Difference between revisions of "Folklore" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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==Categories of Folklore==
 
==Categories of Folklore==
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There are numerous different types of folklore, ranging from such diverse examples as jokes and riddles, to animal tales and even some [[rites of passage]]. Many genres overlap, and sometimes the distinction between one type and another can be quite arbitraury. Nearly every culture that has existed has its own set of lore, and one of the broadest catgeories are those of ethnic folklore (i.e.[[Irish]] or [[Russian]] folklore). The following is a list of the most common types of folklore, listed from the most general categories to those that are more specific: 
  
 
===Legend===
 
===Legend===
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Another distinguishing feature of myths are the un-human creatures that are incorporated into the narratives.  The [[dragon]] is perhaps the most popular, a large, serpentine beast that has wings and breathes fire.  Other's include [[the Sphinx]], [[basilisk]], [[Chimera]], [[elves]], [[dwarves]], [[trolls]], and [[giants]].  
 
Another distinguishing feature of myths are the un-human creatures that are incorporated into the narratives.  The [[dragon]] is perhaps the most popular, a large, serpentine beast that has wings and breathes fire.  Other's include [[the Sphinx]], [[basilisk]], [[Chimera]], [[elves]], [[dwarves]], [[trolls]], and [[giants]].  
  
===Epic Poetry===
+
===Folk Songs===
  
Like myth and legend, [[epic poetry]] deals with heroes of long ago, supernatural powers and deities, and grandiose battlesThe main difference between it and the latter two types is that epic poetry tends to be the end result of a series of oral traditions. Epic Poetry as a form of literature consists of a novel length poem, originally sang in ceremony.  It involves the author's invocation of a [[muse]], or [[God]] to speak through the author. The most famous of epic poets, ancient Greece's [[Homer]], was believed to have produced such classics as [[The Iliad]] and [[The Odyssey]] by condescending long standing Greek myth, legend and tradition into a structured narrative. [[Virgil]]'s [[The Aeneid]], brings together the traditions of Greek and [[Trojan]] legend as well as [[Roman]] belief to detail the founding of Rome, and [[John Spencer]]'s [[The Faerie Queen]] bridges Arthurian legend, Protestant ideology and British lore into a classical work of fiction. [[John Milton]]'s [[Paradise Lost]] not only uses the dogma of the [[Bible]], but also incorporates [[Puritan]] traditions and beliefs, and most modern day conceptions of [[Satan]] and [[The Garden of Eden]] story comes more from Milton's interpretation than the Bible.  
+
[[Folk Songs]] are perhaps the most culturally diffused of all types of folklore, musical traditions and styles being culturally traded long before the rise of written works and the advent of recording technologiesA folk song is sometimes defined as "a song belonging to the folk music of a people or area, often existing in several versions or with regional variations". <ref> "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song </ref>  As early as the 18th century, interest in regional ballads and music was on the rise in Europe, but perhaps the most significant means of cultural diffusion came about because colonialism forced the meetings of different cultures. Slaves brought musical traditions to America, and are responsible for some of the most famous American folk songs. The hit song "Day-O', is actually based on an old [[Jamaican]] folk song.  In recent times, artists such as [[Bob Dylan]], [[Joan Baez]], and [[Woody Guthrie]] have created their own music in the folk style. <ref> "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song </ref>
  
One of the most interesting aspects of Epic Poetry is that the majority of evolution that transpires during the ages comes from translation. Epic poetry is not as easily disseminated and used in an existing culture; rather it acts as its own cultural artifact that may inspire new forms of lore and fiction, but the original work is hardly changed in the way other forms of lore are.  However, change does occur and is due mostly to the variations of numerous translations, depending upon the translator's bias, and the difference between the [[phonetic]]s and [[semantic]]s of languages.
+
===Festival===
 
