Folklore in the Age of Climate Change
A window into the past and the future by Arcadia Davies
I traveled on narrow roads, my car scraping against thick shrubbery in a feeble attempt to avoid collision with oncoming traffic. According to my GPS the speed limit was 80kmh. “That just can’t be right,” I mumbled to myself for the seventh or eighth time that week. I gripped the steering wheel and tried, unsuccessfully, to peer around the narrow bends in the road. During my first few days in Ireland, I stayed so close to the side of the road, in fear of hitting another car, that once stopped, I would have to pick grass out of my side mirror and doors. Eventually, I grew to love these winding roads, seeing the sheep and cows that were sometimes only a meter away, and the feeling of being hugged by the landscape as I drove.
In Ireland’s rural areas, it’s not uncommon to see a small sign on the side of the road, indicating a sacred site in the vicinity, a ringfort, a stone circle, or a sacred well. On a dark and misty evening, I pulled into a small lot on the side of the road. Through a short, unassuming metal gate was a small path leading to the Knocknakilla, a stone circle built sometime in the late or middle Bronze Age. Knocknakilla is derived from the Gaelic words Cnoc na Cille, which translates to Hill of the Church. A small sign explained that this place had once been used for rituals and ceremonies. Placement of the stones was likely influenced by sun and moon cycles. I didn’t need a sign to know this place was significant. Fog hovered above the peatland bog. I felt frozen in time and place, unable to move in fear of upsetting the deeply settled energy that had been occupying this space for longer than I could comprehend. My car was only 20 or 30 yards away, but in an oxymoronic fashion modern civilization seemed a thing of the past.
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In the summer of 2023, I was in Ireland performing research on how folklore informs and reflects people’s relationship to the environment. The word ‘folklore’ is often used to encompass myths and legends, passed down through generations. The word itself embodies a romanticized, nostalgic feeling. But folklore is everywhere, and we all participate. Folklore embodies the cultural zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. It is any information that we can mold and transform as it moves through our communities. It can include memes, graffiti, playground songs and games, gossip, and, of course, stories.
In Ireland much of the folklore has persisted since ancient times, evolving as the world evolves. I chose to do my research in Ireland because history and modernity are deeply entangled there and exposed throughout the urban and rural landscapes. Folklore is a product of the people — I wondered what we can learn about shifting values and practices by studying the evolution of folklore and contextualizing it into contemporary environmental dialogues.
For three and a half weeks, I traveled around the Republic of Ireland taking observational notes and conducting interviews. Most interviews were conducted formally, meaning I followed a specific list of prepared questions. They were primarily conducted with people I met in pubs or hostels; a few were with environmentalists or historians and scheduled in advance. I asked people questions like: “what are your favorite stories?” “Why do you think certain stories have persisted throughout time?” “In your opinion, what are the general themes of Irish stories that you know?” and “Do local stories change how you feel or think about the world around you?”
In an interview with an Irish folklore historian, he shared some examples of how stories in Ireland are evolving and how that reflects sociocultural changes. For example, he says the Irish tale of Fear Gorta (the Irish phantom of hunger) is fading away, likely because people aren’t hungry like they used to be. The goddess Áine, on the other hand, is rising in popularity, he expects. She is a powerful figure who represents summer, the sun, sovereignty, fertility, and wealth. Meanwhile, the goddess Brigid has been adopted in the modern feminist movement. This past year, he said, Brigid Day garnered more attention than St. Patrick’s Day. These stories and their popularity have been in constant evolutions since pre-Christian times. It is likely not a coincidence that these stories are gaining attention and facing new evolutions during a time when people are rethinking society’s relationship to the Earth, striving more deeper communal ties, and fighting for a more equitable world.
