Folklore Vocab

Genre

categories of literature (folktales, myths, fables, etc.) Below are several genres that fall under the umbrella term of folklore.

Folktale

a short narrative handed down through oral tradition with various tellers and groups modifying it, so that it acquires a cumulative authorship. (Oral Tradition - written form; how/why; moral/fable)

Goals of Folktale

Instruction for moral behavior; Improvement of personal and familial relationships; Recognition of the importance of the inner self

Literary Tale

a story created and published by an author (element of folktales and myths, but their origin is clearly literary)

Literary Fairy Tale

17th century France; Charles Perrault - Tales of Mother Goose

19th century; Wilhelm & Jacob Grimm - gathered folktales and made revisions and a collection (Kinder-und Hausmarchen / Children’s and Household Tales)

Fairy Tale

set in a world of magic, but mc are human; rooted in traditional / literary tales (Hans Christian Andersen)

Legend

a narrative or tradition handed down from the past. (historical about individual/ place) NO or Little supernatural; NATIONAL SPIRIT (King Arthur and the Saints’ legends)

Tall Tale

an exaggerated, generally humorous story about extraordinary events, people, or animals. (told as if TRUE; set in backwoods or agricultural setting)

Myth

an anonymous, nonliterary, essentially religious story that presents supernatural episodes as a means of interpreting natural events. (Primitive people explain nature of the world) (THEMES: creation, divinity, religion, meaning of life and death)

Parable

a story with a moral truth (religious texts)

Allegory

a literary work whose author intends for readers to understand the story and its characters on both literal and abstract levels. Allegorical characters personify significant qualities, concepts, or types, and the purpose of an allegory may be political, philosophical, or moral.

Fable

a brief story with a lesson a moral for that particular society, generally stated at the end. (ANIMALS as characters)

Explanatory (how-and-why) tale

a tale that explains why something is the way it is or how something or someone earned its name

Cautionary tale

a story that serves to warn audiences away from behaviors that are deemed unacceptable by their culture. Consider the warnings against pride, talking to strangers, and disobeying parents or husbands.

Motif

the smallest element in a tale which persists in a tradition. There are three main classes: object (slipper, apple), character (witch, beast, maiden, stepmother, prince), event (wedding, death, kidnapping of human by fairy folk).

Ex. Cinderella and her slipper (fur or glass; still a shoe)

Archetype

Carl Jung

it refers to the characters who reside in our “collective unconscious.” Such characters include the mother, good wife, shrew, hero, trickster, seductress, martyr/scapegoat, witch