folk literature

Introduction

also called  folklore  or  oral tradition 

      the lore (traditional knowledge and beliefs) of cultures having no written language. It is transmitted by word of mouth and consists, as does written literature, of both prose and verse narratives, poems and songs, myths, dramas, rituals, proverbs, riddles, and the like. Nearly all known peoples, now or in the past, have produced it.

      Until about 4000 BC all literature was oral; but, beginning in the years between 4000 and 3000 BC, writing developed both in Egypt and in the Mesopotamian civilization at Sumer. From that time on there are records not only of practical matters such as law and business but increasingly of written literature. As the area in which the habitual use of writing extended over Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean lands and eventually over much of the whole world, a rapid growth in the composition of written literature occurred, so that in certain parts of the world, literature in writing has to a large extent become the normal form of expression for storytellers and poets.

      Nevertheless, during all the centuries in which the world has learned to use writing, there has existed, side by side with the growing written record, a large and important activity carried on by those actually unlettered, and those not much accustomed to reading and writing.

Origins and development

      Of the origins of folk literature, as of the origins of human language, there is no way of knowing. None of the literature available today is primitive in any sense, and only the present-day results can be observed of practices extending over many thousands of years. Speculations therefore can only concern such human needs as may give rise to oral literature, not to its ultimate origin.

The nature of oral traditions

      Nor can any evolution in folk literature or any overall developments be spoken of explicitly. Each group of people, no matter how small or large, has handled its folk literature in its own way. Depending as it does upon the transmission from person to person and being subject to the skill or the lack of skill of those who pass it on and to the many influences, physical or social, that consciously or unconsciously affect a tradition, what may be observed is a history of continual change. An item of folk literature sometimes shows relative stability and sometimes undergoes drastic transformations. If these changes are looked at from a modern Western point of view, ethnocentric judgments can be made as to whether they are on the whole favourable or unfavourable. But it must be remembered that the folk listening to or participating in its oral literature have completely different standards from those of their interpreters.

      Nevertheless, two directions in this continually changing human movement may be observed. Occasionally a talented singer (folk music) or tale-teller, or perhaps a group of them, may develop techniques that result in an improvement over the course of time from any point of view and in the actual development of a new literary form. On the other hand, many items of folk literature, because of historic movements or overwhelming foreign influences or the mere lack of skillful practitioners of the tradition, become less and less important, and occasionally die out from the oral repertory. The details of such changes have been of great interest to all students of folk literature.

      The beginnings of written literature in Sumer and Egypt 5,000 or 6,000 years ago took place in a world that knew only folk literature. During the millennia since then written literature has been surrounded and sometimes all but overwhelmed by the humbler activity of the unlettered. The emergence of the author and his carefully preserved manuscript came about slowly and uncertainly, and only in a few places initially—the literary authorship that flourished in the Athens of Pericles or the Jerusalem of the Old Testament represented only a very small part of the world of their time. Nearly everywhere else the oral storyteller or epic singer was dominant, and all of what is called literary expression was carried in the memory of the folk, and especially of gifted narrators.

      All societies have produced some men and women of great natural endowments—shamans, priests, rulers, and warriors—and from these has come the greatest stimulus everywhere toward producing and listening to myths (myth), tales, and songs. To these the common man has listened to such effect that sometimes he himself has become a bard. And kings and councillors, still without benefit of writing, have sat enthralled as he entertained them at their banquets.

Cultural exchange in written and oral traditions

      This folk literature has affected the later written word profoundly. The Homeric Hymns, undoubtedly oral in origin and retaining many of the usual characteristics of folk literature, such as long repetitions and formulaic expressions, have come so far in their development that they move with ease within a uniform and difficult poetic form, have constructed elaborate and fairly consistent plots and successfully carried them through, and have preserved in definitive form a conception of the Olympic pantheon with its gods and heroes, which became a part of ancient Greek thinking.

      Not everywhere has the oral literature impinged so directly on the written as in the works of Homer, which almost presents a transition from the preliterate to the literate world. But many folktales have found their place in literature. The medieval romances, especially the Breton lays, drew freely on these folk sources, sometimes directly. It is often hard to decide whether a tale has been learned from folk sources or whether a literary story has gone the other way and, having been heard from priest or teacher or doctor, has entered oral tradition and has been treated like any other folktale or folk song. The unlettered make no distinctions as to origins.

      As the Middle Ages lead into the Renaissance, the influence of folk literature on the work of writers increases in importance, so that it is sometimes difficult to draw a sharp line of distinction between them. In literary forms such as the fabliau, many anecdotes may have come ultimately from tales current among unlettered storytellers, but these have usually been reworked by writers, some of them belonging in the main stream of literature, like Boccaccio (Boccaccio, Giovanni) or Chaucer (Chaucer, Geoffrey). Only later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, in such works as those of Gianfrancesco Straparola (Straparola, Gianfrancesco) and Giambattista Basile (Basile, Giambattista), did writers go directly to folk literature itself for much of their material.

      Since Classical times composers of written literature have borrowed tales and motifs from oral narratives, and their folk origin has been forgotten. Examples abound in Homer and Beowulf. In their literary form these stories have often lived on side by side with tellings and retellings by oral storytellers. Modern examples of traditions so used are found in Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Gerhart Hauptmann's The Sunken Bell. Particularly frequent in all literature are proverbs, many of them certainly of folk origin.

