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Folklore
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Folklore consists of culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually ethnographic study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal Athenaeum in 1846.[1] In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology. Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of both folklore and mythology, providing an outline into which new motifs can be placed, and scholars can keep track of all older motifs.

Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.[2]

Contents [hide]
1 Artifacts
2 Oral tradition
3 Cultural
4 Rituals
5 Categories of folklore
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links


[edit] Artifacts

The three wise monkeys over the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, JapanElements such as dolls, decorative items used in religious rituals, hand-built houses and barns,[3] and handmade clothing and other crafts are considered to be folk artifacts, grouped within the field as "material culture." Additionally, figures that depict characters from folklore, such as statues of the three wise monkeys may be considered to be folklore artifacts, depending on how they are used within a culture.[4] The operative definition would depend on whether the artifacts are used and appreciated within the same community in which they are made, and whether they follow a community aesthetic.

[edit] Oral tradition
Folklore can contain religious or mythic elements, it equally concerns itself with the sometimes mundane traditions of everyday life. Folklore frequently ties the practical and the esoteric into one narrative package. It has often been conflated with mythology, and vice versa, because it has been assumed that any figurative story that does not pertain to the dominant beliefs of the time is not of the same status as those dominant beliefs.[citation needed] Thus, Roman religion is called "myth" by Christians. In that way, both "myth" and "folklore" have become catch-all terms for all figurative narratives which do not correspond with the dominant belief structure.

Sometimes "folklore" is religious in nature, like the tales of the Welsh Mabinogion or those found in Icelandic skaldic poetry. Many of the tales in the Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine also embody folklore elements in a Christian context, as well as the tales of Old Mr. Brennan. Examples of such Christian mythology are the themes woven round Saint George or Saint Christopher. In this case, the term "folklore" is being used in a pejorative sense. That is, while the tales of Odin the Wanderer have a religious value to the Norse who composed the stories, because it does not fit into a Christian configuration it is not considered "religious" by Christians who may instead refer to it as "folklore."

"Folktales" is a general term for different varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to basic and complex societies alike. Even the forms folktales take are certainly similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of themes and narrative ways have been successful in showing these relationships. Also it is considered to be an oral tale to be told for everybody.[clarification needed]


Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale of Germanic origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck and a stop-motion animated feature film based on the opera. Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909On the other hand, folklore can be used to accurately describe a figurative narrative, which has no sacred or religious content. In the Jungian view, which is but one method of analysis, it may instead pertain to unconscious psychological patterns, instincts or archetypes of the mind. This may or may not have components of the fantastic (such as magic, ethereal beings or the personification of inanimate objects). These folktales may or may not emerge from a religious tradition, but nevertheless speak to deep psychological issues. The familiar folktale, "Hansel and Gretel", is an example of this fine line. The manifest purpose of the tale may primarily be one of mundane instruction regarding forest safety or secondarily a cautionary tale about the dangers of famine to large families, but its latent meaning may evoke a strong emotional response due to the widely understood themes and motifs such as “The Terrible Mother”, “Death,” and “Atonement with the Father.”

There can be both a moral and psychological scope to the work, as well as entertainment value, depending upon the nature of the teller, the style of the telling, the ages of the audience members, and the overall context of the performance. Folklorists generally resist universal interpretations of narratives and, wherever possible, analyze oral versions of tellings in specific contexts, rather than print sources, which often show the work or bias of the writer or editor.

Contemporary narratives common in the Western world include the urban legend. There are many forms of folklore that are so common, however, that most people do not realize they are folklore, such as riddles, children's rhymes and ghost stories, rumors (including conspiracy theories), gossip, ethnic stereotypes, and holiday customs and life-cycle rituals. UFO abduction narratives can be seen, in some sense, to refigure the tales of pre-Christian Europe, or even such tales in the Bible as the Ascent of Elijah to heaven. Adrienne Mayor, in introducing a bibliography on the topic, noted that most modern folklorists are largely unaware of classical parallels and precedents, in materials that are only partly represented by the familiar designation Aesopica: "Ancient Greek and Roman literature contains rich troves of folklore and popular beliefs, many of which have counterparts in modern contemporary legends" (Such as Mayor, 2000).

Vladimir Propp's classic study Morphology of the Folktale (1928) became the basis of research into the structure of folklore texts. Propp discovered a uniform structure in Russian fairy tales. His book has been translated into English, Italian, Polish and other languages. The English translation was issued in USA in 1958, some 30 years after the publication of the original. It was met by approving reviews and significantly influenced later research on folklore and, more generally, structural semantics. Though his work was based on syntagmatic structure, it gave the scope to understand the structure of folktales, of which he discovered thirty one functions.[5]

[edit] Cultural
Folklorist William Bascom states that folklore has many cultural aspects, such as allowing for escape from societal consequences. In addition, folklore can also serve to validate a culture (romantic nationalism), as well as transmit a culture's morals and values. Folklore can also be the root of many cultural types of music. Country, blues, and bluegrass all originate from American folklore. Examples of artists which have used folkloric themes in their music would be: Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Jim Croce, and many others. Folklore can also be used to assert social pressures, or relieve them, for example in the case of humor and carnival.

In addition, folklorists study medical, supernatural, religious, and political belief systems as an essential, often unspoken, part of expressive culture.

