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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: folklore
Folklore, the body of customs, legends, beliefs, and superstitions passed on by oral tradition. It includes folk dances, folk songs, folk medicine (the use of magical charms and herbs), and folktales (myths, rhymes, and proverbs). The study of folklore emerged significantly in the 19th cent., partly out of the rise of European romanticism, with its interest in the past, and partly out of nationalism, with its stress on the indigenous. Today most folklorists and anthropologists regard folk customs, legends, and beliefs as an imaginative expression by a people of its desires, attitudes, and cultural values. Folk heroes (e.g., Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, the Cid in Spain, Robin Hood in England, Cuchulain in Ireland, Paul Bunyan in the United States, and Yü in China) have been said to reflect the civilization from which they sprang. Many theories have arisen to explain folk tales—Max Müller, a philologist, interpreted the legends as linguistic corruptions; Jakob Grimm saw them as corrupted cosmic allegories; the German school considered them as personified elements of nature; Edward Tylor and Andrew Lang held them to be survivals from a savage society; Freud and the psychoanalytical school found them fraught with sexual symbolism. Folklore has become increasingly important in the study of primitive societies and in understanding the history of mankind. Almost every country has a folklore society which collects, analyzes, and publishes folk material (e.g., in the United States the American Folklore Society publishes the Journal of American Folklore). For further information, see games, children's; monsters and imaginary beasts in folklore; mythology.

See C. L. Daniels and C. M. Stevans, ed., Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World (1971); D. Emrich, Folklore on the American Land (1972); R. M. Dorson, ed., Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction (1972); T. P. Coffin and H. Cohen, Folklore from the Working Folk of America (1973); R. M. Dorson, America in Legend (1974); A. Dundes, Analytic Essays in Folklore (1975).

The Columbia Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2001-09 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Wikipedia search results for: Folklore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Folklore culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually ethnographic study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal Athenaeum in 1846. In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology. Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of...more »
Columbia Encyclopedia search results: folklore
Results 1 - 10  of 132
  • gnome

    Gnome, in folklore, tiny subterranean creature associated with mines and quarries. Usually represented as misshapen, frequently as hunchbacked, gnomes are said to be guardians of hidden treasu...

  • pixie

    Pixie, in English folklore, spirit or fairy. The pixie is commonly represented as a mischievous imp who delights in flustering young maidens and leading travelers astray.

  • Hand, Wayland Debs

    Hand, Wayland Debs, 1907–86, folklorist, b. Auckland, New Zealand. Hand wrote Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina (1964), which is ranked among the finest published studies o...

  • goblin

    Goblin or hobgoblin, in French folklore, small household spirit, similar to the Celtic brownie. Goblins perform household tasks but also can make mischief, such as pulling the covers off sleep...

  • gremlin

    Gremlin, in American folklore, malicious, airborne supernatural being. Gremlins were first heard of during World War II as creatures responsible for unexplainable mechanical failures and disru...

  • puck, in Germanic mythology

    Puck, in Germanic folklore, generic name for various malevolent spirits. The medieval English pouke was often identified with the devil. However, the Puck of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's ...

  • troll

    Troll, in Scandinavian folklore, dwarfish or gigantic creature of caves and hills. Variously friendly or malicious, trolls toiled as smiths. The mountain king in Ibsen's Peer Gynt is a troll.

  • Lilith

    Lilith, female demon of Jewish mythology, originally probably the Assyrian storm demon Lilitu. In Talmudic tradition many evil attributes were given to this supposedly nocturnal creature. In J...

  • jinni

    Jinni, feminine jinniyah, plural jinn, in Arabic and Islamic folklore, spirit or demon endowed with supernatural power. In ancient belief the jinn were associated with the destructive forces o...

  • mermaid

    Mermaid, in folklore, sea-dwelling creature commonly represented as having the head and body of a woman and a fishtail instead of legs. Belief in mermaids, and in their counterpart, mermen, ha...

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