      In Finland a good example of the direct use of folk literature in the construction of a literary epic is seen in the Kalevala, composed by Elias Lönnrot (Lönnrot, Elias) in the 1830s, primarily by fusing epic songs that he had recorded from Finnish singers. The Kalevala itself is a national literary monument, but the songs Lönnrot heard are a part of folk literature.

      Writers and songmakers have always used themes taken from oral legends and folk songs (see also folk music) and in their turn have affected the traditions themselves. In recent years the cinema has presented old folktales to an appreciative public, and interest in folk songs especially has been stimulated by the radio and television. Inevitably this oral literature has become less truly oral, and much pseudofolk literature has been presented to the public, habituated as it is to the usual literary conventions.

      Within urbanized Western culture it is clear that folk literature has been gradually displaced by books and newspapers, radio, and television. Persons interested in hearing authentic oral tales, traditions, or songs must make special efforts to discover them. There still exist isolated groups that carry on such traditions—old people, recent immigrant enclaves in cities, and other minority populations, rural or urban. Children are also important for the carrying on of certain kinds of oral traditions such as singing games, riddles, and dance songs. These go on from generation to generation and are added to continually, always within an oral tradition.

      During the past few generations folk festivals (feast) have flourished. These have become almost worldwide and of the greatest variety. They are likely to revive older dances (see also folk dance) or bring in new ones from other countries, but they also have some singing and occasionally tale telling. Usually a genuine attempt is made to keep them within the authentic local tradition, and they have been a stimulus to the preservation of a disappearing phase of modern life.

      If folk literature is actually dying out, the process is very slow. It is now, as it has always been, the normal literary expression for the unlettered of all continents.

Characteristics of folk literature

      The most obvious characteristic of folk literature is its orality. In spite of certain borderline cases, it normally stands in direct contrast to written literature. The latter exists in manuscripts and books and may be preserved exactly as the author or authors left it, even though this may have happened centuries or even millennia ago. Through these manuscripts and books the thoughts and emotions and observations and even the fine nuances of style can be experienced without regard to time or distance. With oral literature this is not possible. It is concerned only with speaking and singing and with listening, thus depending upon the existence of a living culture to carry on a tradition. If any item of folk literature ceases to exist within human memory it is completely lost.

      The speaker or singer is carrying on a tradition learned from other speakers and delivered to a living audience. It may well be that the listeners have heard this material many times before and that it has a vigorous life in the community, and they will see to it that the performer does not depart too far from the tradition as they know it. If acceptable to the listeners, the story or song or proverb or riddle will be repeated over and over again as long as it appeals to men and women, even through the ages and over long geographic distances.

      In some cultures nearly everyone can carry on these traditions, but some men and women are much more skillful than others and are listened to with greater pleasure. Whatever the nature of these tradition bearers, the continued existence of an item of oral literature depends upon memory. As it is passed on from one person to another, it suffers changes from forgetting or from conscious additions or substitutions; in any case, the item changes continually.

      The more skillful tradition bearers take pride in the exactness with which they transmit a tale or song just as they have heard it many years before, but they only deceive themselves, for every performance differs from every other one. The whole material is fluid and refuses to be stabilized in a definite form. The teller is likely to find room for improvement and may well begin a new tradition that will live as long as it appeals to other tellers. It thus happens that in nearly all cultures certain people specialize in remembering and repeating what they have heard. There are semiprofessional storytellers around whom large groups of people assemble in bazaars or before cottage fires or in leisure hours after labour. Some of these storytellers have prodigious memories and may with only slight variations carry on to a new generation hundreds of tales and traditions heard long ago.

      Certain bards (bard) and minstrels (minstrel) and songmakers (music, Western) develop special techniques of singing or of telling epic or heroic (heroic poetry) tales to the accompaniment of a harp or other musical instrument. In the course of time in various places special poetic forms have been perfected and passed on from bard to bard. Such must have been the way in which the remarkably skillful heroic meters of the Greek epics were developed.

      A different kind of oral tradition is preserved by the ritual specialists: priests, shamans, and others who perform religious ceremonies and healing rites (ritual). Frequently these rituals must be remembered word for word and are not believed to be effective unless they are correctly performed. The ideal of such priestly transmitters of oral tradition is complete faithfulness to that which has been passed down to them.

      Not least important of the many reasons for the existence and perpetuation of folk literature is the need for release from the boredom that comes on long sea voyages or in army camps or on long winter evenings. Some folk literature is primarily didactic and tries to convey the information people need to carry on their lives properly. Among some peoples the relation of man and the higher powers is of special concern and gives rise to myths that try to clarify this relationship. Cooperative labour or marching is helped by rhythmic songs, and many aspects of social life give rise to various kinds of dance.

      A great many of the special forms of literature now in manuscripts and books are paralleled in traditional oral literature, where history, drama, law, sermons, and exhortations of all kinds are found, as well as analogues of novels, stories, and lyric poems.

      Folk literature is but a part of what is generally known as folklore: customs and beliefs, ritualistic behaviour, dances, folk music, and other nonliterary manifestations. These are often considered a part of the larger study of ethnology, but they are also the business of the folklorist.

