Stephen Miller’s upcoming online lecture on September 16, 5 p.m. (CET) is titled “Alice Cowley presented for giving Charm for the ague” (1709). Folk Charming in the Isle of Man.
Please find the link to the Zoom meeting, the abstract, and the speaker’s short bio below.
Join the Zoom meeting here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84709268342?pwd=3LTGVNj4Rsc2WyD1JohhZUDI5a88jb.1
Meeting ID: 847 0926 8342
Passcode: 442076
Abstract
In the previous online lecture arranged by the ISFNR Committee on Charms, Charmers and Charming and taking place on December 8, 2025, Stephen Miller discussed folk charms from the Isle of Man. This is a follow-up talk looking at the practices of charming themselves. The strongest material is drawn from the early modern records of the Church Courts in the Island where Alice Cowley amongst others found themselves being investigated for using charms. More recent accounts were recorded by the Manx Museum Folk Life Survey (1948–) showing a continuity of practices into recent memory.
Short biography
Stephen Miller studied History and Folk Life Studies at the University of Leeds. After work on the Tape-Recorded Survey of Yorkshire Speech at the College of Ripon and York St John, shifted to IT Support and Development at the Universities of Oxford and Glasgow before moving to Vienna to work at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and lecturing on Digital Humanities at the University of Vienna. Research interests cover the folklore, folk song, and folklore of the Isle of Man, the Scottish folklorists, the Rev. Walter Gregor and William George Black, and the institutional history of The Folk-Lore Society.