Interviews like these were illuminating, allowing me to see glimpses of how people are perceiving and experiencing the changing world. But some of my most enlightening conversations weren’t interviews at all, they were informal conversations with people I met along the way. In the formal interviews, participants were eager to talk about folklore and environmentalism and to draw connections between the two. Informal conversations were different, people would often initially say they didn’t know many stories, or that they didn’t believe in the old stories about fairies and leprechauns. But this was never entirely true — I left all these conversations with new stories about magical phenomena that couldn’t quite be explained. Many of these stories are connected to the local landscapes.
It was during tea with strangers that I got a unique glimpse into how present fairy lore still is in parts of Ireland. Creideamh Sí, otherwise known as fairy faith, is not a religious tradition but an old and respected belief system and practice. It signifies the belief in The Sídhe, fairies who are commonly known as ‘the good people’ and are the spirit protectors of the land. They are mischievous creatures who can be punishing — or even deadly — if disturbed. They are known to most commonly inhabit Hawthorn trees and Irish ringforts.
On the morning of tea, I was about a week into my travels and had arrived a few days earlier to a small village. I was staying with a friend’s friend who lived in one of the few houses in the area. It was a beautiful morning; the ground was blanketed by fog. The world around me looked motionless, the only movement seemed to come from me and the owl that passed overhead. Other than a few brief rainstorms followed by vibrant rainbows, I hadn’t been much acquainted with the infamous rainy Irish weather. But on this hazy, grey morning, wrapped in my wool sweater, I felt grounded in the magic of the place.
My host was out of town, so I spent the morning doing house chores and tending to her garden. I yielded two large baskets of squash, several of which were as long as my arm, and I decided to take one basket to their elderly neighbors. I didn’t know them, but my new friend said they loved visitors, and I came bearing gifts.
In the house lived two sisters and one of the sister’s husbands. They had lived in the area their entire lives. That morning, I offered them zucchinis and they offered me tea and cookies. They told me about growing up in the area and how it had changed. I asked if they had any favorite local stories. I was familiar with some of the Celtic and Christian lore of the nearby mountains. The peaks had been used for rituals in prehistoric times, rituals which were later Christianized. The mountains were visible from their kitchen window. To my surprise, they said “Oh no. We don’t know any stories.” But sometime later in the conversation they started to tell me about an important structure in their backyard but struggled to remember the name. “A ringfort?” I offered. Yes, that was right.
In the book Men Who Eat Ringforts authors Sinéad Mercier and Michael Holly beautifully describe the history and significance of ringforts in Ireland and the challenges they face today. Ringforts are abundant throughout Ireland. It’s believed that at one time there were over 60,000 and today roughly 33,000 are left. These forts were built during Medieval times to house rural populations and farms. They were built from stone, earth, and timber.
Now the ringforts face a new arc in their story —the threat of destruction.
Since the 1820s it is believed that 34% of ring forts have been destroyed. Sinéad Mercier, who is an advocate and lawyer of climate change law, said that to protect these landmarks has been difficult because Irish people don’t consider ringforts to be archeological monuments. Instead, they are “symbolic of ‘something else’ – manifestations of the mythological netherworld of ‘the good people’ – na sióga... part of an old animistic faith found in the spiritual nature of land.” This complex liminal status makes it hard to enshrine them in laws, which prioritize science and rationality over spiritual philosophies.
Some of the forts still stand tall, a majestic stone circle amidst the landscape. Built with no mortar, the thin rocks of the walls are perfectly balanced atop one another, a testament to the craftsmanship. Others are less assuming — small grassy mounds behind someone’s house or in a farm field, often surrounded by a ring of trees or shrubs. The Hill of Tara is one of Ireland’s most renowned ringforts, originally a passage tomb during the stoneage and then later the seat of high kings in the Iron Age and early Christian period. During a trip there, I asked the tour guide if people still used it is as a spiritual site to which she said, people still come for all sorts of reasons: tourism, education, pagan spirituality, Christian spirituality, and to walk their dogs.