      Of special importance is the relation of all kinds of folk literature to mythology. The stories of Maui and his confreres in the Pacific and of gods and heroes of African or American Indian (Indian literature) groups have behind them a long and perhaps complicated history. This is especially true of the highly developed mythologies of India, and the Greek, Irish, and Germanic (Germanic religion and mythology) pantheons. All are the results of an indefinitely long past, of growth and outside influences, of religious cults and practices, and of the glorification of heroes. But whatever the historical, psychological, or religious motivations, the mythologies are a part of folk literature and, though traditional, have been subject to continual changes at the hands of the tale-tellers, singers of stories, or priestly conductors of cults. Eventually singers or storytellers of philosophical tendencies have systematized their mythologies and have created with fine imagination the figures of Zeus and his Olympic family and his semidivine heroic descendants. Though the details of these changes are beyond the scope of this article, stories of the gods and heroes and of supernatural origins and changes on the earth have played an important role in all folk literature.

Techniques of folk literature

      Since the tales, legends, and epic and lyric songs discussed here are a part of the experience of a preliterate group or at least of the essentially unlettered, they differ in many ways from literary works addressed to a reading public. Long forgotten are the person or persons originally responsible for the tradition that has resulted in examples of folk literature. Only the tale or song remains to be repeated and often changed by subsequent storytellers, singers, or bards. In the course of its history it is listened to by generations of the unlettered, and its success and its very survival depend on how well it satisfies their emotional needs and intellectual interests.

      Since in essence all folk literature is oral and subject to its survival in the human mind, it is full of devices to aid memory. Perhaps most common of all is mere repetition. Especially in folktales and epics it is common to hear the same episode repeated with little or no verbal change. As the hero encounters his successive adversaries the description changes only enough to indicate the increasing terror of the enemy, always leading to a climax and usually to the hero's success. These long repeated passages often enable the teller of tales or the singer of an epic to extend his performance as much as he desires.

      Aside from repetition of entire episodes, folk literature of all kinds is filled with formulaic expressions. It may be the beginning or the ending of a folktale—the “once upon a time” or the “married and lived happily ever after” or sometimes quite meaningless expressions—or standard epithets attached to certain persons or places. These formulas are so characteristic of oral literature that an abundance of such commonplaces seems to be a guarantee of authentic oral origins even of a great epic.

      These formulas are matters not only of words but of structure. The storyteller or singer has at his disposal a large variety of conventional motifs and episodes and may use them freely. How appropriately they are made a part of his composition depends on his skill, but his listeners are not likely to be very critical so long as he keeps them interested. Indeed it is remarkable that in spite of this apparent freedom of improvisation so many rather well-articulated plots have lived for centuries retaining all their essential features. It is this combination of a basic narrative type with a freedom of treatment within traditional limits that makes it possible to identify hundreds of versions of the same tale or song as they appear over long stretches of time and space.

      Though much of narrative folk literature is frankly fictional and filled with unrealistic events, the successful storyteller or epic singer gives his story credibility by the use of realistic details. Often these are merely homely touches linking the never-never land of the tale or song to everyday life or emotions. For the unlettered listeners such realistic details may allow a stretching of the imagination to embrace a larger world. Heaven or hell it may be or kingly palaces where the peasant hero rules with a splendour only known to those who have never seen a court. Often these details are given only to ensure that willing suspension of disbelief characteristic of all fiction, but sometimes a realistic touch, even in the midst of weak motivation and violence, may give nobility to a mediocre tale or song.

      Repetition, formulas both in words and in structure, realism enough to support the marvelous in tale or song, violent actions and simple strong emotions—these qualities are generally found in all folk literature. The varying demands of the listeners are all-important influences. In some cultures this implies that actions should be well motivated so that listeners may identify themselves with certain characters. But in others, such as in many parts of India and in many preliterate cultures, motivation is often weak or entirely lacking.

      For lyric songs, proverbs, riddles, and charms (and often legends), the relation of artist and audience is of little importance.

Regional and ethnic manifestations

      In many particulars of form and substance there will be found great variations in the ways folk literature is manifested. The interests of people in one culture may differ profoundly from those of people in another. One group may enjoy singing folk songs, another listening to romantic folktales, and a neighbouring group may even be concerned only with legends and traditions. This difference is often geographic, so that the student of folk literature in the Pacific Islands who may later investigate a Central African tribe will find a completely different emphasis in the two areas. These differences may well depend upon the varieties of religious concepts held by the group or its natural environment, whether islands or jungle or cultivated farm lands, or its stability or mobility. These characteristics are likely to become especially deep-seated in groups that have been settled in one place over a long period of history. Frequently they may correspond to national frontiers, but more often they are aspects of the general culture of an area and may well be quite independent of political or linguistic boundaries.

      The Russian epic songs are found only in Russia, but the wonder story such as Cinderella or Snow White is a part of the folk literature of a good portion of the world. The Navaho (Navajo) Indians of the Southwestern United States place great emphasis on their remarkable chants and lengthy folktales. Their neighbours throughout the Great Plains tell many well-constructed unified stories but confine their rituals largely to the dance. In Europe the Irish (Irish literature) excel in storytelling, both of legends and fictional tales, so that even today it has been possible to record a prodigious number for their national archive. But in England and Wales the folktale is little cultivated, preference having been given to legends and ballads. As expected, there is a contrast between the abundance of oral saints' legends in Spain and Italy and their rarity in Scandinavia. Finland, meeting place of Eastern and Western tradition, shows an abundance of nearly every kind of folklore. From eastern Europe to Central Asia the folk epic flourishes.

