Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

folktale

 
or folk tale (fōk'tāl') pronunciation
n.
A story or legend forming part of an oral tradition.


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

folktale, a story passed on by word of mouth rather than by writing, and thus partly modified by successive re‐tellings before being written down or recorded. The category includes legends, fables, jokes, tall stories, and fairy tales or Märchen. Many folktales involve mythical creatures and magical transformations.

This term can be used either broadly or narrowly. In the broad sense it applies to all prose narratives following traditional storylines, which are told orally, or were so told in previous generations. It thus covers fairytales, legends of all types, memorates, fables, tall tales, and humorous anecdotes. The original author is always unknown; in the rare cases where an individual who shaped the current version has been identified, the tellers are unaware of this (e.g. The Three Bears). Most tales seem to have been formed by recombining traditional elements (‘motifs’) and/ or transferring an established plot (‘tale-type’) from one hero, or one location, to another.

The narrow definition restricts itself to the avowedly fictional narratives in the above list, excluding legends and memorates, since these claim to be true. From an English point of view, this is regrettable, since legends make up a very high proportion of our corpus of traditional narratives and still circulate vigorously, while memorates are a major source for the study of current beliefs.

The basic catalogue of folktales in the narrow sense is The Types of the Folktale by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson (1961); see also Stith Thompson's The Folktale (1977). Its system was applied to British material in Baughman, 1966; it is used in the works of Katharine Briggs and other recent British folklorists.

See also CONTEMPORARY LEGENDS, FABLES, LEGENDS, MEMORATES, STORYTELLING, TALL STORIES.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

folktale

Top
folktale, general term for any of numerous varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to primitive and complex societies alike. Even the forms folktales take are demonstrably similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of themes and narrative techniques have been successful in showing these relationships. Among the foremost folklorists of the 19th cent. were Oskar Dähnhardt in Germany, S. O. Addy in England, Paul Sébillot in France, and Y. M. Sokolov in Russia. Major 20th-century scholars in the field include Franz Boas, Richard Chase, Marie Campbell, and Stith Thompson. Folklorists make distinctions among the categories of folktales. Legends and traditions are narratives of an explanatory nature concerning creation and tribal beginnings, supernatural beings, and quasi-historical figures (e.g., King Arthur, Lady Godiva). These stories are related as fact and concern a specific time and place. Fairy tales are entirely fictional and often begin with such formulas as "Once upon a time …" and "In a certain country there lived … ." Popular examples recount the supernatural adventures and mishaps of youngest daughters, transformed princes, mermaids, and wood fairies and elves (e.g., Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel). Animal tales abound in every culture; most of them are clearly anthropomorphic, the animals assuming human personalities. Such tales are classified according to three subdivisions: the etiological tale, or tale concerning origins (e.g., Great Hare of the Native North Americans); the fable pointing to a moral (Aesop's fables); and the beast epic (e.g., Reynard the Fox; see bestiary). Myths, which are more difficult to define satisfactorily, treat happenings of a long-ago time; they generally concern the adventures of gods, giants, heroes, nymphs, satyrs, and villains, as well as etiological themes. See also mythology; monsters and imaginary beasts in folklore; elf; fairy; goblin; gremlin; troll.

Bibliography

See S. Thompson, The Folktale (1946); V. O. Binner, American Folktales (1966) and International Folktales (1967); R. M. Dorson, America in Legend (1974); H. Courlander, A Treasury of African Folklore (1975), A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore (1976), and The Tiger's Whisker and Other Tales from Asia and the Pacific (1995); A. Clarkson and G. B. Cross, World Folktales (1984).


A Magic carpet, was legendary carpet that can be used to transport persons who are on it instantaneously or quickly to their destination.

Folklore (or lore) consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published in the London journal The 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

Artifacts

The three wise monkeys over the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan

Objects such as dolls, decorative items used in religious rituals, hand-built houses and barns,[3] and handmade clothing and other crafts are considered[by whom?] 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.

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 today's dominant religions. 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.

"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 German 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, 1909

On 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 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]

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.

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]

Categories of folklore

Genres

Folk narratives

National or ethnic

See also

References

  1. ^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," Indiana University Press, 1995.
  2. ^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," pp.313 Indiana University Press, 1995.
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ Wolfgang Mieder, "The Proverbial Three Wise Monkeys," Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 7 (1981):5-38.
  5. ^ L. V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, Second Edition, revised and edited with a Preface of Louis A. Wagner, University of Texas Press, 1968.
  6. ^ 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.

Further reading

External links


Translations:

Folktale

Top

Dansk (Danish)
n. - folkesagn

Nederlands (Dutch)
volksvertelling

Français (French)
n. - conte folklorique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Volksmärchen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - λαϊκός μύθος, θρύλος

Italiano (Italian)
leggenda popolare

Português (Portuguese)
n. - conto (m) popular

Русский (Russian)
народная сказка

Español (Spanish)
n. - cuento popular

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - folksaga

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
民间故事

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 民間故事

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 민화, 전설

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 民間説話, フォークテール

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) حكايه شعبيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אגדת עם, מעשייה עממית‬


 
 
Related topics:
The Soldier's Tale (music)
Märchen (folktale or fairy story)
oicotype

Related answers:
Is \'The Hobbit\' a folktale? Read answer...
Are folktales real? Read answer...
Do folktales have morals? Read answer...

Help us answer these:
What are the kinds of folktales?
What genre is a folktale?
What is a title of a folktale?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Copyright © 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
 Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Folklore Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

Follow us
Facebook Twitter
YouTube

Mentioned in

» More» More