Folklore Narratives

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Folklore Narratives

• Myths and Legends

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Myths and Legends

• These narratives are regarded as true or as
  having a high probability of being true by the
  tellers of such stories. There is also a
  presumption that the hearers within the folk
  group will accept the stories as true.

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Myths

• Myths are traditional prose narratives, which
  within the folk group are considered to be
  truthful accounts of what happened in the remote
  past.
• They often deal with the activities of gods and
  demigods, the creation of the world and its
  inhabitants, and the origins of religious
  rituals.
• When such myths explain such matters as origins
  of geographic features, animal traits, rites,
  taboos, and customs, they are known as
  explanatory or etiological narratives.

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Myths

• It is important to remember that myths, like
  other forms of folklore, must be handed on
  informally, by word of mouth, in order to meet
  the standards of folklore. Therefore, the Adam
  and Eve story, or the story of the flood, as they
  are taught in formal Sunday school settings would
  not qualify as myths. They come from literary
  sources and are passed on in formal instruction
  with little variation. Religious stories in
  cultures which are non-literate would be more
  likely to be myths.

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Myths Theories of Origin

• Polygenesis this is the view that similar myths
  in various cultures (e.g.,the flood myth) arose
  independently in various folk groups
• Diffusion this is the view that there must have
  been one primary source for the variant myths,
  which was transmitted to other regions and in the
  process developed variants.

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Myths Analytical Approaches

• Mullers Solar Mythology myths are essentially
  accounts of the recurrence of night and day
• Cultural Evolution myths are survivals from an
  earlier savage state of civilization
• Psychoanalytical using myths to examine the
  unconscious and subconscious, looking for
  Oedipal, phallic, and other kinds of symbolism.

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Legends

• While myths are told to validate religious rites
  and beliefs in a primitive culture, legends are
  often used to validate superstitions in modern
  folklore.
• Legends are generally secular.
• Legends are told as occurring in the historical
  past, even the recent past.
• Legends are often migratory, widely known in
  different places.

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Legend Types

• Religious
• Supernatural
• Urban Belief Tales
• Personal
• Anecdotes
• Memorates

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Religious Legends

• Saints stories
• Miraculous answers to prayers
• Three Nephite stories
• Temple appearances
• Etiological stories

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Supernatural Legends

• Ghost stories

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Urban Belief Tales

• Cement car
• Vanishing hitchhiker
• Microwaved poodle (or cat)
• Woman baked in tanning machine
• AIDS infection
• Blue star halucinogenic
• Gangs flashing lights
• Mrs. Fields cookie recipe
• Black man in the elevator

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Personal

• King Arthur
• George Washington
• Davy Crockett

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Anecdotes

• Short, personal stories about local characters
  (sometimes memorates)
• Downs Syndrome person with coins
• Mental Hospital inmate (tire lug nuts)

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Classification of Myths and Legends

• Stith Thompsons Motif-Index of Folk Literature
  This is a multi-volume work which classifies the
  narrative elements or Motifs found in folk
  material.
• Divisions include references to items such as the
  following Creator, Gods, Demigods and culture
  heroes, Topographical features of the earth,
  Creation of animal life, etc.
• It is broken down even further, for example under
  Creation of man, you would find Emergence or
  descent of first man to earth, Man made from
  mineral substance, Man made from vegetable
  substance, Primeval human pair, etc.