      Tales and origin legends have been collected in great numbers from various parts of Oceania, where there is a common mythological background extending over enormous distances. Except for probable early contact by way of Indonesia, these folktales seem to show little Eurasian influence. In many parts of South America the merging of Iberian, Indian, and African materials seems almost complete.

      The folk literature of the African Americans is in a state of continual change, reflecting their history. Much certainly goes back to Africa, usually by way of the West Indies, and much was borrowed long ago. But African Americans have themselves in a truly oral fashion developed songs and stories, and particular music styles. Of very special character is the folklore of modern Israel. Jews from various lands have brought together folk literature from all these countries. Assimilation of this is a long task, and, since divergent language backgrounds are unimportant for folktales, the problem is to absorb the great variety of forms.

      Taken the world over, folk literature is found everywhere, though the emphasis differs from place to place.

Major forms of folk literature

Folk song (folk music)

      Singing of some kind is almost universal, and it is probable that where there are no reports of it the information is simply missing. Folk song implies the use of music, and the musical tradition varies greatly from one area to another. In some places the words of songs are of little importance and seem to be used primarily as support for the music. Frequently there are meaningless monosyllables and much repetition to accompany the voice or the musical instrument. In much of the world, drums and rattles, beating time by hands or feet, or the stroking of a harp give a strong rhythmic effect to folksinging. In other parts of the world, flutelike wind instruments or bowed fiddles of one kind or another affect the nature of folk song texts. In many places folk songs are of great importance, serving as excitement to war or love or as a part of religious or secular ritual. Through them the group expresses its common emotions or lightens the burden of communal labour. In certain preliterate groups and sometimes elsewhere, folk songs are used for magic effects, to defeat enemies, to attract lovers, to invoke the favour of the supernatural powers. Sometimes the magic effect of these songs is so greatly valued that actual ownership of songs is maintained and their use carefully guarded. They may come to the owner in a dream or as the result of fasting or other austerities.

      Even when folk songs are not used for such practical purposes but only for the pleasure of singing or listening, the greater part of the world uses them for the expression of ideas or emotions held in common by the group. Only in societies used to the songs of composers or poets does purely personal expression enter into the folk song. This is not frequent, and songs of this type are hardly to be distinguished from some of the simple lyrics of poets such as Robert Burns. Folk songs, essentially expressions of commonly shared ideas or feelings, are often trivial but sometimes they may be profoundly moving.

      The lyric folk song in one form or another is found almost everywhere, but this is not true of narrative singing. Unless the reporting of the activities of preliterate cultures has been very faulty, it would seem that the combination of song and story among these peoples has been rare, in spite of a wealth of prose narrative. On the other hand, in major Western and Asian civilizations the narrative song has been important for a long time and has been cultivated by the most skillful singers. In the course of time these songs of warfare, of adventure, or of domestic life have formed local cycles, such as the byliny (bylina) of Russia or the heroic songs of many of the Balkan States and Finland or the ballad tradition of western Europe and elsewhere. Each of these cycles has its own characteristics, with its distinctive metrical forms, and its formulas both of events and expression. Any reader of the Homeric poems will be aware of their essentially oral and musical nature, and all the early literary narratives of Sumer and the Middle East suggest a long previous development of narrative singing.

ballad

      A special tradition of tales told in song has arisen in Europe since the Middle Ages and has been carried to wherever Europeans have settled. These ballads, in characteristic local metrical forms and frequently with archaic musical modes, are usually concerned with domestic or warlike conflict, with disasters by land or sea, with crime and punishment, with heroes and outlaws, and sometimes, though rarely, with humour. Despite a folk culture fast being overwhelmed by the modern world, these ballads are still sung and enjoyed. (For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see folk music.)

Folk drama

      Belonging only remotely to oral literature is folk drama. Dances, many of them elaborate, with masks portraying animal or human characters, and sometimes containing speeches or songs, are to be found in many parts of the preliterate world. Though the action and the dramatic imitation is always the most prominent part of such performances, these may be part of a ritual and involve speaking or chanting of sacred texts learned and passed on by word of mouth.

      The ancient Greek mysteries, as well as secret societies even down to the present, have retained this method of transmitting dramatically their traditions and their teachings and commentary. Some dramatic rituals indeed were not secret but part of a public cult. Thus in ancient Greece the feast of Dionysus led eventually to Classical Greek drama, and in the Middle Ages the dramatic celebrations of the Christian church developed into the medieval folk dramas and at long last into the literary drama of the Renaissance and later.

      The medieval mummers' plays and their modern survivals, the Passion plays, the Mexican reenactment of historic scenes such as “The Moors and the Christians,” and the modern pageants—all these are based on written texts, however crude, and are beyond the scope of this treatment (see also ritual and dramatic literature).

fable

      Fables, whether of the well-known Aesop cycle, with animals (animal) acting according to their real natures, or those from India, where animals simply act as men and women, are literary in origin. But they have had an important influence on folk literature. In addition to appearing in written collections, a number of these are told by storytellers in many parts of the world. Such fables as “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” with appropriate morals, have been frequently recorded along with oral tales and have undoubtedly served as models for new animal stories. Sometimes these new tales have eventually received literary treatment, as in the medieval “ Reynard The Fox,” and then been carried back around the world by storytellers. In such narratives the borderline between folk literature and other literary expression is impossible to draw.

