Brandon Barker and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth Share Eclipse Folklore

Folklorists Brandon Barker and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth were featured in webcasts, podcasts, and news interviews about the solar eclipse on April 8.

Brandon Barker (Assistant Professor of Folklore and Affiliate Faculty in the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University) was featured on an Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences’ Food for Thought livestreaming series analyzes the similarities and variations in folktales across diverse geographical areas, highlighting the universal aspects of human perception and storytelling in response to a total solar eclipse.

Barker’s presentation explored folk motifs cataloged by Thompson within the main category A700-A799 – The Heavens, specifically focusing on the sub-category A737 – Causes of Eclipse. Highlighted motifs will encompass eclipses triggered by curses, instances where a thief steals the sun and conceals it, and occurrences involving supernatural monsters that devour the sun entirely. By examining examples from diverse geographical regions, Professor Barker will delve into both commonalities and differences, emphasizing how human minds observe and narrate extraordinary celestial phenomena.

Photo by Anna Powell Teeter.

Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth (Director and Archivist for the Center for Folklore Studies; Visiting Assistant Professor, Comparative Studies at Ohio State University) joined Wayne Schlingman from the Department of Astronomy to discuss the upcoming total solar eclipse on episode 20 of “Now at Ohio State.” Check out the episode, which was published on March 27th at this link.

In addition, Jasper was featured on the CBS Morning News at 7am on April 5th, which was streamed here. You can watch Jasper’s segment, “Myths and folklore surrounding the solar eclipse,” directly at this link.

To read more about eclipse folk tales, visit this story at Ohio State News.