Reddit mentions of The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation

I am fairly certain this was written by me in 1981, but I cannot figure out how I managed to post it on /r/AskHistorians (which was not even conceived of four decades ago). Assuming that I did not post this question, perhaps I can offer some thoughts.

After a grueling sequence of years poring over historical literature, I won a fellowship for research in a foreign country - a crowning achievement after years of hard work, sending me on my way just as I was exhibiting cracks in my internal structure that I did not even recognize at the time. I consequently arrived on a foreign shore set up with all the fatigue that would make it easy to go catatonic at the slightest provocation.

Add to that the very real issue of culture shock. It is simply exhausting to confront a foreign culture every moment of every day. It doesn't matter how exuberant one is about the excitement of delving into the opportunities of foreign research, the very real prospect of dealing with a different world takes its toll. More reason to become catatonic!

On a fundamental level, I will tell you to eat healthy food regularly and drink plenty of water. A friend of mine also suggested that I try to do something good for myself once a day. That's harder, but it's a good idea. Mostly, be aware that everyone who has traveled to a foreign country to do research has experienced what you're going through for a longer or shorter time. Culture shock and research burnout are both very real things, but they are not the end of the road.

There were times during my foreign sojourn when I feared I was wasting my time and that my fellowship had been wasted on me. I was forcing myself to read and I found the inspiration having gone flat. Honestly, some of that inspiration did not return for awhile after I returned. And then, the pieces started to reassemble and I realized how much I had learned - and gained - for all I did while abroad.

So what can I tell my younger self, having somehow posted this question from four decades past? Take heart: this isn't the end of your enthusiasm. To a certain extent it is a passing reaction to your current circumstance. Understand that the enthusiasm can and likely will come back - very likely sooner than you think. To a certain extent, you must regard this experience as an investment, a gift to your future self. Marathon runners talk about hitting "the wall" - the moment around 20 miles when the pain is at its greatest and it seems that quiting is the only option. Every marathon runner hits the wall and every successful runner pushes through it. Knowing that everyone else is hitting that same wall no doubt helps.

On a micro level, one thing that I found helpful was to allow myself some time to pursue tangents that had nothing to do with my original research plans. Serendipity is the mother of discovery, and at the very least, unplanned exploration can be refreshing. I went to Ireland to study the medieval diffusion of a folktale from the Baltic region. It turned out to be the result of nineteenth-century literary diffusion and other factors. I wrote an article on it, but my original inspiration was a bust - and it was the last time I attempted to pursue a medieval topic! One of the digressions I pursued - while experiencing some amount of depression - was reading some of the library's volumes on Cornish folklore. The result of that digression has just been released, a gift I gave myself nearly forty years ago. For all my struggles during that foreign sojourn, nothing that followed would have been possible.

I hope this helps. If I can help further, feel free to send me a PM.