There are many varied definitions of folklore, with some folklorists refusing to limit the discipline by defining it. Nevertheless, the American Folklore Society offers one of the most accessible conceptions, explaining that folklore is “[the] expressive and instrumental activities of all kinds learned and communicated directly or face-to-face in groups ranging from nations, regions, and states through communities, neighborhoods, occupations, and families.”
The term folklore can be traced back to the British antiquarian William John Thoms, who coined the term in 1846 as a translation of the German word Volkskunde. Folklore has its roots in romantic nationalism, specifically in the ideology espoused by Johann Gottfried von Herder, whose conception of “das Volk” greatly influenced the development of the discipline. For Herder, the poetry, songs, and folklore of the common people represented the purest forms of tradition and culture. Consequently, from its inception, folklore has been concerned with the study and preservation of the largely unrecorded traditions of a people. In fact, the American Folklore Society was founded in 1888 to collect the “fast-vanishing remains” of immigrant folklore in the United States. However, as a result of the recent shift toward inclusiveness in the discipline, the modern approach to the study of folklore is no longer unified in its quest for preservation; while some elements of American folklore have become rarer, there is a continual development of new folk practices. Moreover, with the broadening of the terms “folklore” and “American,” it is generally accepted that there is a considerable amount of folkloric material in the United States worthy of collection and study. Consequently, American folkloristics focuses on the form and content of traditions as well as the manner of communication between people. The aim of folklorists is to analyze these traditions and cultural forms to distill from the common experiences of the American people a larger commentary on the human experience. Folklorists study, among other things, such artifacts as ballads, folk songs, jokes, Xeroxlore, Netlore, and, of course, folktales. The study of folklore is closely entwined with the study of folktales, which can be defined as the prose record of tales traditionally transmitted orally. These narratives are traditional in nature and are purely fictional. As a general rule, folktales are told for entertainment, though often messages of social and communal expectations are embedded within the tales, and so such stories may contain an overt moral lesson. The length and subject matter of folktales vary from culture to culture and may include both tales that take days to tell and brief anecdotes. The study of folktales generally includes the traditional “fairy tale,” such as those collected by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in 1812. However, the folktale also includes more recent and realistic tales, which often have much older antecedents.
Portrait of German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803). The formal study of folklore developed out of romantic nationalism, especially ideas pioneered by Herder, like “das Volk.” Herder suggested that the songs, stories, folkways, and folk knowledge of the common people were the most direct links to the roots of a culture. (Library of Congress)
Because the definition of folklore is so broad, and there is no certain consensus on the definition, it is necessary to outline the definitive qualities of folklore. Jan Harold Brunvand outlines several common characteristics of folklore:
Foxfire
Taking its title from a traditional Appalachian name for a haunting blue-green light caused by fungus on rotting wood, Foxfire was first a student-run magazine and subsequently a series of books that document and preserve the folk traditions, practical crafts and artistry, and oral history of the southern Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States. Founded in 1966, the Foxfire magazines, books, museum, and foundation have sought to preserve, to celebrate, and to disseminate the folklore and folkways of proud but declining mountain cultures often disparaged as “hillbilly,” and thus comprise a priceless treasure-trove of traditional American stories, beliefs, and practices.
C. Fee
1.Its content is oral (usually verbal), or custom-related, or material.
2.It is traditional in form and transmissions.
3.It exists in different versions.
4.It is usually anonymous.
5.It tends to become formularized.
Though these characteristics are not necessarily exhaustive, they form the basis for determining whether a particular artifact constitutes folklore. The issue of oral or customary transmission is one of the most salient points when defining an artifact as folklore. In fact, many folklorists argue that folklore must be passed by word of mouth or by customary and noninstitutionalized methods. Additionally, living folklore is considered to be those artifacts that continue to be transmitted orally. Once a text, such as “Home on the Range,” which was originally a folksong with a strong oral tradition, has become standardized in print, it is no longer considered to be living folklore.
