "Ritual" chapter of The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore in the next few days, but I first wrote about ritual as a folklore genre in the November 2019 edition of the Folklore & Fiction dispatch and podcast series. I was about three months from leaving for Toronto and my field work in the animal rights community there, so my attention was on my dissertation proposal and packing preparations. But it was still important to me that I keep a regular schedule with the Folklore & Fiction project, so I put out an edition that focused primarily on the work of religious scholars Ronald Grimes and Catherine Bell. Both of these researchers have done good work on the folkloristics of ritual, and I was able to apply it to passages in Frank Herbert's Dune and Sarah Avery's Tales from Rugosa Coven.

But one of the things I neglected to do back then (or rather, had no time to think about) were the similarities between ritual and custom. In many respects, the distinction I'm drawing between them in The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore is somewhat self-serving, since I'm placing ritual in the "Folk Belief" section of the book and custom in the "Folk Life" section of the book so that readers can use them in religious/magical and cultural world-building, respectively. But in reality, these are complex, interconnected genres that shift according to the way they're enacted, which varies widely across the world. Of course, this is true of folklore in general, which means folklorists have to be plenty comfortable with nuance. I hope you'll enjoy working with ritual and custom when you finally have the book in your hands.

In other news, I have two new poems in Literary Vegan, a small press journal dedicated to publishing literature in line with ethical vegan values. You'll find them here. These pieces emerged from my dissertation field notes, and I'm delighted to find homes for them.

This Month on Social Media

Subscribers will have received the February Special Dispatch titled "Lift Your Voices and Guitars," highlighting musical responses to ICE raids in the United States and especially in Minnesota. A week later I released a new short video titled "Books Cited in the Ritual Chapter of The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore," highlighting two of the scholars and authors whose work contributes to that chapter (Grimes and Avery). I confess I'm a lot more comfortable at this pace. I'm reaching out to you a few times a month with something I hope you'll find educational and interesting, but I'm also steering clear of the social media influencer trap. It's a space I've never wanted to occupy for a host of reasons but especially because I share the prevailing sentiment that social media is problematic. At the risk of sounding influencer-y, if you're not already subscribing to my newsletter, it really is the best way to stay informed about my work. You can do that here.

Final Thoughts

We'll cross the Spring/Autumn Equinox this month, and I hope you'll spend a bit of time reconnecting with your inner balance and the greater balance in the natural world. Here's a suggestion:

Watch the sun rise or set. Follow the light with your gaze and let it come to rest as the light falls, where it falls. Don't name what draws your attention; describe it instead. Write your descriptions down and use them in a story.

Beannachd Leibh,
Ceallaigh