History and Theory of Folklore and Mythology

Harvard FAS

Are the myths of a society comparable to the dreams of an individual? Do all of a region’s fairytales derive from a single plotline? Why do UFO abduction accounts sometimes show similarities to earlier elf and fairy lore? Can we reconstruct any of the narratives our ancestors told before the last ice age? Folklore, mythology, and oral literature are mysterious areas of study; some of the most pressing questions these topics pose remain as open today as when they first began to be…