SLT 2020 : The Sky in Legend and Tradition The 15th Legendary Weekend of The Folklore Society

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft! The flying pigs are knocking on Heaven’s door while thunderbirds circle the Merry Dancers and a woman standing on the moon bends over Endymion. Dragons release thunderbolts as parachuting nuns descend on Area 51. We’re walking in the air with flying ointment at the back of the North Wind when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a firedrake on a flying carpet. Horse and hattock! call the broomstick witches – Icarus is felled by elfshot but the Night Voyage is bright as St. Elmo’s fire on Jacob’s ladder, Bifrost trembles and a third part of the stars flame amazement. Let Phaethon saddle Pegasus and the Wild Huntsman chase Seven Whistlers through the Pearly Gates, for these late eclipses of the sun and moon are no twinkling little stars. Waft her, angels, to the skies where rain goes away in the sundance of Easter morning, there are gremlins in the chariots of the gods but Fata Morgana is buying us a stairway to Heaven. Fear no more the lightning flash, a cloud of incense wreaths the oracular birds and what is the right ascendant but the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

This two-day conference on the Sky in Legend and Tradition will be held on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th September 2020 as the fifteenth Legendary Weekend of the Folklore Society, at the Medieval Hall in the Cathedral Close in Salisbury, SP1 2EY. We’d welcome speakers on the lore of clouds and storms, dragons and angels, levitation and ufology, ornithomancy, astrology and the flying ships of Magonia. Anyone who can contribute – mythologists, meteorologists, singers, sky pilots, academics and Ascended Masters. Presentations, which should be 20 minutes long, can take the form of talks, performances, or art installations.