Estonian folklore and beliefs including samples of folk songs appear in Topographische Nachrichten von Liv- und Estland by August W. Hupel in 1774–82.
J.G von Herder published seven Estonian folk songs, translated into German in his Volkslieder in 1778 and republished as Stimmen der Völker in Liedern in 1807.
[3] At the beginning of the 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840), increased interest in Estonian folklore occurred among Baltic Germans.
Rosenplänter founded Beiträge zur genauern Kenntniß der ehstnischen Sprache, a journal for studies on Estonian language, literature, and folklore.
After the establishment of the Republic of Estonia, Walter Anderson was appointed to the newly founded chair of folklore at the University of Tartu.
Arvo Krikmann and Ingrid Sarv assembled the five-volume Estonian proverb collection "Eesti vanasõnad" between 1980 and 1988.