Folktale

      The oral fictional tale, from whatever ultimate origin, is practically universal both in time and place. Certain peoples tell very simple stories and others tales of great complexity, but the basic pattern of tale-teller and audience is found everywhere and as far back as can be learned. Differing from legend or tradition, which is usually believed, the oral fictional tale gives the storyteller absolute freedom as to credibility so long as he stays within the limits of local taboos and tells tales that please.

      A folktale travels with great ease from one storyteller to another. Since a particular story is characterized by its basic pattern and by narrative motifs rather than by its verbal form, it passes language boundaries without difficulty. The spread of a folktale is determined rather by large culture areas, such as North American Indian, Eurasian, Central and Southern African, Oceanic, or South American. And with recent increasing human mobility many tales, especially of Eurasian origin, have disregarded even these culture boundaries and have gone with new settlers to other continents.

      In many preliterate cultures folktales are hardly to be distinguished from myths, since, especially in tales of trickster (trickster tale)s and heroes, they presuppose a background of belief about tribal origins and the relation of men and gods. Conscious fictions, however, enter even into such stories. Animals abound here whether in their natural form or anthropomorphized so that they seem sometimes men and sometimes beasts. Adventure stories, exaggerations, marvels of all kinds such as other world journeys, and narratives of marriage or sexual adventure, usually between human beings and animals, are common. Much rarer, contrary to the views of earlier students, are explanatory stories. Tales of this description are especially characteristic of Africa, Oceania, and the South American Indians.

      In much of the world, especially Europe and Asia, the folktale deals with a greater variety of incidents than just described. In the course of time folktale scholars have given most attention to this area and have classified these stories so that the vast collections of them in manuscripts or books can be referred to with exactness.

      All readers of such collections as those of Grimm will easily recall examples of tales of speaking animals. These may be old, Aesop's fables or parts of the medieval Reynard epic, but most of them are based on some ancient oral tradition. Such animal stories are especially numerous in eastern Europe. But better-known perhaps are the ordinary folktales that deal with humans and their adventures. For these tales (fairy tale), usually laid in a highly imaginative time and place—a never-never land—and filled with unrealistic and often supernatural creatures, there exists no good English word, so that usually scholars use the German term Märchen. Here belong “The Dragon Slayer,” “The Danced-Out Shoes,” the “Swan-Maiden” tales, “Cupid and Psyche,” “Snow White,” “Cinderella,” “Faithful John,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and the like. Here also belong certain stories with religious or romantic motivation and tales of robbers and thieves—“Peter at the Gate of Heaven,” “The Clever Peasant Daughter,” “Rhampsinitus.” A major division of this classification of tales deals with jests and anecdotes. Examples are the many stories of numskulls, of clever rascals, and tall tales filled with exaggerations or lies. Finally come formula tales like “The House that Jack Built.”

      Among jokes and anecdotes a number are risqué or actually obscene (obscenity). The indexes of the classification have included only those occurring in the published regional surveys. These surveys, and the books and manuscripts on which they have been based, have been subject to severe editing in order to avoid social or even legal offense. Some of the older anthropologists thought to avoid the eyes of the nonscholar by writing such tales in Latin, but generations since have been much less squeamish. Folk stories now appear in print covering the gamut of the erotic—tales of seduction, realistic descriptions of normal or abnormal sexual activity, and scatological stories of great indecency.

      This index of tale types fits the region for which it was planned and is constantly being improved and expanded, but it was never designed to cover the world. The Eurasian types are usually recognizable in any part of the globe, and for them this type index is valuable. But for use with stories on a worldwide basis something less formal is needed, a classification of the possible or likely narrative motifs, minute or extended, and wherever found. Such a motif index has in fact proved useful outside of the Eurasian area, wherever comparative studies are undertaken, for parallels or analogues in simple motifs occur even in far distant places, often presenting extremely puzzling problems.

      By use of such indexes and from the labours of many scholars, much material for examination of the folktale is available. These studies have been pursued since the 18th century, though until about 1900 most of them were premature attempts to answer the general question of where folktales come from. Eventually it became clear that no satisfactory solution is available but that every tale has its own history and can be studied only with laborious attention to detail.

      In contrast to a literary story, with its standard text and author living in a definite time and place, the folktale is anonymous. Its originators have long been forgotten and it exists in many versions, all equally valid. Instead of being fixed like a literary document, it is in continual flux. But, with hundreds of versions of a particular tale available for study, it is possible to establish certain norms of plot structure and to point with some assurance to the varieties of subtypes that give clues to its life history. Such an analytic study of these hundreds of versions usually results in some hypothesis about the original form of the plot and the passage the tale has taken through time and space. In this way some 30 or 40 of the more complicated stories have been studied.

      These geographic and historical investigations depend on the fact that the plot of the tale is complex enough to admit of really analytic study. For simpler stories and anecdotes, scholars have had to be content with less exact methods, usually resulting in nothing more than accounts of their distribution and the known facts of their history.