Arguably, the single most important quality of a folkloric artifact is the element of tradition. The traditional nature of folklore is stressed in the varied definitions provided by such folklorists as Barre Toelken (1935–) and the wording in the American Folklife Preservation Act (1976). Consequently, many folklorists argue that qualities of oral or customary transmission and traditions must be found together for an artifact to constitute folklore. As a result, many folklorists claim that films, television programs, and other forms of popular entertainment cannot be considered folklore because while they may be traditional (consider the many film versions of Cinderella), they are not transmitted orally or verbally. Yet there are other folklorists, such as Noreen Dresser, who argue that popular media transmission stands in modern American culture as the tribal storyteller, and therefore such transmission may be considered a traditional form of disseminating folk beliefs and customs to mass audiences. Such considerations would provide the possibility of accepting new traditions, which opens the door to study Xeroxlore, the transmission of folk artifacts by copying and disseminating them in an office, church, or school setting, and Netlore, which encompasses the transmission of artifacts via the Internet through social media, blogs, and email.
Because of the acceptance of the noninstitutionalized transmission, most folkloric artifacts almost always produce variations on texts. Such variations may vary from teller to teller, or even region to region. As a general rule, the term “variant” is reserved for those artifacts that differ significantly from the more common version of the text. Variation in folkloric artifacts can act as a shibboleth, helping to distinguish members of a folk community from outsiders. For example, Girl Scout troops often develop their own variations of traditional Girl Scout camp songs and use the variations as a way of marking those members who are part of their troop or accepted within the group.
Folklore is transmitted between members of “folk groups.” Such groups are made up of the “folk” of the United States. While many folklorists have disagreed over who “the folk” are in America, it is generally accepted today that the American folk population is not, in fact, comparable to the peasant groups of Europe. Instead, American folk groups are made of people who share common values, tastes, and interests. They are often identified by their speech and traditions. Brunvand identifies six major kinds of folk groups, including “occupational groups, age groups, family groups, gender-differentiated groups, regional groups, and ethnic or nationality groups.” There are other distinguishing factors in identifying folk groups, including religion, neighborhood, education, and even blindness and deafness; thus, folklorists recognize that folk groups cannot be defined simply as rustic tradition-bearers, but as any group that has distinctive traditions that they share among themselves. Folk groups may overlap, so there may be cross-group transmission.
Folklorists work to classify the collected texts, customs, and artifacts, so that they may be useful in a scholarly or academic context. This process of classification makes it possible for academics to study folklore. For instance, collectors have gathered folktales and märchen (tales with elements of magic or the supernatural), originally inspired by notions of romantic nationalism. However, as the collections of these tales grew, it became apparent that it was necessary to develop a system of classification.
Folklorists collect folklore texts and artifacts by doing fieldwork. Fieldwork consists of collecting the raw texts and artifacts from informants. Today, folklorists use recorders and video cameras, but at one time, they transcribed the information from their informants verbatim. It is understood that a folklorist will not attempt to “correct” or “improve” upon the text provided by the informant. To retain its authenticity, a folk text must be transcribed exactly as it is presented. Any changes would corrupt the text, rendering it inauthentic. Folklorists conducting fieldwork will also collect general information from their informants, such as age, occupation, and the country or ethnicity that the informant identifies with. Folklorists will also document the context in which the folklore occurs, which means folklorists must identify if the folklore was recorded in a natural and spontaneous setting, or if it was shared at the behest of the folklorist. Additional contextualization encourages the informant to explain when and where he or she usually shares the folkloric text or engages in the customs or traditions recorded.