===Urban Legend===
 
  
An [[urban legend]] is perhaps the newest form of folklore to emerge and one of the most unique.  While it can be found in most industrialized countries, one of its distinguishing factors, it is most widespread in [[America]].  Urban legends are typically a collection of oral stories passed around from person-to-person, never as a first hand account of events, but believed to be only three or four people removed from the real source. Most Urban Legends can be be categorized into basic templates, the outline of the story being the same while some of the details change. Another characteristic is the twist at the end, some unforeseen event that is either ironic or supernatural.<ref> Brunvand, Jan Harold. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings" Norton: New York, 1981 </ref> The driver who picks up a [[hitchhiker]] who vanishes before the trip is complete and is revealed to be a ghost is a classic example, as is the young couple that parks a car in the woods; the story of a recently escaped [[serial killer]]/[[mental patient]], with a hook for a hand, on the loose terrifies the girl, who in one version convinces the man to drive away, only to later discover a disemboweled hook on the car door. In another version, the man exits the car to show to the girl that they are safe and disappears, found later to be hanging from a tree above the car, the terrifying scratching noise the girl hears being his shoes rubbing against the car's roof.
+
The earliest [[festivals]] revolved around harvests, honoring of the dead or celebration. The communal activity was often accompanied by music, dance and story telling, the most common place and time of folklore transmission. <ref> "Festivals and Feasts" Historychannel.com http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=209192 </ref> Often the festival itself was based on a particular folkloric belief or tradition, such as the [[Dionysus Festivals]] of ancient Greece. One of the most famous festivals and widely celebrated is that of [[Halloween]], whose origins lie in [[Pagan]] rituals to ward off evil spirits that arose once a year along with the tradition of [[All Hallow's Eve]], although it now has come to be a largely secular, children's holiday of dress-up and scary stories. This is not uncommon as [[Thanksgiving]], [[Guy Fawke's Day]] and [[The Chinese New Year]] all are festivals that have changed meaning and celebratory style over the years.  
  
Such stories often mask a current of morality. Underage [[sex]] seems to always be coupled with violence and tragedy, as well as the preservation of innocence in a world full of corruption and evil, perhaps due to early America's more [[conservative]], morally strict society.
+
===Superstition===
  
===Tall Tales===
+
[[Superstition]] is the belief in the causality of seemingly unrelated events and actions, known to anthropologists as "sympathetic magic" in that it is the belief that the actions of a person can influence events beyond the boundaries of time and space. It is a tradition rooted in the belief of larger, metaphysically controlling forces in the universe, whether a particular version of [[God]] or just the idea of luck.  Famous examples of superstition include bad luck resulting from breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella inside or spilling salt, jinxing chances by using such phrases as "piece of cake", a fear of the number 13, and even the infamous tradition of the theater to refer to Shakespeare's [[Macbeth]] as "the Scottish Play" during a production or tragedy will befall the theater company.
 
 
A [[Tall Tale]] is another form of traditionally American folklore, often a light, comical story of some larger than life person who achieves super-human deeds. They are often stories of national pride and cultural [[iconography]]. [[Johnny Appleseed]] is credited with traveling the vast wilderness of early America, spreading apple seeds where ever he went, thus being the source of the numerous apple trees in the Northeastern U.S. [[Paul Bunyan]] and his ox [[Baby Blue]] are giant characters credited with the creation of such famous landmarks as [[the grand canyon]] and [[Pecos Bill]] was the image of frontier, cowboy life.  Most of these stories are complete fiction, but at least one, [[Johnny Appleseed]], is based on an actual person, John Chapman, whose life work as a nurseryman was greatly exaggerated. <ref> "John Chapman-A Gentle Hero" http://www.appleseed.org/johnny.html </ref>
 
  
 
===Fairy Tales===
 
===Fairy Tales===
  
 
[[Fairy Tales]] are universally seen as fictitious, often beginning with the phrases "Once upon a time..." or "In a land far, far away...", and recounting stories of heroines in danger, princes in disguise, magic, adventure and [[anthropomorphic]] animals and creatures. Conceived in [[Germany]] around the seventeenth century, the [[fairy tale]] is a type of folklore that has changed dramatically over time. [[Wilhelm Grimm|Wilhelm]] and [[Jakob Grimm]], known as [[The Brothers Grimm]], started to collect orally transmitted German tales in the early [[17th century]], publishing the first series as ''Kinder- und Hausmärchen'' ("Children's and Household Tales") in [[1812]]. These early fairy tales were vastly different from the children's tales of today. Most were dark stories revolving around such moral lessons as obeying your parents and rejecting evil.  The familiar fairy take, "[[Hansel and Gretel]], 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  [[theme (literature)|theme]]s and [[Motif (literature)|motif]]s 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]]. The popularity of the [[Walt Disney Company]] lies in its reproductions of such classical fairy tales as [[Beauty and Beast]], [[Snow White]], [[Cinderella]] and [[Sleeping Beauty]], adding a musical component to the genre.   
 
