Juliette Wood

Dr Juliette Wood is an American academic who studied folklore and Celtic literature at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Wales and Oxford. She now lives in Cardiff where she is Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh Cardiff University and a Director of The Folklore Society at the Warburg Institute, London

• M. Litt (Oxford), 'The Hanes Taliesin Tradition' .
• Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania), ‘Conceptual Geography in Medieval Tradition’,
• M.A. (University of Pennsylvania),
• M.A. University of Wales (Aberystwyth).

Associate Lecturer in the Department of Welsh, Cardiff University, Tutor Department of Continuing Education, Reading University and Secretary of the Folklore Society

Specialist in

• Celtic Studies
• Early and Modern Magic
• History and Practice of Folklore

Dr Juliette Wood is a professional folklorist and Celtic scholar educated in the United States, but currently living in Britain. After gaining degrees in medieval philosophy and Arthurian literature, she studied folklore at the University of Pennsylvania, from which she holds both an M.A and a PhD. Her doctoral thesis examined similarities between the geography and cosmology of medieval travelogues and journeys to the other world in Celtic and Italian tales. She continued her studies in folklore and Celtic literature at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and at Linacre College, Oxford where she received an M.Litt degree for research into the traditions of the Welsh poet Taliesin.

Dr Wood has also been a professional consultant to TV and media production companies, both UK based and international. In addition she has organised several major conferences such as the Scottish Medievalists Conference in Oxford (1993) and New Perspectives on Fairy lore (1997) in Cardiff. In addition to television and radio work on folklore topics, her major interest at the present time is the relation between medieval tradition and popular culture with special reference to 'new age' movements. She currently teaching courses at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Cardiff University on a range of topis including the 'Sources of Pagan Thought'; 'Belief Systems in the Neolithic World'; 'History of Western Magic', 'Arthurian Tradition' 'World Mythology' and 'Celtic literature and tradition’.

Books

• • Eternal Chalice: the Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail (I.B.Tauris, 2008)
• The Celts Life Myth and Art (Duncan Baird Publishing London 1998),
• The Celtic Book of Living and Dying Duncan Baird Publishing London (2000) (Duncan Baird) .
• Introductions to new editions of Charles Squire’s Mythology of the British Isles and P.W.Joyce’s Old Celtic Romances (Wordsworth Editions and the Folklore Society)
• The Little Book of Celtic Wisdom (Element 1996)
• Legends of Chivalry: Medieval Myth in TimeLife Books Myth and Mankind Series (2000)

Publications include substantial articles in academic journals, such as Folklore, Studia Celtica, and Etudes Celtiques . Her current interests emcompass the narrative traditions in the Middle Ages, especially the folk narrative of Wales.

Selected Articles

• Virgil and Taliesin: The Concept of the Magician in Medieval Folklore Folklore (1983).
• A Celtic Sorcerer's Apprentice: The Magician Figure in Scottish Tradition Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Scottish Language and Literature ed R.J. Lyall and F. Riddy, Glasgow, 1983.
• Lakes and Wells: Mediation Between the Worlds in Scottish Folklore Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Scottish Language and Literature Germersheim 1985.
• The Calumniated Wife Theme in Medieval Welsh Literature Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies Winter 1986 25 38.
• "Walter Map and the Context of De Nugis Curialium" Transactions of the Honorable Society of Cymrodorion 1985, 91 103.
• "The Old Man of the Mountain in Medieval Folk Tradition" Folklore (1988).
• The Fairy Bride Legend in Wales Folklore vol 103:1 (1992) 56 72.
• The Selling of Arthur: Popular Culture and the Arthurian legend Folklore in Use 2, (1994) 115-29.
• ‘The Supernatural Female as Carrier of Disease in Medieval Welsh Tradition’ Letters to Ambrose Merton: Quarterly Folklore Miscellany no 5 1996.
• ‘Rewriting and rethinking the Welsh folktale’ in Folklore Studies – Past, Present and Future?’ Special edition of Lore and Language ed J.S. Ryan 15 (1997).
• Celtic Goddesses: Myths and Mythology in The Feminist Companion to Mythology ed. Carolyne Larrington, Pandora Press 1992.
• ‘Filming Fairies: Popular Film, Audience Response and Meaning in Contemporary Fairy Lore’ Folklore 117 (2006) 279-296
• The Search for the Holy Grail: Scholars Critics and Occultists Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium Volume xxii, 2002
  

 

 

© Juliette Wood