The development of the classification system for folktales serves as an excellent example for why such systems are important in folklore. Therefore, it is necessary first to understand the folktale. There are a great variety of folktales ranging from animal tales, joke fables, tall tales, formula tales, to the so-called fairy tale, this last category of tales being the most familiar form of the folktale in Western culture. However, the term “fairy tale,” though pervasive in Western culture, is a poor name for these traditional narratives because even the more traditional tales rarely include fairies. And, while folktales are often considered to be children’s literature, it is generally accepted that such tales are typically disseminated by adults for an adult audience. Therefore terms like “nursery tales” are also misleading. One of the more acceptable terms is “wonder tale,” though the German term märchen is often employed; this word is borrowed from the title that Brothers Grimm used for their famous collection of tales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812), or Children’s and Household Folktales.
The characteristics of folktales are generally easy to spot. Folktales tend to be set off by standardized openings and closings, such as the traditional “once upon a time” and “happily ever after” in many English tales. The settings of such tales tend to be unrecognizable locations, such as faraway kingdoms or unnamed lands, and are generally in a remote and unspecified time period, for example, “long ago.” In European tales, the cast of characters often includes royalty, though tales in the Native American and African American traditions include the members of a hierarchical order much less frequently. The structure and details of the folktale may differ from culture to culture. However, there are a remarkable number of similarities as well. For example, the Jack tales of Appalachia bear a striking resemblance to the European wonder tales; indeed, these similarities prompted early folklorists to attempt to trace folktales to their origins.
Folklorists have attempted to develop a standard classificatory terminology. This systemized lexicon provides folklorists and scholars with the ability to communicate effectively and to analyze methodically data collected regarding the folk texts and artifacts. Typically, classification systems that are commonly used rely on a genre and subgenre model, and in the case of folktales, the classification system is based on the major plots of the tales. One of the best-known catalog systems was first published in 1910 by a Finnish folklorist, Antti Aarne. The Tale-Type classification system was later revised in 1928 by Stith Thompson, an American folklorist, and most recently updated and expanded by Hans-Jorg Uther in 2010. Uther’s recent updates address the issues of inconsistency that appeared in the earlier versions of the system. Known as the ATU Tale-Type index in honor of its three creators, the index is considered by many to be an essential tool for the classification of Indo-European folktales. In addition to the ATU Tale-Type index, the Motif-Index, which is a separate classification tool, also provides a way for folklorists to classify folktales. The Tale-Type Index is cross-referenced to the Motif-Index. While the Tale-Type Index classifies the plots of the tales, the Motif-Index classifies specific motifs, or narrative elements, such as actions, actors, settings, and so on. The challenge becomes creating a classification system that can accommodate the variations of folk texts and artifacts that are often quite different from one another. Despite such obstacles, no viable alternatives have been developed to supersede the classification systems currently in place.
Snake-Handling
A practice of certain Pentecostal Holiness churches especially well documented in some Appalachian communities, snake-handling is a unique American phenomenon founded in a literal interpretation of the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 16, verse 18, which reads, “they shall take up serpents.” Practitioners do so in their religious services, picking up, tossing, or otherwise manipulating poisonous snakes—notably rattlesnakes and copperheads—often roughly, trusting in their faith to protect them; they generally eschew medical treatment if bitten, relying on prayer-healing instead. Snake-handling captures the popular American imagination at regular intervals, especially when a news account of a biting at a service surfaces in the media. Fascination with snake-handling reached a high point in the recent past with a National Geographic series devoted to what it termed “Snake Salvation”: a preacher who appeared on the program died of a snakebite, bringing popular interest in the practice to a fever pitch.
C. Fee
Amanda L. Anderson
See also American Folklore Society (AFS); Jack Tales; Legends; Myths; Storytelling; Tall Tales; Urban Legends/Urban Belief Tales
Further Reading
Bauman, Richard. 1992. Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-centered Handbook. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bronner, Simon J. 1986. American Folklore Studies: An Intellectual History. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
Brunvand, Jan H. 1998. The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction. 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton.
Dorson, Richard. 1971. America in Legend: Folklore from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books.