[[Fairy Tales]] are universally seen as fictitious, often beginning with the phrases "Once upon a time..." or "In a land far, far away...", and recounting stories of heroines in danger, princes in disguise, magic, adventure and [[anthropomorphic]] animals and creatures. Conceived in [[Germany]] around the seventeenth century, the [[fairy tale]] is a type of folklore that has changed dramatically over time. [[Wilhelm Grimm|Wilhelm]] and [[Jakob Grimm]], known as [[The Brothers Grimm]], started to collect orally transmitted German tales in the early [[17th century]], publishing the first series as ''Kinder- und Hausmärchen'' ("Children's and Household Tales") in [[1812]]. These early fairy tales were vastly different from the children's tales of today. Most were dark stories revolving around such moral lessons as obeying your parents and rejecting evil.  The familiar fairy take, "[[Hansel and Gretel]], 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  [[theme (literature)|theme]]s and [[Motif (literature)|motif]]s 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]]. The popularity of the [[Walt Disney Company]] lies in its reproductions of such classical fairy tales as [[Beauty and Beast]], [[Snow White]], [[Cinderella]] and [[Sleeping Beauty]], adding a musical component to the genre.   
   
 
===Folk Songs===
 
  
[[Folk Songs]] are perhaps the most culturally diffused of all types of folklore, musical traditions and styles being culturally traded long before the rise of written works and the advent of recording technologiesA folk song is sometimes defined as "a song belonging to the folk music of a people or area, often existing in several versions or with regional variations". <ref> "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song </ref>  As early as the 18th century, interest in regional ballads and music was on the rise in Europe, but perhaps the most significant means of cultural diffusion came about because colonialism forced the meetings of different cultures. Slaves brought musical traditions to America, and are responsible for some of the most famous American folk songs. The hit song "Day-O', is actually based on an old [[Jamaican]] folk songIn recent times, artists such as [[Bob Dylan]], [[Joan Baez]], and [[Woody Guthrie]] have created their own music in the folk style. <ref> "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song </ref>
+
===Tall Tales===
 +
 
 +
A [[Tall Tale]] is another form of traditionally American folklore, often a light, comical story of some larger than life person who achieves super-human deeds. They are often stories of national pride and cultural [[iconography]]. [[Johnny Appleseed]] is credited with traveling the vast wilderness of early America, spreading apple seeds where ever he went, thus being the source of the numerous apple trees in the Northeastern U.S. [[Paul Bunyan]] and his ox [[Baby Blue]] are giant characters credited with the creation of such famous landmarks as [[the grand canyon]] and [[Pecos Bill]] was the image of frontier, cowboy lifeMost of these stories are complete fiction, but at least one, [[Johnny Appleseed]], is based on an actual person, John Chapman, whose life work as a nurseryman was greatly exaggerated. <ref> "John Chapman-A Gentle Hero" http://www.appleseed.org/johnny.html </ref>  
 +
 
 +
===Epic Poetry===
 +
 
 +
Like myth and legend, [[epic poetry]] deals with heroes of long ago, supernatural powers and deities, and grandiose battles. The main difference between it and the latter two types is that epic poetry tends to be the end result of a series of oral traditions. Epic Poetry as a form of literature consists of a novel length poem, originally sang in ceremony.  It involves the author's invocation of a [[muse]], or [[God]] to speak through the author. The most famous of epic poets, ancient Greece's [[Homer]], was believed to have produced such classics as [[The Iliad]] and [[The Odyssey]] by condescending long standing Greek myth, legend and tradition into a structured narrative[[Virgil]]'s [[The Aeneid]], brings together the traditions of Greek and [[Trojan]] legend as well as [[Roman]] belief to detail the founding of Rome, and [[John Spencer]]'s [[The Faerie Queen]] bridges Arthurian legend, Protestant ideology and British lore into a classical work of fiction. [[John Milton]]'s [[Paradise Lost]] not only uses the dogma of the [[Bible]], but also incorporates [[Puritan]] traditions and beliefs, and most modern day conceptions of [[Satan]] and [[The Garden of Eden]] story comes more from Milton's interpretation than the Bible.  
  
===Superstition===
+
One of the most interesting aspects of Epic Poetry is that the majority of evolution that transpires during the ages comes from translation. Epic poetry is not as easily disseminated and used in an existing culture; rather it acts as its own cultural artifact that may inspire new forms of lore and fiction, but the original work is hardly changed in the way other forms of lore are.  However, change does occur and is due mostly to the variations of numerous translations, depending upon the translator's bias, and the difference between the [[phonetic]]s and [[semantic]]s of languages.
  
