Steve Roud is a Librarian, folklore scholar and creator of the Roud Folk Song Index, which contains upwards of 750,000 entries to around 45,000 English language folk songs, as found in books, recordings, manuscripts and other sources the world over. His index, and ‘Roud Numbers’ (a numbering system employed to identify the same song across many different titles) are widely acclaimed for the scope, breadth, depth and impact. Steve worked as a local studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon, and also served as Honorary Librarian for the Folklore Society for eighteen years. He has published books on calendar custom, popular tradition, folk belief, London lore, children’s games, and folk drama. In 2004, he was the winner of the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland. In 2009, he was one of five people to be awarded the Gold Badge of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. This award recognises "those who have made unique or outstanding contributions to the art or science of folk dance, music or song, and/or those who have given exceptional support in furthering the aims of the Society”. For four years now, Steve has been visiting the NFC, parsing through our manuscript and book, broadside and pamphlet collections for entries to add to his index. He is an incredibly gifted, meticulous and generous scholar, who is always glad to share his expertise with us, particularly in discussion around the inherent problems in the description, cataloguing and indexing of folklore materials. It was an honour, and a great pleasure to host Steve at the NFC recently, and during his visit (for our collective benefit) I subjected him to a 75 minute interview, in which we discussed his index, the problems inherent in describing folk song, approaches to the cataloguing of folklore, conducting research in folklore archives, and the problems inherent in the digitisation of folklore records and some scholarly critique of the NFC’s online platform Dúchas.ie.
As a health warning for this episode - listeners (or viewers!) hoping to listen to scores of lovely ballads will be sorely disappointed, as our discussion essentially consists of nerding out about folklore indexes for over an hour.
Steve’s Folk Song Index can be found here, at the website of the Vaughan William’s Memorial Library: https://www.efdss.org/vwml-catalogues-and-indexes/vwml-help/roud-indexes-help
For a wonderful talk of Steve’s at the Library of Congress, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVTMoN4Arvo
My thanks especially to Veronica, Andrew and Dominic in UCD Communications, for their support of the podcast, and for filming this episode!
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Steve Roud is a Librarian, folklore scholar and creator of the Roud Folk Song Index, which contains upwards of 750,000 entries to around 45,000 English language folk songs, as found in books, recordings, manuscripts and other sources the world over. His index, and ‘Roud Numbers’ (a numbering system employed to identify the same song across many different titles) are widely acclaimed for the scope, breadth, depth and impact. Steve worked as a local studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon, and also served as Honorary Librarian for the Folklore Society for eighteen years. He has published books on calendar custom, popular tradition, folk belief, London lore, children’s games, and folk drama. In 2004, he was the winner of the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland. In 2009, he was one of five people to be awarded the Gold Badge of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. This award recognises "those who have made unique or outstanding contributions to the art or science of folk dance, music or song, and/or those who have given exceptional support in furthering the aims of the Society”. For four years now, Steve has been visiting the NFC, parsing through our manuscript and book, broadside and pamphlet collections for entries to add to his index. He is an incredibly gifted, meticulous and generous scholar, who is always glad to share his expertise with us, particularly in discussion around the inherent problems in the description, cataloguing and indexing of folklore materials. It was an honour, and a great pleasure to host Steve at the NFC recently, and during his visit (for our collective benefit) I subjected him to a 75 minute interview, in which we discussed his index, the problems inherent in describing folk song, approaches to the cataloguing of folklore, conducting research in folklore archives, and the problems inherent in the digitisation of folklore records and some scholarly critique of the NFC’s online platform Dúchas.ie.
As a health warning for this episode - listeners (or viewers!) hoping to listen to scores of lovely ballads will be sorely disappointed, as our discussion essentially consists of nerding out about folklore indexes for over an hour.
