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Research Guides

Folklore & Mythology: Books & eBooks

Folkloristics, the study of Folklore, is the study of human expressive culture, and includes myths, legends, folk- and fairy-tales, jokes, proverbs, jump-rope rhymes, material culture, and much more.

Selected eBooks

Folklore Rules: A Fun, Quick, and Useful Introduction to the Field of Academic Folklore Studies
The Cultural Work: Maroon Performance in Paramaribo, Suriname
The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Fairy Tale Transformations of
Storytelling in Siberia: The Olonkho Epic in a Changing World
Recasting Folk in the Himalayas: Indian Music, Media, and Social Mobility
Folklore Concepts: Histories and Critiques
Tengautuli Atkuk / The Flying Parka: The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska
Listening to the Lomax Archive: The Sonic Rhetorics of African American Folksong in the 1930s
Slender Man Is Coming: Creepypasta and Contemporary Legends on the Internet
Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans
The Bungling Host: The Nature of Indigenous Oral Literature
Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice
Danish Folktales, Legends, and Other Stories
Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales
Unikkaaqtuat: An Introduction to Inuit Myths and Legends
Grimm Ripples: The Legacy of the Grimms’ Deutsche Sagen in Northern Europe
From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture
Ole Hendricks and His Tunebook: Folk Music and Community on the Frontier
Classical Mythology: The Basics
The Practice of Folklore: Essays toward a Theory of Tradition

UW Libraries Search

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Advanced Search | FAQ | Known Issues

Using UW Libraries Search to Find Books

Find eBooks

You can find eBooks in two ways:

  • Do your search and then on the results screen, filter your results by using the toolbar:
    • Choose Availability: "Available Online" and Resource Type: "eBooks"
    • And then click on the green "Apply Filters" button
       
  • Use the Advanced Search option
    • Change "Show Only" to "UW Libraries" and "Material Type" to "eBooks"
       
  • See the eBook FAQ for more information

Search Tips

 

  • By Topic - Type in the keywords that broadly describe your topic. For a helpful list of folklore-related search words, see  the American Folklore Society Ethnographic Thesaurus. For example: folk songs irish
     
  • By Title - search for a specific book by title. Type in the first few words of the book title in quotations. For example: "amish quilts"

  • By Author - search for books written by a specific author. Type in the last name followed by the first name of the author in quotations. For example: "mcneill lynne"

eBook Collections

Additional collections of eBooks can be found on eBook Collections guide. 

Finding Books Beyond the UW

If you can't find the books you need at the UW or through our Summit partner libraries (Summit material can be found in UW Libraries Search), use the following catalogs. Books not available at the UW can be requested through Interlibrary Loan. 

Browsing for Books

The UW Libraries arranges books by Library of Congress call numbers. The major sections for folklore are listed below with the Suzzallo floor where they are located. There are also sections for folk literature under many national literature sections, e.g., German folk literature (PT881-951).

BL300-325 Comparative Mythology 4
GR Folkore 3
GN Anthropology 3
GT Manners & Customs 4
ML3544-3776  Folk Music 4
PN905-1008  Folk Literature 4

For a more specific breakdown of the call numbers see the Library of Congress Classification Online.