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Since the earliest dawn of literature the people have reveled in the creations of the imagination related to dance, song, and stories (connecting events), narratives (recounts happenings), tale (a rambling story), and anecdote (a personal incident). Oral tradition arose from leaders of ancient societies-shamans, priests and priestesses, ruler, and warriors. Over the centuries peoples of the world have generated and handed down stories (myths, tales, songs) from one generation to the next-people with an absence of formal instruction-and people who emphasize imitation and trial-and-error learning.
While these traditional narratives differ in form, content, and purpose, most of them are alike in having similar themes (some remarkably so); in starting out in ancient times as orally transmitted; in covering a plethora of topics (e.g. weather, planting, medicine, language) in their original authors being unknown; and in them taking on different versions as they passed "from lip to lip" and from place to place-particularly among people who could not read nor write. Narratives call on devices to aid memory-e.g. repetition; formulaic expressions ("once upon a time"; "married and lived happily ever after"); a familiar formula of structure (e.g. in tragedy, the villain wins); and containing enough realism to support the fantastic, the violent actions, and the strong emotions. Over time, many old stories found their way into published collections.
The word "Folklore" by definition is traditional knowledge of the folk. Lore (Anglo-Saxon) means to learn a doctrine; to cause to understand; to lead someone on his way; to lay tracks in the mind, as a wagon leaves tracks in the sand. Coined in 1846 to replace "popular antiquities, "folklore" is about those expressions of the "folk" that had their origins in the primitive (i.e. beginning or early) social and cultural history of the people (i.e. pre-literature). They have survived by passing down from generation to generation into the later stages and times of the people.
The passing is done through non-written (implying oral and/or performance) means until they are collected by scholars. Literary types consist of the myths, songs (e.g. ballads, work-songs, proverbs, children's counting-out rhythms, nursery rhythms), sayings, riddles, epics, verbal compositions, word-play, folk speech, and folk tales (legends, fables, jokes, tall stories, and fairy tales). Performance types embrace dances, initiation rites, practical jokes, holiday celebrations, games, spells, traditional dances, folk plays, and drama (folk theater simulating primitive vegetation and fertility agricultural activities) performed at communal gatherings. Folk heirloom types include charms, omens, arts, crafts, folk architecture, food-ways, and customary activities at births, marriages, and deaths.
Much can be learned from assessing folklore themes (frames of the "big picture") and the contents inside the frame. Enclosed within the contents are the style, and the historical, sociological, and functional aspects of the folklore or folk tales-whether adventures, exaggerations, marvels into other worlds, twists of marriage (e.g. between humans and animals), or explanatory stories, especially of African's. Folktales are short narratives in prose; are of unknown authorship; and have been passed on by word of mouth, being partly modified by successive re-telling before being written down or recorded. Many folktales involve mythical creatures and magical transformations. In many preliterate cultures folktales are hardly to be distinguished from myths since-especially in tales of tricksters and heroes-they presuppose a background of belief about tribal origins and the relation of mortals and gods and goddesses. However, in such stories conscious fiction abounds.
Website: www.jablifeskills.com
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.
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