SOURCE: "Richard Harris Barham and His Use of Folklore," New York Folklore Quarterly, Vol. 27, March, 1971, pp. 370-84.

In the following essay, Winslow examines the English folklore that formed the basis for much of Barham's poetry.

Richard Harris Barham, Victorian poet and humorist, provides an interesting subject for the analysis of the use of folklore in literature. Wit, clergyman, antiquarian, and poet, Barham managed to assemble, transform, and stamp with roguish humor a wide array of authentic folklore material, although he himself was far removed from the folk in mind, manner, and milieu. Traditional oral prose narratives, in particular legends, tales, and anecdotes, along with superstitions, were eagerly seized by Barham from oral and literary sources and became the fabric for his major work, The Ingoldsby Legends. Neither Barham nor any other author have written folklore, but many have embellished, juxtaposed, and re-worked this material in the alchemy of...