Fairytales and Folklore

Fairytales & Folklore

I thought it was very important to look at Folklore, as it is where many fairytales have stemed from, many being passed down generation to generation trough word of mouth rather than from books

The word “folklore” was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published in the London journal The Athenaeum in 1846. In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology. Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of both folklore and mythology, providing an outline into which new motifs can be placed, and scholars can keep track of all older motifs.

Folklore (or lore) consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics, and people who study folklore are sometimes referred to as “folklorists”.