[[Superstition]] is the belief in the causality of seemingly unrelated events and actions, known to anthropologists as "sympathetic magic" in that it is the belief that the actions of a person can influence events beyond the boundaries of time and space.  It is a tradition rooted in the belief of larger, metaphysically controlling forces in the universe, whether a particular version of [[God]] or just the idea of luck.  Famous examples of superstition include bad luck resulting from breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella inside or spilling salt, jinxing chances by using such phrases as "piece of cake", a fear of the number 13, and even the infamous tradition of the theater to refer to Shakespeare's [[Macbeth]] as "the Scottish Play" during a production or tragedy will befall the theater company.
+
===Urban Legend===
 
===Festival===
 
  
The earliest [[festivals]] revolved around harvests, honoring of the dead or celebration. The communal activity was often accompanied by music, dance and story telling, the most common place and time of folklore transmission. <ref> "Festivals and Feasts" Historychannel.com http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=209192 </ref> Often the festival itself was based on a particular folkloric belief or tradition, such as the [[Dionysus Festivals]] of ancient Greece. One of the most famous festivals and widely celebrated is that of [[Halloween]], whose origins lie in [[Pagan]] rituals to ward off evil spirits that arose once a year along with the tradition of [[All Hallow's Eve]], although it now has come to be a largely secular, children's holiday of dress-up and scary stories. This is not uncommon as [[Thanksgiving]], [[Guy Fawke's Day]] and [[The Chinese New Year]] all are festivals that have changed meaning and celebratory style over the years.  
+
An [[urban legend]] is perhaps the newest form of folklore to emerge and one of the most unique.  While it can be found in most industrialized countries, one of its distinguishing factors, it is most widespread in [[America]].  Urban legends are typically a collection of oral stories passed around from person-to-person, never as a first hand account of events; typically the stories are related as happening to someone three or four times removed in association to the story teller. Most Urban legends are merely variations of similar stories, characteristically with a twist at the end, some unforeseen event that is either ironic or supernatural.<ref> Brunvand, Jan Harold. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings" Norton: New York, 1981 </ref> The driver who picks up a [[hitchhiker]] who vanishes before the trip is complete and is revealed to be a ghost is a classic example, as is the young couple that parks a car in the woods; the story of a recently escaped [[serial killer]]/[[mental patient]], with a hook for a hand, on the loose who terrorizes a young couple parked in a car in a wooded, desserted area.
  
 +
Such stories often mask a current of morality. Underage [[sex]] seems to always be coupled with violence and tragedy, as well as the preservation of innocence in a world full of corruption and evil, perhaps due to early America's more [[conservative]], morally strict society.
  
 
== External links ==
 
== External links ==

Revision as of 18:39, 20 October 2006


Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, material culture, and so forth, common to a particular population, comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. Scholars who study folklore are often called folklorists.

Definition

There is no clear cut definition on the term folklore, mainly because academics of different disciplines study the same material from completely separate perspectives. English scholars tend to focus on folklore as literature, interested primarily in structure, narrative style, content and genre, while anthropologists view folklore as a means to understand the views of a culture, both of which raises the question of whether folklore can be viewed as a common phenomena and therefore broken into broad categories, or as specific cultural artifacts of a given society. Folklorists tend to bridge both worlds, and in the 1970's a scholar by the name of Dan Ben-Amos, attempted to create a comprehensive understanding of folklore for all disciplines by arguing that folklore is either "a body of knowledge, a mode of thought, or a kind of art." [1] While this thesis may not be as inclusively used as Ben-Amos had liked, nonetheless modern scholars usually view folklore as both literature and a unique cultural phenomena. As Henry Glassie says, folklore "remains wholly within the control of its practitioners. It is theirs to remember, change, forget...is that which is at once traditional and variable" [2].

Study of Folklore

The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological goals; only in the 20th century did ethnographers begin to attempt to record folklore without overt political goals. The term was coined in 1846 by an Englishman, William Thoms, who wanted to use an Anglo-Saxon term for what was then called "popular antiquities." Johann Gottfried von Herder first advocated the deliberate recording and preservation of folklore to document the authentic spirit, tradition, and identity of the German people; the belief that there can be such authenticity is one of the tenets of the romantic nationalism which Herder developed. While the study of folklore remained strong in academic communities, it wasn't until the early to mid 20th century that the discipline grew beyond "pure" research, to emerge as a movement that incorporated application and problem solving as one of its aims.

