Folklore

1. Folklore By Susan Thomas Dunloggin Middle School

2. Folklore • Folklore preserves a community’s cultural beliefs, customs, and history, through the oral tradition of story telling. • Some form of folklore is present in every country and culture in the world. • Often the same story can be traced to several different countries, each having added a slightly different detail.

3. Storytellers • Traditional storytellers are called troubadours. • Troubadours often used music and theatrics to tell stories to communities.

4. Types of Folklore • There are several types of folklore that we will explore here: • Legends • Tall tales • Myths • Fairy Tales • Origin Tales • Fables • Riddles • Proverbs

5. Fairy Tale Origins • So why do you think so many countries claim the same story as their own? • You guessed it! Traveling troubadours would spread the same stories to different countries, sometimes changing them a bit to fit the culture.

6. Fairy Tale Origins • Authors: • Over time, many authors began writing down the stories heard from their childhood and publishing them. • Two of the most famous of these were: • Hans Christian Andersen • The Grimm Brothers

7. Hans Christian Andersen • Born very poor in Denmark in 1805. • Andersen performed in theater and became known as a great playwrite. • Between 1835 and 1872, he wrote over 150 fairy tales. His tales were mostly original. He would use themes from stories he heard as a child, but changed them until they were his own creations. • He is one of the first fairy tale authors to add “happy endings” to his stories.

8. The Grimm Brothers • Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, brothers, were born in 1785 and 1786 in Germany. • They published Kinder- und Hausmärchen (“Children’s Legends”), a collection of stories told to them by their parents, in 1815. It has been known as “the most influential book printed in the German Language”. • Their stories often end sadly and were used to teach a lesson.

9. Fables • Like all folk lore, fables have been passed down orally from generation to generation for thousands of years. • But many can be traced originally to India. • There are two notable authors of fables, however. They are: • Aesop • James Thurber

10. Fables • Aesop: • Was a slave in 6th century, BC Greece. • He was known to tell his stories while imprisioned to all that would listen. • Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, were thought to have been the first people to put his words into writing.

11. Fables • James Thurber (1894-1961): • Became blind in one eye as a child • Known for writing comical stories • Published Fables of Our Time in 1940 • His Fables were very entertaining, as they taught a lesson.

12. Fables • Watch the following film clip about Aesop’s many fables. • As you watch, consider what elements make up a fable and how we can connect the actions of the animals with human behavior.

13. Riddles • A riddle is a story with a statement or question having a double meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. • They force the reader to see things in a new or different way. • Riddes first appeared in Old English and Old Norse poetry, but have been adopted by many other cultures. • In the Hawaiian and Asian culture,especially, riddles appear frequently in literature.

14. Riddles • “Double meanings” are words or phrases that can represent more than one thing. • Can you guess what these double meanings are? I throw it white, it falls back yellow ? I walk, he walks. I stop, he stops ? My shadow An egg

15. Proverbs • Proverbs are not clichés • Clichés are widely used phrases or metaphors. They usually have their origins in literature, television, or movies rather than in folk tradition. • Can you tell the meaning of these proverbs? • Look before you leap. • Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. • All’s well that ends well. • Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.

16. FOLK LORE • There you have eight types of folk lore! • There are certainly more that you can explore on your own… • Parables, poetry, song, dance… • Happy Reading!