Jacqueline Simpson


Jacqueline Simpson is a British researcher and author on folklore and legends.

Career

Simpson studied English Literature and Medieval Icelandic at Bedford College, University of London. She has been, at various times, Editor, Secretary, and President of the Folklore Society. She was awarded the Society's Coote Lake Research Medal in 2008. In 2010 she was appointed Visiting Professor of Folklore at the Sussex Centre of Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy at the University of Chichester, West Sussex. She has a particular interest in local legends, and has published collections of this genre from Iceland, Scandinavia in general, and England. She has also written on the folklore of various English regions, and was co-author with Steve Roud of the Penguin Dictionary of English Folklore.
She has been a point of reference for Terry Pratchett since he met her at a book signing in 1997. Pratchett, who was then researching his novel Carpe Jugulum, was asking everyone in the queue how many "magpie" rhymes they knew; and while most people gave one answer – the theme from the TV series Magpie – Simpson was able to supply considerably more. According to Pratchett's version of their conversation, there were "about nineteen", but she suspects this is creative embroidery. Their encounter eventually led to collaboration.

Personal life

Simpson lives in West Sussex, England.

Works