The Return of Folklore and the Age of Re-enchantment

A cut-down version of a presentation I gave about folklore pimarily in the UK and Europe>

Some things I found interesting:

People are rejecting modern life. But they are longing for something older, something to provide meaning.
The wheel of the year (eight pagan sabbats) is what holds it all together.
Yule is bigger than Halloween for the folklore/pagan community.
Witchcraft has shifted from an aesthetic to a practice.
People are gathering at stone circles in numbers that would have looked unusual five years ago.

Transcript

1. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 FOLKLORE an d t h e age of re-enc h antment T h e return of
2. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Some b ac k groun d . This isn’t a trend, this is a cultural shift being popularised by social discovery. In the 2021 census, about 74,000 people in England and Wales identified as “Pagan,” up from 57,000 in 2011 (around +30%). Academic commentary argues that census data undercounts “practical” or culturally pagan behaviour, suggesting the real number of people who engage with Pagan practices may be closer to 250,000 across the UK
3. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 THE DATASET
4. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Hea d l ine stats Between March 2025 and April 2026, we’ve collected across TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Bluesky and Threads. The search was set up to collect European and North American posts in English language only. 2.02 1.03 487.3 6.49 9.07 25.8 million mentions million authors million engagements billion views million comments million saves
5. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 T h e con v ersation reac h e d far an d w i d e. 1 100 10k 1M Although the conversation was English language only, there were mentions across Eighty-two different countries. TL;DR Folklore is happening everywhere.
6. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 W h o is t h e au d ience? Gender Unknown 73% Male 10% Female 16% People talking about folklore are 50% more likely to be female. The only platform that men talk about this more than women is Bluesky. Threads also has a more even gender split, suggesting that men are happier creating text-based content about folklore than video.
7. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 W h ere’s t h e c h at h appening? TikTok is the engine for folkloric content, but Instagram outperforms it in terms of views.
8. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 KEY THEMES
9. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 T h ree uniting t h emes. Active Spiritual Practice Folkloric Narrative Wheel of the Year Despite the fact that these themes were clear, there was significant crossover between them.
10. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Our fo l k l ore taxonomy Looking at some of the larger sub themes that sat underneath the big three. Again there was crossover between the subthemes, so they’ve been assigned to the theme with the highest volume of mentions.
11. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Has h tag co-occurence. The biggest folklore community is clustered around mythology, stories, folk horror, the paranormal and lives in books. There’s loads of crossover between witches, pagans, and the spooky community/autumn lovers get involved for #samhain.
12. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 WITCHCRAFT MAGIC &
13. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 W h ere on socia l d oes w itc h craft l i v e? It’s called #witchtok for a reason! Instagram is still the home of witchcraft content when we look at mentions. When we look at engagement, it’s all about TikTok (another over-index when compared to the rest of the dataset)
14. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Su b -t h emes. Modern witchcraft on social, is anchored by the wheel of the year, with almost 50% of all posts collected mentioning at least one of the sabbats. It’s also still deep in the narrative structure with stories and folklore both having signficant SOV. 16% of all posts involve a ritual of some description, showing this is a living tradition grounded in practice.
15. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Ho w exc l usi v e are t h e su b -t h emes to w itc h craft? The two biggest clusters that overindex when compared to the rest of our dataset are pagan, and ritual. Witchcraft is where the old religion/rites conversation lives.
16. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 STANDING STONES
17. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Most ta l k e d a b out. Almost all the chat/sites are UK/Ireland- based, except for 162 mentions of Carnac in France. < This is a big deal, Carnac has the most stones of all! Unsurprisingly Stonehenge is the most talked about circle in this topic, with Avebury in second place.
18. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 W h y d o peop l e v isit stones ? Most people are visitng this sites to either: • Feel a sense of awe/wonder • Feel connected to those who came before There’s very little super-woo language associated with standing stones chatter.
19. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Stones con v ersation pea k s at t h e so l stices. Perhaps the most interesting insight around standing stones, is not that the conversation peaks at solstice, but that the conversation peaks at Winter Solstice (Yule) not Summer (Litha). This is due to Newgrange in Ireland, a ‘passage tomb’ that illuminates at dawn on the Winter Solstice.
20. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 BEYOND SOCIAL
21. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Searc h es for fo l k l ore h a v e increase d t h is year. Global Google search data shows that folklore searches have been trending up steadily for the last half decade, but exploded in early 2026.
22. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Pagan h o l i d ays are tren d ing up on searc h . Comparing Google data to TikTok and Instagram views, we see that Pagan Holidays as a general topic are trending up massively on Google, and holding steady across TikTok and Instagram.
23. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Emerging socia l tren d s suggest t h at “Fo l k Tra d ition” w i l l tren d up. This movement is coming from older demographics and being driven by Instagram and Mastodon in equal measure. It’s picking up speed across Europe but with particular focus in Sweden, Ireland, and Germany. This time it’s being driven by the over 35s.
24. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 WHAT WE CAN LEARN
25. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 It’s not a b out rejecting t h ings, it’s a b out l onging for somet h ing more. People are talking about what they’re looking for much more than they’re talking about what they are sick of. The conversation doesn’t indicate that folklore is back because of AI and burnout. It’s bigger than that.
26. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Peop l e are l onging for t h ree t h ings. •Meaning •Community •Heritage Making meaning of ‘it’ all was the largest conversational cluster we uncovered.
27. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 Different countries, d ifferent reasons. Folklore is showing up everywhere, but it’s showing up in different way and for different reasons. • In Romania the data suggests that it’s all abut Heritage and ancestry • In Germany it’s a spiritual practice. • In the UK it’s more about protection and the woods
28. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 TAKEAWAYS
29. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO APRIL 2026 T h e age of re-enc h antment is t h e age of re-rooting • The language of folklore is largely sacred, people are yearning not rejecting. • The wheel of the year is the cultural calendar that anchors everything • 10% of the posts mention ‘celebrate’ this is about joy • Witchcraft has evolved from (largely) aesthetic to (largely) practice • Folklore is happening everywhere • This isn’t about starting something new, it’s about claiming something old • Each platform has a different community/ language and focus • The folklore interested audience continues to diversify
30. KIM TOWNEND STUDIO 2026 THANKS!