      Most of the attention of students of folktales during the 20th century was given to historical questions and to preparing the apparatus for studying them—collecting, with ever improved techniques, arranging and archiving materials from manuscripts or books, and indexing types and motifs, so as to make collections even in remote or difficult idioms available to the serious investigator. But the folktale also has given rise to studies (literary criticism) that are not strictly historical.

      The attempts during the 19th century to find hidden meanings in tales were generally based upon the theory that they were broken-down myths and had lost their original meanings through linguistic misunderstanding. The result was that this “original meaning” was always found to be some conflict between weather or seasonal phenomena (winter, summer; clouds, sunshine; etc.). This type of interpretation is now out of fashion and has given place sometimes to explanations based upon ancient rituals or to some variety of psychoanalytic treatment. Though both of these possible sources of folk literature merit examination, the resultant interpretations have usually been merely astonishing to those acquainted with the actual history of the tales studied.

      A much more fruitful approach to an investigation of folktales has been the studies of the tellers of stories and their audiences. From these has come an appreciation of the way in which folk literature is carried on in a tradition. A great deal more may be expected from such investigations, usually based on an intimate knowledge of the living lore of a single people.

      Structural studies, especially of the folktale, have been engaging the attention of more and more scholars. Though particular plots may occur over large parts of the world, the form and literary style of the narrative is likely to be traditional within certain historical or geographic limits. The direction and strategy of these studies of structure are still unclear, but progress is being made.

      Generally folktales are considered both by tellers and listeners as purely fictional. The line, however, between belief and unbelief is vague and varies from culture to culture and even from person to person, and even in the most sophisticated societies legends (legend) of strange things from the past or present continue being told and are usually believed.

      Stories about marvelous creatures are worldwide. Often these are merely mentioned or described and the belief in their existence is taken for granted. Frequently, however, there are circumstantial accounts of meetings with them, which result in adventures pleasant or distressing. With such creatures it is sometimes hard to tell whether we are dealing with a fictional story such as that of the dragon slayer of the typical European fairy tale or with a legend actually believed, such as that of St. George (George, Saint) and the dragon. Although people throughout the world believe these stories to varying degrees, there exists everywhere a remarkable resemblance among these supernatural creatures. The dragon, for example, in something of its characteristic serpent or crocodile form, is of great importance in China as well as in Europe and is represented in both places as a guardian of great treasure. Hardly less well known is the unicorn, and various combinations of man and beast such as the centaur and the minotaur have been a part of the legends of the Old World and occasionally of the New. Giant birds carrying men off in the claws, the phoenix reviving from its own ashes, flying horses carrying men through the air, sirens, mermaids and mermen, and unbelievable creatures resembling these appear in traditions all over the world. There are treasure animals of all kinds, not only the goose that lays the golden egg but the cow that furnishes treasure from its ear. The horse may warn the hero of danger or may determine which of two roads he should take. Important building sites are said to have been determined by the actions of a wise animal. Speaking animals, of course, figure prominently in all folk literature and even in such literary forms as the fable. Animals may speak to each other on Christmas Eve, or they may have governments and elect kings or celebrate weddings. These are only a few of the traditions current with a large part of humankind.

      The relation between the animal and the human is very close in all folk literature. In the preliterate cultures of the American Indians, the Pacific Islanders, or the Central Africans, the culture heroes who are responsible for the good and the bad in the life of the tribe may upon one occasion appear as animals and upon another as men. Such was true of the ancient gods of Egypt or Greece. The question whether Coyote of the American Indian tribes is animal or human apparently makes no difference to those who tell stories about him.

      Aside from these semidivine creatures, now animal or bird or man as they wish, supernatural and ill-defined creatures, much more difficult to visualize, are also common. Fairies (fairy) or their counterparts appear in the legends of a good part of the world. It is hard to define them, for in one place they will appear in full human size, in another as little creatures inhabiting mounds or caves or living under the roots of trees. In some countries they are benevolent creatures, helpful to men and women. They reward human services but punish misdeeds. They marry or consort with human beings. In some traditions they are malevolent creatures, and meetings with them always bring disaster or bad luck. Almost every country has produced its own variety of helpful and harmful creatures. Stories of the activity of witches and devils, or water spirits and the supernatural guardians of mountains or trees vary in details from land to land, but many of the incidents related about them are easily transferred from one to another. Stories of visits to quite other supernatural realms, fairyland, for example, may be told in all their details in Russia or Greece. Giants (giant) are usually considered to be ogres of one kind or another but they may also be considered the most stupid of all beings and may be the subjects of hundreds of numskull anecdotes. Underground creatures like the dwarfs (dwarf) in “Snow White” are usually helpful and kindly, but other underground creatures bring only disaster.

      The widespread belief in the return of the dead has resulted in many stories of encounters with ghosts (ghost) or of actual resurrection. These stories differ greatly in various parts of the world and are much influenced by the current religious ideas. It is likely that in the whole world of traditional literature the belief in ghosts has survived longest.

      Traditions of historic characters have a tendency to repeat themselves from land to land and, although they are told as facts, may form as definite patterns as any fictional folktale. Such stories as Joseph and Potiphar's wife or the exposure and ultimate return of the hero appear in many places. The expected return of King Arthur from Avalon or of Barbarossa from his cavern are only two examples of a widespread motif of this kind.

