Folklore Studies: Legends, Rituals, Rumors & Beliefs

Folklore

Informal and traditional culture. Informal means variable, traditional means passed on.

Folk narrative

A story that exists in multiple versions and reflects both past and present, individual and community.

Folktale

Fiction or fantasy with flat characters and no specific time or place.

Myth

Sacredly true, set outside historical time, with divine or semi-divine characters.

Legend

A miraculous or bizarre event set in historical time, with a negotiation of truth.

Motif

The smallest element of a legend that persists in tradition.

Oikotype

A localized variant of a folk narrative.

Urban legend

Told as true or possibly true, spread friend-of-a-friend, set here and now.

Memorate

A first-person supernatural experience narrative, usually less dramatic than legends.

Ostension

The enactment of a legend, showing rather than telling.

Legend trip

An organized journey to a site to test a local legend.

Ritual

A stereotyped sequence of gestures, words, and objects in a sequestered place, meant to influence supernatural forces.

Rite of passage

Separation, transition, and reintegration, marking a change in place, state, or status.

Liminality

Being betwixt and between normal categories of life.

Rumor

A short, non-narrative, often open-ended expression of belief.

Display defensiveness

Hedging and justifying an experience to protect one's reputation.

Insanity coda

The common ending of urban legends where the main character goes insane.

Availability heuristic

Judging by the examples that come to mind most easily, often recent, vivid, or negative.

Rites of rebellion

Structure imposes order, control contains fears, and rebellion lets teens challenge adult rules.

Play frame

Willing suspension of disbelief that lets people confront fears in a fun, thrilling way.

Folk belief

A belief shared within a community, such as anomalous lights or maternal impressions.

Migratory legend

A legend that travels across regions with stable plot elements.

Quasi-ostension

Normal legend-trip evidence misread by authorities as proof of cult activity.

Pseudo-ostension

Hoaxing or pranking by non-believers to trick believers.

Rumor-panic

Rumors as collective sense-making, expressing unresolved anxieties in symbolic form.

Narrative witness stand

Carefully told, defensive accounts of an experience, as if on the witness stand.

Dichotomous legend structure

The legend proper (the narrated plot) plus the teller's own legend trip experience.

Legend complex

The wide variety of legends, rumors, beliefs, and customs tied to one site.

Blood ritual rumors

Stories of children kidnapped and killed by strangers for use in rituals, often arising during cultural crises.

Rust Belt anxiety

Economic decline, youth leaving, and breakdown of family roles fueling rumors.