In 1939, folklorists Benjamin A. Botkin and Alan Lomax coined the phrase applied folklore, akin to applied anthropology and other applied social sciences, as the study concerned with the use of folklore and traditional cultural materials to address or solve real social problems. Botkin's development of the approach emerged from his work on the collecting by the Federal Writers' Project of oral narratives of former slaves, when he worked for the Library of Congress. He saw the dissemination of these materials as having the potential to improve race relations in the United States and to combat prejudice. The Abolition movement had similarly used the oral narratives of escaped slaves, such as those collected by William Still in his Underground Railroad Records, to draw support for their cause. Botkin's landmark work, Lay My Burden Down (1945) was the first American book to treat oral testimonies as historical evidence, and it was another thirty years before this became accepted practice. Botkin also worked with Quaker activist Rachel Davis DuBois to develop public programs to improve race and ethnic relations by incorporating cultural practices and materials into neighborhood events, such as festivals and block parties.

In the 1960s, other American folklorists began to apply knowledge gained from folkloric sources to address social issues, most notably drawing on folk medicine in the teaching and practice of holistic and cross-cultural approaches to medicine and public health. Folklorists also began to work as consultants in city planning, gerontology, economic development, multicultural education, conservation, and other fields.

An outgrowth of applied folklore was the early 1970's movement known as Public folklore, generally credited to Archie Green, the American Folklore Society and the creation of the American Folk life Center at the Library of Congress, initially called "public sector folklore. Soon after its creation, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other non-profit institutions vested large interest in folklore.

The field is generally described as folkloristswho work in public settings in the United States and Canada outside of universities and colleges, such as arts councils, museums, folk life festivals, radio stations, etc. They are engaged with the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folk arts, craft, folk music, and other genres of traditional folklife.

Public folklorists also work in "folk arts in the schools" programs, presenting master traditional artists to primary and secondary schools in demonstrations and residencies. They develop apprenticeship programs to foster the teaching of traditional arts by recognized masters. They also present traditional music on radio programs such as American Routes on Public Radio International. Occasionally they produce documentary films on aspects of traditional arts, and also sponsor performance artists who sing, dance, and dramatically present oral folklore to schools and communities. In later years, public folklorists have also become involved in economic and community development projects.

As the modern world becomes more industrial and moves farther way from traditional life styles communities, the folklorist is in a unique position to help integrate older traditions into modern life as well as continue to collect previously lost genres of folklore.

Categories of Folklore

There are numerous different types of folklore, ranging from such diverse examples as jokes and riddles, to animal tales and even some rites of passage. Many genres overlap, and sometimes the distinction between one type and another can be quite arbitraury. Nearly every culture that has existed has its own set of lore, and one of the broadest catgeories are those of ethnic folklore (i.e.Irish or Russian folklore). The following is a list of the most common types of folklore, listed from the most general categories to those that are more specific:

Legend

A legend is typically a Romantic adventure story told in an historical context, usually believed to be true. It is typically concerned with heroes and villains, epic battles and great feats of courage, and usually the hero is an iconic symbol of a particular ethnicity and or nationality. Legends usually are set in places and times long past, evolving as they are passed down from one generation to the next, originally in the form of oral tradition. However, when writing became an important archival and artist method, legends were reproduced time and again, changing with each author or writer's own background and perspective, surpassing cultural and national boundaries. More recently, through the mediums of film and television, legends have become perhaps the most long lasting and popular of all types of folklore. The Arthurian tales of Great Britain are an excellent example of the cross-culturalistic nature of legends. King Arthur, the symbol of chivalry and the representation of the noble knight, began with early British writers who believed Arthur to be a real, long ago King. There is no historical account of King Arthur to verify such claims, but that did not stop British writers throughout the ages using him in various works of fiction, marking his place among the most popular of British folklore. Interestingly, the twentieth century cinematic versions of Arthur seem to emphasis Camelot, The Knights of the Round Table, Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, and the Excalibur sword, with little being said of Arthur's role in the equally as popular Holy Grail legends.

Not all legends, however, are culturally diffused in such a scale. The legends of the French warrior Roland, the Sumerian prince Gilgamesh, the character Sinbad of the Arabian Nights legends all are important literary figures that have not been adapted and circulated to the extent of King Arthur or Robin Hood. Some remain small stories that circulate among groups of people and are not included in the literary or cinematic world.

