Folklore resources on the internet are both incredibly valuable and weirdly difficult to navigate. There is SO MUCH information out there, and much of it is fabulous and much of it is deeply misinformed (helloooo uncritically following Bettelheim) or poorly researched. If you’re wondering where to start, or you want some reliable sources to follow, this post is for you!

There are many amazing folklore blogs out there (and we’re delighted to be adding to the conversation here on our Carterhaugh blog), but we tried to pick ones that 1) are updated frequently, 2) have been updated fairly recently, and 3) are not super specific (i.e. not JUST about fairy tales, like the amazing Once Upon a Blog, but about folklore more broadly!) So here are 5 of our absolute favorite folklore-y blogs on the Internet, ones we think are especially great to start with if you’re just getting into this whole ‘folklore’ thing.

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Folklore Thursday + #folklorethursday – this is absolutely the easiest place to start if you’re just dipping your toe in. The blog on their website is fantastic and highly curated, but if you’re just like “I want to learn some random and delightful folklore info today,” then searching their hashtag on twitter is super fun and always full of surprises (even for us!)

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Terri Windling’s Myth and Moor – Terri Windling is a monumental figure in fantasy literature and a huge supporter of all things folklore (we can’t even tell you how excited we were to see that she linked us!) Her blog, Myth and Moor, was just nominated for a World Fantasy Award and the award would be well-earned if she wins. A carefully cultivated garden of nature, books, keen thoughts on folklore, especially narrative and music, mythic arts, and her adorable dog Tilly, this blog is pretty much guaranteed to brighten your day.

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Folklife Today – Folklife Today is the blog of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, and it is always full of excellent information. We love their “Hidden Folklorists” series (about people who were famous for other things, but were actually secretly folklorists too!) and their new podcast is great too! As a side note, our wonderful friend, colleague, and mentor Dr. Stephen D. Winick is the general editor, and his work is always stellar and impeccably researched – check out his four-part series on the Greenman on his personal blog too – I, II, III, IV!

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Foxy Folklorist – Another dear friend and colleague, Dr. Jeana Jorgensen, writes the excellent Foxy Folklorist blog over at Patheos! Jeana is brilliant, and she weaves together her diverse interests in such innovative ways. We especially recommend her recaps of conferences, her posts about her work on gender and sex in fairy tales, and her amazing discussion on why folklorists hate Joseph Campbell’s work (in which Sara is quoted!)

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Cunning Folk – Cunning Folk is a relatively new magazine on folklore, the occult, and magic in our world today, so you know it’s right up our alley! We’ve really been enjoying their blog posts, which strike a lovely note between scholarly and fun. We loved the post on “Why Magic Matters” and their conversation with awesome witchy author Pam Grossman (who also runs a fantastic blog on the occult in art, Phantasmaphile!)

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As a bit of a bonus, we also want to give a tiny shout out to another blog, one that we helped start and occasionally contribute to with our absolutely awesome friend and colleague Derek Newman-Stille! Through the Twisted Woods is a blog dedicated to pushing the boundaries of folk and fairy tales to include those that live on the fringes, examining the power of disabling, queering, gender-swapping, aging, and disrupting hegemonic whiteness and anglocentrism in folkloric retellings. This project is near and dear to our hearts, and well worth a follow!

What are your favorite folklore blogs? Post them in the comments, we’d love to see them!