      It is difficult and perhaps impossible to distinguish the explanatory legend from the myth. Tales explaining the origins of customs or of the shape or nature of various animals and plants, of such distant objects as the stars, or even of the world itself often ascribe such origins to the action of some ancient animal or to some magic transformation. These are often connected with stories of the gods or demigods and may even be a part of the religious beliefs of those who tell them.

      Generally, legends and traditions of this kind are simple in their form and contain only a single motif or at most two or three. The problem of proper classification for the purpose of studying these has proved very difficult, for while the materials of these legends and traditions show many interesting parallels and resemblances, they vary greatly from place to place. The relation of these stories to actual history, to mythology, and to the fictional folktale is of much interest to students of folk literature.

Proverbs, riddles, and charms

      Three of the shorter forms of folk literature—proverbs, riddles, and charms—are not confined to oral expression but have appeared in written literature for a very long time. The proverb that expresses in terse form a statement embodying observations about the nature of life or about wise or unwise conduct may be so much an oral tradition as to serve in some preliterate societies as a sanction for decisions and may even be employed as lawyers employ court precedents. In literature it dominates certain books of the Old Testament and is found even earlier in Sumerian writings. There has been a continual give and take between oral and written proverbs so that the history of each item demands a special investigation.

      While the proverb makes a clear and distinct statement, the purpose of the riddle is usually to deceive the listener about its meaning. A description is given and then the answer is demanded as to what has been meant. Among examples in literature are the riddle of the sphinx in Sophocles and the Anglo-Saxon riddles, based on earlier Latin forms. In oral literature the riddle may be part of a contest of wits. But even if the answer is known, the listeners enjoy hearing them over and over. In Western culture the riddle is especially cultivated by children.

       charms, whether for producing magic effects or for divining the future, also exist in folk literature as well as in the well-known Anglo-Saxon written form. The study of these extends over all parts of the world and back to the earliest records.

Children's use of folk literature

      During their play activities, children not only play old games but repeat counting-out rhymes (counting-out rhyme) and retain play-party songs that have long ceased to be a part of adult activity in Western culture. Although the knowledge of those matters is available to children in their books, in actual practice it is passed on by word of mouth or by imitation, and the tradition may spread from school to school over a continent with great rapidity (see children's literature).

Study, collection, and preservation

      As abundant as folk literature is and has been, its investigation has been seriously undertaken only within the past two or three centuries. The principal difficulty has been the assembling of material on which to base such studies. Its very oral nature makes it impossible for one person to be acquainted firsthand with more than an extremely small part of this activity. It is only when some sort of written record has been made of the oral material that any general studies are possible.

      For the still unlettered peoples, the reports of ethnologists and anthropologists, as a part of their general studies of the cultures of widely distributed groups, have often given good accounts of folk literature and have frequently furnished texts of material they heard. Though these reports are extremely uneven and often fragmentary, they do give a sampling of the literary expression of many and diverse parts of the world.

      When attention is shifted to the ancient world before the use of writing, scholars are almost entirely dependent on analogies from the unlettered groups just mentioned. It will never be known what tales were told or what songs were sung by the builders of the Egyptian pyramids or the temples in Sumer, but it seems fair to assume that even then these peoples were not silent. Of course it must be remembered that they did eventually develop a written literature, so that the analogy with modern unlettered peoples may not be completely valid.

      For folk literature since the development of writing, scholars are dependent on several things. There may be specific references in literary documents to the existence of particular tales or songs and often to their manner of production. The Old Testament is a good source for these, and both the Odyssey and Beowulf contain good pictures of the performances of folk minstrels and bards.

      Many collections of folktales and legends, of lyric and heroic songs, and of riddles and proverbs have been recovered directly from popular tradition within the past three or four centuries. When the collection of this material began, it was nearly always rewritten in the prevailing literary fashion. Excellent examples of such rewritten tales will be found in the collections of the 17th-century Italian Giambattista Basile (Basile, Giambattista), the 17th-century Frenchman Charles Perrault, and various German writers such as Johann Karl August Musäus (Musäus, Johann Karl August) and Clemens Brentano (Brentano, Clemens) in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The Brothers Grimm (Grimm, Brothers) with their Kinder und Hausmärchen (1812–15) have as their ideal the exact recording of tales as heard from oral tellers, though it is clear that many stories in their famous work are not folk literature at all. In the same way, collections of folk songs and ballads were severely edited well into the 19th century.

      Partly as a result of the Romantic Movement in literature and partly because of the interest in primitivism and the common folk, the recording of all sorts of songs and oral tales since about 1800 has been phenomenal. Increasingly scholars attempt to recover material as it actually exists. Many thousands of volumes are to be found in great libraries that give a good sampling of folk literature in all parts of the world; and large regional or national archives have been established, many of them containing hundreds of thousands of items available for study. All these books and manuscripts have become increasingly valuable as the techniques of collecting have progressed from casual longhand notes and rewritings through various stages to mechanical recording on discs and tapes. With mechanical recording, it has become possible to assemble properly attested literary folk material from all parts of the world. This improved collecting has proceeded at an impressive pace and makes possible comparative studies of all kinds, based on the oral record.