[edit] Rituals
Many rituals can sometimes be considered folklore, whether formalized in a cultural or religious system (e.g. weddings, baptisms, harvest festivals) or practiced within a family or secular context. For example, in certain parts of the United States (as well as other countries) one places a knife, or a pair of scissors, under the mattress to "cut the birth pains" after giving birth. Additionally, children's counting-out games can be defined as behavioral folklore.[6]

[edit] Categories of folklore
This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (July 2010)

Genres
Archetypes, stereotypes and stock characters.
Ballad
Blason Populaire
Childlore
Children's street culture
Counting rhymes
Costumbrismo
Craft
Custom
Epic poetry
Factoids
Festival
Folk art
Folk belief
Folk magic
Folk medicine
Folk metaphor
Folk narrative
Anecdote
Fable
Fairy tale
Ghost story
Joke
Legend
Myth
Parable
Tall tale
Urban legend
Folk play
Folk poetry and rhyme
Folk simile
Folk song
Games
Holiday lore and customs
Mythology
Riddle
Saying
Maxim
Proverb
Superstition
Taunts
Weather lore
Xerox lore
National or ethnic

Further information: List of mythologies
American folklore
Canadian folklore
Latin American folklore
Brazilian folklore
Caribbean folklore
Colombian folklore
United States folklore
Australian folklore
East Asian
Chinese folklore
Japanese folklore
Korean folklore
European
Albanian folklore
Alpine (Austrian and Swiss) folklore
English folklore
Estonian folklore
Dutch folklore
Finnish folklore
French folklore
German folklore
Hungarian folklore
Irish folklore
Italian folklore
Lithuanian folklore
Maltese folklore
Montenegrin folklore
Romanian folklore
Scandinavian folklore
Scottish folklore
Slavic folklore
Polish folklore
Russian folklore
Spanish Folklore
Swiss folklore
Welsh folklore
Near Eastern
Aggadah
Arab folklore
Iranian folklore
Jewish folklore
Turkish folklore
South Asian
Indian folklore
Pakistani folklore
Southeast Asian
Philippine folklore
[edit] See also
Folklore portal
Applied folklore
Appropriation (music)
Chinook wind
Folk
Folklife
Folkloristics
Intangible Cultural Heritage
Petrosomatoglyph (image of parts of a human or animal body incised in rock)
Signifying monkey
[edit] References
^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," Indiana University Press, 1995.
^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," pp.313 Indiana University Press, 1995.
^ Kniffen, Fred, and Henry Glassie. "Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective." In Thomas J. Schlereth, ed., Material Culture Studies in America. Nashville, Tenn.: AASLH Press, 1982.
^ Wolfgang Mieder, "The Proverbial Three Wise Monkeys," Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 7 (1981):5-38.
^ L. V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, Second Edition, revised and edited with a Preface of Louis A. Wagner, University of Texas Press, 1968.
^ Kenneth S. Goldstein, "Strategy in Counting Out: An Ethnographic Folklore Field Study," in Elliott M. Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith, eds., The Study of Games New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971.
[edit] Further reading
Adrienne Mayor, "Bibliography of Classical Folklore Scholarship: Myths, Legends, and Popular Beliefs of Ancient Greece and Rome", from Folklore (April 2000)
Coffin, Tristam P.; Cohen, Hennig, (editors), Folklore in America; tales, songs, superstitions, proverbs, riddles, games, folk drama and folk festivals, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966. Selections from the Journal of American folklore.
[edit] External links
Meeting-place and knowledge bank for everyone whose ancestry hails from Sweden
"Folklore". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Folklore". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Slovak Folklore — folklore groups, videos, songs, history, news, events, festivals
[hide]v • d • eFairies

Related articles Changeling · Classifications of fairies · Faerieworlds · Fairy fort · Fairy painting · Fairy path · Fairy riding · Fairy ring · Folklore · Mythology · Legends · Cottingley Fairies · Faery Wicca

Royalty in folklore Brigid · Beira · Fairy Queen · Finvarra · Freyr · Gyre-Carling · Nicnevin · Queen of Elphame

Royalty in literature Mab · Oberon · Titania

Creatures described as fairies

Africa Aziza · Jengu · Tikoloshe

Asia Diwata · Kitsune · Kappa · Orang Bunian · Tengu · Yaksha · Yōkai · Peri · Tanuki · Tennin · Yosei

Oceania Menehune · Patupairehe

Europe Asrai · Banshee · Biróg · Boggart · Bogle · Brownie · Caoineag · Clurichaun · Domovoi · Dullahan · Dryad · Drow · Duergar · Dwarf · Each uisge · Elf · Erlking · Faun · Glaistig · Goblin · Gnome · Gremlin · Haltija · Heinzelmännchen · Hödekin · Hobgoblin · Huldra · Imp · Klabautermann · Kelpie · Kobold · Laminak · Lares · Leprechaun · Lorelei · Mermaid · Morgen · Naiad · Nain Rouge · Nix · Nymph · Ogres · Ondine · Pixie (Joan the Wad) · Psotnik · Púca · Puck/Robin Goodfellow · Radande · Redcap · Rusalka · Sânziană · Selkie · Spriggan · Sprite · Squasc · Sylph · Tomte · Troll · Vila · Vodyanoy · Water sprite · Wight · Xana · Zână

North America Alux · Fearsome critters · Jogah · Squonk · Tooth fairy

South America Curupira · Encantado · Saci


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