Folklore is an expression of culture, which includes tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs and customs.
Genres of Folklore
Myths
Myth is a term used for a narrative generally regarded by the community in which it is told as both sacred and true. Myths are concerned with ultimate realities and are set outside historical time, before the world came to be as it is today. Myths generally focus on the actions of divine or semi-divine characters. Through the activities of the characters in myths, the world has come to take the form that it has today.
Creation myths are considered to be among the most popular myths in any culture. One example of creation myths is the Native America’s Zuni: The Separation of the First Parents. Like most creation myths, the story revolves around the Sky Father and Earth Mother who must be separated to allow creation to take place. The Zuni creation culminates in a story of emergence and migration. The originators of life – Earth Mother and Sky Father are separated from each other so to provide room for the creation between them. The mother is actually the earth and the father is the sky. The mother’s breath is the warm wind while the father is the cold. The mother’s breasts are the fields that give crops, and the father’s breath brings the rain that causes germination of the seeds in the mother.
The Zuni Creation Myth goes like this:
All life on earth was conceived from the union of Earth Mother and Sky Father. Earth Mother grew because of the offspring that she carries. She then pushes Sky Father and started sinking into the waters. Earth Mother was afraid that something bad might happen to her offspring. Frightened by her menacing thoughts, she kept her offspring within her and discussed her fears with Sky Father. They wondered how these offspring would know one place from another, even in the light of the sun. They wondered how their descendants would survive.
Earth Mother and Sky Father were divine beings. They can change their forms. Therefore, Earth Mother and Sky Father took the form of a woman and a man. Then a great bowl filled with water appeared nearby, and Earth Mother realized that every place in the world would be surrounded by mountains like the rim of the bowl that was near her. She spat in the water and, as foam formed on its surface, she said, “Look! It’s from my bosom that they will find sustenance.”
She blew her warm breath over the foam and some of it lifted upward, shattering in the air, sending mist and spray down in great, shimmering abundance.
“Just so will clouds form at the rim of the world where the great waters are,” she said, “and be borne on the breath of the surpassing beings until your cold breath makes them shed, falling downward–the waters of life falling into my lap, where our children will nestle and thrive, finding warmth in spite of your coldness.”
“Wait,” Sky Father said, and he spread his hand over the bowl, setting in its crevices what looked like yellow corn grains gleaming in the dark of the early dawn of the world. He took seven grains between his thumb and fingers and said, “When the Sun is gone and all is dark in the world, our children will be guided by these lights, which will tell them the regions of space. And just as these grains shine up from the water to the sky, so will innumerable seedlings like them spring up from your bosom whenever my waters touch them, and our children will be fed.”
In this way, and in many others, Earth Mother and Sky Father talked and provided for their offspring and their offspring’s progeny, the people and the other creatures of the world.
Legends
Legends are considered as a genre of folklore that focuses on a single episode, an episode that is presented as miraculous, mysterious, strange or sometimes embarrassing. The legend is set in historical time in the world as we know it today. It often makes reference to real people and places. The full range of associations to these people and places often remains unspoken. Their identity and significance is not usually addresses in the narrative proper but is generally assumed to be known to the audience. Legends are often passed down from one generation to another. The main character/s in the legend may have exist but the story is twisted in such a way as to make it more fascinating and interesting.
One famous example of a legend is the Legend of Atlantis. Atlantis is a legendary island that was first mentioned in Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias. The island of Atlantis according to Plato was a naval power and a society that is far more advanced than its contemporaries were. Atlantis planned to invade Athens but the plan was unsuccessful. The legend of Atlantis has been passed from generation to generation. The legend of Atlantis has inspired different literary pieces including comic books and films. Atlantis has become an epitome of an advanced lost civilization.
Folktales
A folktale is a narrative which is related and received as a fiction or fantasy. Such narratives, unlike myths, are not sacred, nor do they challenge the world views of the audience in the same manner as the legend. Folktales appear in a variety of forms. Many folktales have been adapted for children’s entertainment in hundreds of illustrated books and scores of films. Two of the most notable compilers of folktales are Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, more popularly known as “The Brothers Grimm”. The two brothers have listened to folktales orally performed and have embellished and edited the tales that are part of their collection.
One famous folktale that is a pert of the Brothers Grimm Collection is “The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids”. The story, which has been told and published so many times concerns a mother goat and her seven kids. As the mother goat has to go into the forest, she cautions her kids not to let the wolf into the house. She further cautions that he often tries to disguise himself but that he can be identified by his gruff voice and black paws. No sooner does the mother depart than the wolf comes to the door pretending to be the mother returning. The kids refuse to let him in, recognizing his gruff voice. The wolf buys a piece of chalk, eats it, and returns to the house again, pretending to be the mother. The kids see his black paw through the window and send him away. The wolf then gets a baker to put dough on his foot and a miller to sprinkle the dough with flour so it appears white. When the wolf returns this time, he shows his white paw through the window. The kids open the door, and when they see the wolf, they all rush to hide. The wolf, however, devours them all, except for the youngest, who hides in the clock case. The wolf leaves the house and falls asleep under a tree in the meadow. When the mother goat returns home, she finds her youngest, who tells her what has happened. She follows the wolf, finds him asleep, and sees something stirring in his stomach. Hoping that her children are still alive, she sends her youngest to fetch scissors, needle, and thread. She cuts open the wolf’s stomach, from which her children emerge alive and whole, fills the wolf’s stomach with stones, and sews it shut. When the wolf awakens, he feels thirsty and goes to the well. As he bends over to drink, the weight of the stones pulls him into the well and he drowns. The mother and kids dance together in celebration.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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