Myth

A Myth shares many common characteristics with legends in that it usually depicts long ago events and persons of epic proportion, but has two distinguishing features. First, myths usually incorporate larger forces such as deities and supernatural powers. Second, they can be etiological, explaining the origins of such things as the world and man. Myth more often than legend involves archetypal characters as the Jungian literary scholar Joseph Campbell claimed in his career. So basic is the idea of the journey of a hero to an underworld in an attempt to attain powers that he can bring back to save his world from an evil, that the paradigm has appeared again and again in all forms of literature for thousands of years.

The structure and use of myth usually overlaps with religion, in both's attempt to detail the metaphysical and explain how and why things are the way they are. In fact, every religion has its own mythology; for Christians the New Testament represents the oral traditions of Jesus Christ and the missionary movement of his apostles after His Crucification, while the stories of Siddharta's attainment of enlightenment is the central mythology for Buddhists. The label of myth implies a fictitious story, but that is because historically myth has been used to describe any figurative story that does not pertain to the dominant beliefs of the time, and therefore does not carry the same status as those dominant beliefs. Thus, Roman religion is called "myth" by modern Christians. Some of the most famous myths come from ancient Greece and usually involve Gods or demi-gods, the origins of such things as fire (the story of Prometheus) and the presence of evil in the world (the story of Pandora's Box). However, it should be noted that nearly every culture that ever existed has its own mythology and that ancient Greece's is the most famous because of its influence on Western literature and culture.

Another distinguishing feature of myths are the un-human creatures that are incorporated into the narratives. The dragon is perhaps the most popular, a large, serpentine beast that has wings and breathes fire. Other's include the Sphinx, basilisk, Chimera, elves, dwarves, trolls, and giants.

Folk Songs

Folk Songs are perhaps the most culturally diffused of all types of folklore, musical traditions and styles being culturally traded long before the rise of written works and the advent of recording technologies. A folk song is sometimes defined as "a song belonging to the folk music of a people or area, often existing in several versions or with regional variations". [3] As early as the 18th century, interest in regional ballads and music was on the rise in Europe, but perhaps the most significant means of cultural diffusion came about because colonialism forced the meetings of different cultures. Slaves brought musical traditions to America, and are responsible for some of the most famous American folk songs. The hit song "Day-O', is actually based on an old Jamaican folk song. In recent times, artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie have created their own music in the folk style. [4]

Festival

The earliest festivals revolved around harvests, honoring of the dead or celebration. The communal activity was often accompanied by music, dance and story telling, the most common place and time of folklore transmission. [5] Often the festival itself was based on a particular folkloric belief or tradition, such as the Dionysus Festivals of ancient Greece. One of the most famous festivals and widely celebrated is that of Halloween, whose origins lie in Pagan rituals to ward off evil spirits that arose once a year along with the tradition of All Hallow's Eve, although it now has come to be a largely secular, children's holiday of dress-up and scary stories. This is not uncommon as Thanksgiving, Guy Fawke's Day and The Chinese New Year all are festivals that have changed meaning and celebratory style over the years.

Superstition

Superstition is the belief in the causality of seemingly unrelated events and actions, known to anthropologists as "sympathetic magic" in that it is the belief that the actions of a person can influence events beyond the boundaries of time and space. It is a tradition rooted in the belief of larger, metaphysically controlling forces in the universe, whether a particular version of God or just the idea of luck. Famous examples of superstition include bad luck resulting from breaking a mirror, opening an umbrella inside or spilling salt, jinxing chances by using such phrases as "piece of cake", a fear of the number 13, and even the infamous tradition of the theater to refer to Shakespeare's Macbeth as "the Scottish Play" during a production or tragedy will befall the theater company.

Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales are universally seen as fictitious, often beginning with the phrases "Once upon a time..." or "In a land far, far away...", and recounting stories of heroines in danger, princes in disguise, magic, adventure and anthropomorphic animals and creatures. Conceived in Germany around the seventeenth century, the fairy tale is a type of folklore that has changed dramatically over time. Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, known as The Brothers Grimm, started to collect orally transmitted German tales in the early 17th century, publishing the first series as Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales") in 1812. These early fairy tales were vastly different from the children's tales of today. Most were dark stories revolving around such moral lessons as obeying your parents and rejecting evil. The familiar fairy take, "Hansel and Gretel, 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. The popularity of the Walt Disney Company lies in its reproductions of such classical fairy tales as Beauty and Beast, Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, adding a musical component to the genre.

