Continuity: Folklore's Problem Child?

This essay examines the role of continuity in the study of medieval Northern popular cultural. Among other issues, it questions: the nature of continuity as a concept; the roles “tradition” and “continuity” have played in the development of folklore studies historically (e.g., Finnish Historical-Geographic Method, the “superorganic”) and their value today in relation to, e.g., memory studies and performance theory; and the use, and the misuse, of such tools over time, including by the National Socialists. I note that that the value of our ability to employ continuity as a scientific concept rests on our ability to demonstrate and evaluate four factors, namely, communality, variation, continuity and function. Importantly, far from being static, the role of continuity in the telling or enactment—the ‘doing’—of folklore, is a dynamic, communicative and re-contextualized conception of inherited materials.