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Folklore

Folklore, or often, simply ‘lore’ consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, popular beliefs, fairytales, stories and customs included in the traditions of a culture, subculture or group. The English antiquarian William Thoms was the first person to introduce the term ‘folklore’ specifically, in a letter published in the London journal The Athenaeum in 1846. He invented this compound word to replace the various other terms used at the time, including ‘popular antiquities’ or ‘popular literature.’ In usage, folklore and mythology usually signify the same thing and there are four general areas of study; artefacts, describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behaviour (rituals). These areas do not stand alone however, as often a particular element may fit into more than one of these groupings.

While folklore can contain religious or mythic elements, such as the Icelandic skaldic poetry or the Christian stories of Saint George or Saint Christopher, it equally concerns itself with the sometimes mundane traditions of everyday life. Though many argue this is a successful method of demonstrating societal relationships, in the Jungian view, folklore pertains to unconscious psychological patterns; instincts or archetypes of the mind. 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. This is largely due to the widely understood themes and motifs such as ‘the terrible mother’, ‘death’ and ‘atonement with the father.’

The critical interpretation of myths and folklore goes as far back as the tales themselves. For instance, Sallustius (a fourth century Roman writer) divided myths into five categories; theological, physical (or concerning natural laws) animastic (or concerning soul), material and mixed. And although Plato famously condemned poetic myth when discussing the education of the young in the Republic, primarily on the grounds that there was a danger that the young and uneducated might take the stories of Gods and heroes literally, nevertheless he constantly refers to myths of all kinds throughout his writings. Interest in folkloric story telling continued well into the Renaissance, and notably during the nineteenth century, folktales and fairy tales were perceived as eroded fragments of earlier mythology (famously by the Brothers Grimm and Elias Lönnrot). Mythological themes are also very often consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer – and the foundational Iliad and the Odyssey.

Legends are very closely tied to the history of folklore and mythology, but they are generally narratives of human actions that are perceived by both teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Whilst legends will not include happenings outside the realm of ‘possibility’, they often contain miracles - believable in a specific religious context. The Brothers Grimm, the chief collectors of Germanic folk and fairy tales of the nineteenth century, defined legend as specifically historically grounded, as opposed to their own Märchen. Legends and folklore often both serve the purpose of romantic nationalism though; in which a people derive their legitimacy from a common culture, language, race and customs.

The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to basic and complex societies alike. Even the forms folktales take are similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of their themes and narratives have been successful in showing these relationships. Although folktales are exceptionally similar to myths, mythology does differ slightly in that it will often refer to ‘ideology.’ They have most famously been analysed by Roland Barthes (1950s, Mythologies), who argued that modern culture explores religious experience in many more ways than we realise. He further posited that because it is not the job of science to define human morality, this is where myths (and to some extent folklore) come in – as pseudo-religious experiences attempting to connect the present with a perceived moral past.

There are many forms of contemporary folklore that are so common that most people do not realize they are folklore, such as riddles, children’s rhymes and ghost stories, rumours (including conspiracy theories), ethnic stereotypes and holiday customs. Although myth was traditionally transmitted through the oral tradition on a small scale, the technology of the film industry has enabled filmmakers to transmit myths to large audiences via film dissemination. The basis of modern storytelling in both cinema and television lies deeply rooted in the mythological tradition. The Disney Corporation is notorious among cultural study scholars for ‘reinventing’ traditional childhood myths. While many films are not as obvious as Disney fairy tales in respect to the employment of myth, the plots of many films are largely based on the rough structure of the myth such as the cautionary tale regarding the abuse of technology, battles between gods, and creation stories are often the subject of major film productions. Folklore, myths and legends are very much a part of our life today, and it is hoped that the current reader is inspired to find out more about this fascinating subject.