Tall Tales

A Tall Tale is another form of traditionally American folklore, often a light, comical story of some larger than life person who achieves super-human deeds. They are often stories of national pride and cultural iconography. Johnny Appleseed is credited with traveling the vast wilderness of early America, spreading apple seeds where ever he went, thus being the source of the numerous apple trees in the Northeastern U.S. Paul Bunyan and his ox Baby Blue are giant characters credited with the creation of such famous landmarks as the grand canyon and Pecos Bill was the image of frontier, cowboy life. Most of these stories are complete fiction, but at least one, Johnny Appleseed, is based on an actual person, John Chapman, whose life work as a nurseryman was greatly exaggerated. [6]

Epic Poetry

Like myth and legend, epic poetry deals with heroes of long ago, supernatural powers and deities, and grandiose battles. The main difference between it and the latter two types is that epic poetry tends to be the end result of a series of oral traditions. Epic Poetry as a form of literature consists of a novel length poem, originally sang in ceremony. It involves the author's invocation of a muse, or God to speak through the author. The most famous of epic poets, ancient Greece's Homer, was believed to have produced such classics as The Iliad and The Odyssey by condescending long standing Greek myth, legend and tradition into a structured narrative. Virgil's The Aeneid, brings together the traditions of Greek and Trojan legend as well as Roman belief to detail the founding of Rome, and John Spencer's The Faerie Queen bridges Arthurian legend, Protestant ideology and British lore into a classical work of fiction. John Milton's Paradise Lost not only uses the dogma of the Bible, but also incorporates Puritan traditions and beliefs, and most modern day conceptions of Satan and The Garden of Eden story comes more from Milton's interpretation than the Bible.

One of the most interesting aspects of Epic Poetry is that the majority of evolution that transpires during the ages comes from translation. Epic poetry is not as easily disseminated and used in an existing culture; rather it acts as its own cultural artifact that may inspire new forms of lore and fiction, but the original work is hardly changed in the way other forms of lore are. However, change does occur and is due mostly to the variations of numerous translations, depending upon the translator's bias, and the difference between the phonetics and semantics of languages.

Urban Legend

An urban legend is perhaps the newest form of folklore to emerge and one of the most unique. While it can be found in most industrialized countries, one of its distinguishing factors, it is most widespread in America. Urban legends are typically a collection of oral stories passed around from person-to-person, never as a first hand account of events; typically the stories are related as happening to someone three or four times removed in association to the story teller. Most Urban legends are merely variations of similar stories, characteristically with a twist at the end, some unforeseen event that is either ironic or supernatural.[7] The driver who picks up a hitchhiker who vanishes before the trip is complete and is revealed to be a ghost is a classic example, as is the young couple that parks a car in the woods; the story of a recently escaped serial killer/mental patient, with a hook for a hand, on the loose who terrorizes a young couple parked in a car in a wooded, desserted area.

Such stories often mask a current of morality. Underage sex seems to always be coupled with violence and tragedy, as well as the preservation of innocence in a world full of corruption and evil, perhaps due to early America's more conservative, morally strict society.

External links

North America

United Kingdom

For further reading

Footnoes

  1. Ben-Amos, Dan. "Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context", The Journal of American Folklore, 1971. JSTOR.ORG 6 Oct. 2006
  2. Glassie, Henry. "The Spirit of Folklore Art" New York: Abrams, 1989
  3. "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song
  4. "Folk Songs" Answers.com http:///www.answers.com/topic/folk-song
  5. "Festivals and Feasts" Historychannel.com http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=209192
  6. "John Chapman-A Gentle Hero" http://www.appleseed.org/johnny.html
  7. Brunvand, Jan Harold. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings" Norton: New York, 1981

Sources

  • Botkin, B.A., Lay My Burden Down. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945.
  • Jones, Michael Owen, ed., Putting Folklore to Use. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1994.
  • Goldstein, Diane, Once Upon a Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception. Logan: Utah State University Press: 2004.

External links

Sources and further reading

  • Baron, Robert, and Nicholas R. Spitzer, eds., Public Folklore. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.
  • Feintuch, Burt, ed., Conservation of Culture: Folklorists and the Public Sector. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988.
  • Green, Archie, Torching the Fink Books: And Other Essays on Vernacular Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
  • Hufford, Mary, ed. Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994.


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