      As for the folk literature of peoples predominantly unlettered, these greatly expanded bases for study not only have brought out the characteristics found everywhere but have pointed up the differences found from place to place. Generalizations formerly accepted have to be reviewed in the light of these differences. With increased collecting, for example, do the likenesses or unlikenesses of American Indian tales and legends become more manifest? Does folk literature in a certain part of the world follow culture areas or language boundaries or some other principle? Such problems can now be investigated with the assurance that modern collectors have made every effort to record the oral tradition as it actually exists.

      Much the same may be said of the folk literature that exists among literate people side by side with written works. The collecting has improved in both quantity and quality. And not only have libraries been receiving new books of folk literature collections from interested persons everywhere, but these collectors are better-trained and better-equipped. The greatest improvement, however, in the study of folk literature transcribed in writing has been the development of folklore archives, of which a large part are concerned with various kinds of oral literature. These are growing rapidly, are scattered over much of the world, and are becoming well-indexed and accessible.

Stith Thompson Ed.

Additional Reading

The best general treatment of the borderline between folk literature and sophisticated literature is H. Munro Chadwick and N. Kershaw Chadwick, The Growth of Literature, 3 vol. (1932–40, reissued 1986). Stith Thompson, The Folktale (1946, reprinted 1979), gives an introduction and extensive bibliography for the field of oral narrative literature. Myths from all parts of the world are discussed in Louis Herbert Gray (ed.), Mythology of All Races, 13 vol. (1916–32, reissued 1964), valuable information, though some of the bibliographies are out of date. The Journal of Folktale Studies and FF Communications are of primary importance. They include articles in English, French, and German. FF Communications is undoubtedly the leading series for all aspects of folklore. A good recent series of folktale collections in English is Richard M. Dorson (ed.), Folktales Told Around the World (1975, reissued 1978). Important also is the much larger series in German, Friedrich von der Leyen and Paul Zaunert, Die Märchen der Weltliteratur (1919–39). Good introductions to the folktales of the ancient world are W.M. Flinders Petrie (ed.), Egyptian Tales Translated from the Papyri, 4th ed., 2 vol. (1926); and Samuel Noah Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C., rev. ed. (1961, reissued 1997). The standard Renaissance collection is The Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, ed. and trans. from the Italian of Benedetto Croce by N.M. Penzer, 2 vol. (1932, reprinted 1979). The commentaries on these tales are especially valuable. The new translation of Grimm's folktales, Francis P. Magoun, Jr., and Alexander H. Krappe (trans.), The Grimms' German Folk Tales (1969; originally published in German, 1960-69), is convenient for English readers. For folktales of the North American Indians, African Americans, and the peoples of Oceania and Israel, the following works are standard: Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends (1897, reissued 1994); Stith Thompson (ed.), Tales of the North American Indians (1929, reissued 2000), an anthology with exhaustive comparative notes, valid until about 1926; Melville Jacobs, The Content and Style of an Oral Literature: Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales (1959), tales of a vanishing North Pacific tribe; William A. Lessa, Tales from Ulithi Atoll: A Comparative Study in Oceanic Folklore (1961); Katharine Luomala, Voices on the Wind: Polynesian Myths and Chants, rev. ed. (1986); Richard M. Dorson (comp.), American Negro Folktales (1967); and Dov Noy (ed.), Folktales of Israel, trans. by Gene Baharav (1963). Types and classifications of folktales and legends are Antii Aarne, The Types of the Folk-Tale: A Classification and Bibliography, 2nd rev. ed., trans. and enlarged by Stith Thompson (1961, reissued 1987; originally published in German, 1910), a standard list of tales of Old World provenance; Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, rev. and enlarged ed., 6 vol. (1955–58, reissued 1989); and Reidar Th. Christiansen, The Migratory Legends (1958, reprinted 1977), a classification of European legends. A good example of a survey of tales of a particular country is Seán Ó Suilleabháin and Reidar Th. Christiansen, Types of the Irish Folktale (1963). A general introduction to folk song is George Herzog, “Song: Folksong, and the Music of Folksong,” in Maria Leach (ed.), Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, 2 vol. (1949–50, reissued 2 vol. in 1, 1984). A comprehensive introduction and listing of all the Classical fables is in Ben Edwin Perry (ed. and trans.), Babrius and Phaedrus (1965, reissued 1990). The proverb, the riddle, and the charm are treated in Archer Taylor, The Proverb (1962, also reprinted as The Proverb; and, An Index to “The Proverb”, 1985), English Riddles from Oral Tradition (1951, reprinted 1977); and William Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (1969, reissued 1991). Important also is the work of Linda Dégh, Folktales and Society: Story-Telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community, trans. by Emily M. Schossberger (1969; originally published in German, 1962), a study of a Hungarian storyteller; Alan Dundes, The Study of Folklore (1965); V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans. by Laurence Scott, 2nd ed. (1968; originally published in Russian, 1928); and Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Myth: A Symposium (1955, reissued 1974), a collection of theoretical treatments of mythology. An outstanding discussion of narrative folk song is Albert B. Lord, Stephen Mitchell, and Gregory Nagy (eds.), The Singer of Tales, 2nd ed. (2000). A model historical and geographic study is Warren E. Roberts, The Tale of the Kind and the Unkind Girls: AA-TH 480 and Related Tales (1958, reissued 1994).

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