Folk-Lore of Women

What It's About

A wide-ranging survey of the proverbs, superstitions, and folk beliefs that have gathered around women across cultures and centuries. Thiselton-Dyer draws on sources from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas to examine how women have been perceived, mythologised, and judged in popular tradition — covering topics such as the folklore of wives, mothers, widows, spinsters, and witches, as well as beliefs surrounding women's speech, hair, tears, and names. The tone is that of a Victorian gentleman-scholar: curious, encyclopaedic, and not always free of the era's assumptions about female nature.

About the Author

Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer (1848–1923) was an English clergyman and folklorist who devoted much of his career to the systematic collection and classification of folk beliefs, customs, and superstitions.