Steve’s Folk Song Index can be found here, at the website of the Vaughan William’s Memorial Library: https://www.efdss.org/vwml-catalogues-and-indexes/vwml-help/roud-indexes-help
For a wonderful talk of Steve’s at the Library of Congress, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVTMoN4Arvo
My thanks especially to Veronica, Andrew and Dominic in UCD Communications, for their support of the podcast, and for filming this episode!
Blúiríní Béaloidis 39 - Bees In Tradition (with Tiernan Gaffney)
Blúiríní Béaloidis Folklore Podcast
59 minutes 40 seconds
2 years ago
Blúiríní Béaloidis 39 - Bees In Tradition (with Tiernan Gaffney)
Bees have been cultivated in Ireland since early times. Of value for their wax and honey, there were also believed to be blessed creatures, as Dáithí Ó hÓgáin writes: "probably because of the use of their wax to make church candles, and one medieval legend describes a swarm of bees building a little container around a lost communion wafer to protect it. They were also thought to be possessed of special wisdom, and to take an acute interest in the affairs of their owners. If a bee entered the house it was regarded as a good omen, and the bees in their hive would be told in advance of projects that the family intended to undertake in the belief that they might effect a beneficial influence. When a member of the family died, it was customary to place a black piece of cloth on the hiveso that the bees could join in the mourning". For this episode of Blúiríní I was honoured to have been joined by my friend and colleague from the National Museum of Country Life in county Mayo, and alumnus of the taught MA in Irish Folklore at UCD, Tiernan Gaffney. Tiernan is an Assistant Keeper of the Irish Folklife Collection at the National Museum of Ireland, his folklore research often explores the creation and connection of communities within shared spaces. Join us for episode 39 of Blúiriní Béaloidis as we honour those blessed, wise and industrious little ones, and talk about an upcoming National Museum of Ireland exhibition, “Murmur of Bees”which will launch in the summer of 2023.
To learn more about the National Museum of Ireland: Country Life, visit: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Country-Life
Blúiríní Béaloidis Folklore Podcast
Steve Roud is a Librarian, folklore scholar and creator of the Roud Folk Song Index, which contains upwards of 750,000 entries to around 45,000 English language folk songs, as found in books, recordings, manuscripts and other sources the world over. His index, and ‘Roud Numbers’ (a numbering system employed to identify the same song across many different titles) are widely acclaimed for the scope, breadth, depth and impact. Steve worked as a local studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon, and also served as Honorary Librarian for the Folklore Society for eighteen years. He has published books on calendar custom, popular tradition, folk belief, London lore, children’s games, and folk drama. In 2004, he was the winner of the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland. In 2009, he was one of five people to be awarded the Gold Badge of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. This award recognises "those who have made unique or outstanding contributions to the art or science of folk dance, music or song, and/or those who have given exceptional support in furthering the aims of the Society”. For four years now, Steve has been visiting the NFC, parsing through our manuscript and book, broadside and pamphlet collections for entries to add to his index. He is an incredibly gifted, meticulous and generous scholar, who is always glad to share his expertise with us, particularly in discussion around the inherent problems in the description, cataloguing and indexing of folklore materials. It was an honour, and a great pleasure to host Steve at the NFC recently, and during his visit (for our collective benefit) I subjected him to a 75 minute interview, in which we discussed his index, the problems inherent in describing folk song, approaches to the cataloguing of folklore, conducting research in folklore archives, and the problems inherent in the digitisation of folklore records and some scholarly critique of the NFC’s online platform Dúchas.ie.
As a health warning for this episode - listeners (or viewers!) hoping to listen to scores of lovely ballads will be sorely disappointed, as our discussion essentially consists of nerding out about folklore indexes for over an hour.
Steve’s Folk Song Index can be found here, at the website of the Vaughan William’s Memorial Library: https://www.efdss.org/vwml-catalogues-and-indexes/vwml-help/roud-indexes-help
For a wonderful talk of Steve’s at the Library of Congress, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVTMoN4Arvo
My thanks especially to Veronica, Andrew and Dominic in UCD Communications, for their support of the podcast, and for filming this episode!