On the morning of tea with neighbors, one of the women told me about the time when her husband went to cut down a tree in the ringfort. “We warned him not to” she said, “but he didn’t listen.” Shortly after the tree was cut down the window on his tractor shattered. Then came another story about an old neighbor who messed with a ringfort. “Afterwards he accidentally sawed part of his leg off,” she said, “It might be a coincidence but what’s the point in risking it?” A similar sentiment was shared in several interviews and meetings throughout my visit.
Today ringforts are threatened by the prioritization of growth, and efficiency, which inspires the development of motorways, office buildings, and other infrastructural development. Ecologists, folklorists, lawyers, famers, and artists are working together to protect these stories and places, which are deeply intertwined. Their magical and mysterious quality still enchants many throughout the country.
In my research, I have learned about several instances when folklore was integral to conservation initiatives – the big stories, the ones that made it on the news. I’ve had conversations with guides and people at historic sites about the Irish fairies and the gods and goddesses who enchant the landscape. These conversations were insightful and yet they often had an academic quality to them. On this morning, I stepped out of my academic role. I allowed myself to just be the neighbor with the zucchinis, and I learned from the two women who said they didn’t have any stories to tell.
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Anthropogenic climate change feels like an overwhelming issue that burdens the present and future. Therefore, it makes sense that we are drawn towards big, forward-looking initiatives, like electric vehicles, carbon capture, and large-scale renewable energy sites. Comparatively art, language, and stories might seem like an insignificant focus; their power should not be ignored. The Botanist Oliver Rackham in The History of the Countryside said there are “four ways in which ‘landscape is lost’: through the loss of beauty, the loss of freedom, the loss of wildlife and vegetation, and the loss of meaning.” When we lose stories, we lose meaning and when we lose meaning we lose some of our motivation to protect. Essayist Wendell Berry said, “People exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love, and to defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.”
Large-scale climate change initiatives are an important step, but they often overlook the intricacies of local places and gloss over questions like, “What does a more environmentally compassionate future look like?”. In the book Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane, he writes about a wind farm project in Scotland, proposed in the early 2000s. An energy and engineering company (AMEC) filed an application to build a wind farm on the Brindled Moor that would have been Europe’s largest wind farm, with 234 wind turbines. To build this required opening five new rock quarries, building over 100 miles of roads, and sinking over 150,000 cubic meters of concrete into the ground. Many locals were mad and pushed back. The debate came down to how people defined the land. Those supporting the project said the moor was hostile and barren. Islanders opposed to the project determined they had to re-enchant the moor and prove that it contains meaning and life. They created and salvaged stories, language, folk songs, poems, paintings, photographs, historical accounts, and cartographical accounts of the area. After three and a half years of protests, the Scottish Executive denied the application and the moor was saved. Peatland bog protection initiatives in Ireland are adopting similar approaches, prioritizing oral history projects that collect stories from locals, in addition to their landscape restoration projects. These projects demonstrate that the protection of our Earth is just as much about protecting meaning and strengthening relationships as it is about protecting flora and fauna.
Ashleagh Claire Hurren, the producer of ‘Folkways’ a podcast on the folklore of Britain and Ireland says, “If you don’t even know the significance of the sights because the stories have been lost, how do you guard them in the first place?” In Ireland the word dinnseanchas is used to describe place-based lore — it encompasses place names that refer to local traditions and descriptions of the local physical and spiritual word. It is a holistic understanding of a place’s topography that reflects place-based knowledge, warnings, and values. In the age of climate change, folklore can guide us in re-enchanting places, motivating us to defend what we know, love, and value. Stories and art hold data about the world and the people in it, using this information we can decide what we want to bring with us and what we want to leave in the past. Allowing the past to inform but not define our future.
Arcadia Davies (She/Hers) is a graduate student at the Yale School of the Environment, studying cultural-environmental relationships. She is dedicated to environmental work that integrates the arts, traditional ecological knowledge, and Western science. Prior to graduate school she worked as an elementary teacher as a Waldorf-based school and in community coordinator positions for several nonprofits.