Jeremy Harte

Publications

Harte's book on British fairy lore, Explore Fairy Traditions, won the Folklore Society's annual Katharine Briggs Award in 2005.^[9] In their report, the award's judges stated that the book "reflects good modern research, is well referenced, and opens up many interesting lines of thought," in addition to being "written in a clear, lively style".^[10] Reviewing the book in the journal Fabula, the folklorist Willhelm F. H. Nicolaisen thought that Harte's victory would have pleased the folklorist Katharine Briggs, after whom the award is named, because of her own interest in fairy lore.^[11] Nicolaisen assessed Harte's book to be a "well-informed, well-researched, and nicely balanced account", although also noted it was "a very British, in places even very English, book" which did not examine material from elsewhere in Europe.^[12] Historian Ethan Doyle White stated that Explore Folk Traditions "quickly became a classic" in the field.^[13]

Harte's 2008 book English Holy Wells, again published by Heart of Albion, was reviewed by the historian Bruce Osborne in the journal Time and Mind. Osborne considered it "an essential reference guide for all serious enthusiasts of holy wells", believing that it would be useful to local historians researching the wells in their area.^[14]

In 2023, Reaktion published Harte's Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape. The historian Aaron John Henry Larsen reviewed it for the Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft journal, calling it "an essential compilation of these diabolical stories[...] written in a style that will delight both the seasoned scholar and amateur folklorist alike." ^[15] In the Folklore journal, it was reviewed by Doyle White, who noted that Cloven Country was "learned yet entertaining, suffused with a distinctive humour that very few other writers can successfully pull off".^[16] In the Journal of British Studies, the folklorist Ceri Houlbrook similarly characterised it as having been written in Harte's "characteristically eloquent, erudite, and often humorous style".^[17] The historian Francis Young produced a review for the Agricultural History Review.^[18] Reviewing it for The Guardian, the writer P. D. Smith stated that Harte takes the "reader on a devilishly entertaining tour of England and its richly storied landscape."^[19]

The same year, Reaktion also published Harte's Travellers Through Time: A Gypsy History. The historian David Cressy reviewed it for the Journal of British Studies, comparing it to earlier writings on Travellers by George Borrow and Charles Godfrey Leland, and suggesting that its approach was "romantic and eclectic rather than analytic or systematic".^[20]

The University of Exeter Press brought out Harte's Fairy Encounters In Medieval England: Landscape, Folklore and the Supernatural in 2024. Reviewing it for the Folk Life journal, Young characterised it as being, "in a sense, a sequel" to Explore Fairy Traditions and went on to label it "the indispensable reference text on which any future studies of medieval English fairy lore must rest".^[21] In Folklore, Doyle White described the book as being "erudite, engaging, and repeatedly funny", a work which "cements [Harte's] status as the great raconteur of British folklore studies".^[22]