Zumwalt, Rosemary L. 1988. American Folklore Scholarship: A Dialogue of Dissent. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Folklore and Folktales—Primary Document
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Rumpelstiltskin” (1812)
In 1812, the Brothers Grimm published a book titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen, a collection of children’s stories with characters that are very familiar to English readers, such as Snow White, Rapunzel, and Cinderella. Grimm’s fairy tales are an important European source of German- and English-language folklore in the United States, while the book itself inspired nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers and intellectuals across a broad range of nationalities. The many collections of folktales that were produced in its wake made a vital contribution to the field of folklore studies and to the emerging folklore tradition.
RUMPELSTILTSKIN
Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the King, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.” The King said to the miller, “That is an art which pleases me well; if your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to-morrow to my palace, and I will try what she can do.”
And when the girl was brought to him he took her into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning-wheel and a reel, and said, “Now set to work, and if by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die.” Thereupon he himself locked up the room, and left her in it alone. So there sat the poor miller’s daughter, and for her life could not tell what to do; she had no idea how straw could be spun into gold, and she grew more and more miserable, until at last she began to weep.
But all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, and said, “Good evening, Mistress Miller; why are you crying so?” “Alas!” answered the girl, “I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it.” “What will you give me,” said the manikin, “if I do it for you?” “My necklace,” said the girl. The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and “whirr, whirr, whirr,” three turns, and the reel was full; then he put another on, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold. By daybreak the King was already there, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart became only more greedy. He had the miller’s daughter taken into another room full of straw, which was much larger, and commanded her to spin that also in one night if she valued her life. The girl knew not how to help herself, and was crying, when the door again opened, and the little man appeared, and said, “What will you give me if I spin the straw into gold for you?” “The ring on my finger,” answered the girl. The little man took the ring, again began to turn the wheel, and by morning had spun all the straw into glittering gold.
The King rejoiced beyond measure at the sight, but still he had not gold enough; and he had the miller’s daughter taken into a still larger room full of straw, and said, “You must spin this, too, in the course of this night; but if you succeed, you shall be my wife.” “Even if she be a miller’s daughter,” thought he, “I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.”
When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, “What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?” “I have nothing left that I could give,” answered the girl. “Then promise me, if you should become Queen, your first child.” “Who knows whether that will ever happen?” thought the miller’s daughter; and, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted, and for that he once more span the straw into gold.
And when the King came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty miller’s daughter became a Queen.
A year after, she had a beautiful child, and she never gave a thought to the manikin. But suddenly he came into her room, and said, “Now give me what you promised.” The Queen was horror-struck, and offered the manikin all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her the child. But the manikin said, “No, something that is living is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world.” Then the Queen began to weep and cry, so that the manikin pitied her. “I will give you three days’ time,” said he; “if by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child.”
So the Queen thought the whole night of all the names that she had ever heard, and she sent a messenger over the country to inquire, far and wide, for any other names that there might be. When the manikin came the next day, she began with Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, and said all the names she knew, one after another; but to every one the little man said, “That is not my name.” On the second day she had inquiries made in the neighbourhood as to the names of the people there, and she repeated to the manikin the most uncommon and curious. “Perhaps your name is Shortribs, or Sheepshanks, or Laceleg?” but he always answered, “That is not my name.”
On the third day the messenger came back again, and said, “I have not been able to find a single new name, but as I came to a high mountain at the end of the forest, where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, there I saw a little house, and before the house a fire was burning, and round about the fire quite a ridiculous little man was jumping: he hopped upon one leg, and shouted—
“‘To-day I bake, to-morrow brew,
The next I’ll have the young Queen’s child.
Ha! glad am I that no one knew
That Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.’”
You may think how glad the Queen was when she heard the name! And when soon afterwards the little man came in, and asked, “Now, Mistress Queen, what is my name?” at first she said, “Is your name Conrad? “No.” “Is your name Harry?” “No.”
“Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?”
“The devil has told you that! the devil has told you that!” cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in; and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.
Source: Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Stuttgart: Deutsche Berlags. 1812. Translated by Margaret Hunt. London: George Bell and Sons, 1884.