From Legends to Ballads: What Is Folklore?

The study of folklore began in the 1770s with the German romantic nationalist Johann Gottfried Herder. The term itself was coined in the 1840s by William Thoms inspired by the German word Volklehre (“peoples customs”). Folklore refers to the stories, tales, music, dance, art forms, and traditions of a distinct community or group. It includes folk songs, myths, and legends but also architecture and fashion, values attitudes, and assumptions. Folklore connects people to their past, yet it doesn’t have to be ‘old.’ Today, folklore is continuously recreated in the rituals of everyday life, in the home, at work, and increasingly, on the internet.

The term “folklore” conjures vivid and fantastical imagery: Robin Hood, the legendary English outlaw who stole from the rich to give to the poor; the Mexican Day of the Dead, a time when the souls of the dead are believed to reunite with the living on earth. In Sweden, naked, violin-playing Näcken are said to lure people to their doom in lakes and rivers. 

Folktales, whether written down or passed down orally, explain the world and impart moral lessons. In the above examples, they highlight the importance of social justice, the value of family and memory, and the dangers of deep water respectively. 

Folklore comprises legends, ballads, popular beliefs, and customs that together form the traditions of a culture. Folktales celebrate heroic virtues, portray the struggle between good and evil, and invoke the power of magic. Above all, folklore provides an escape from societal pressures, validates cultural identity, enforces social norms, and reinforces communal values (Bascom, 1954). 

Folk Vs. High Culture

The formal study of folklore began in Europe in the 1770s with Johann Gottfried Herder, who, during a period of rising nationalism, became interested in the idea that the ‘true’ culture of a nation resided in the lower strata of society. 

Herder contrasted the “learned culture” of elites (Kultur der Geleherten) with the “culture of the people” (Kultur des Volkes). Folklore, for Herder, included oral traditions, music, dance, tales, myths, and legends – traditional clothing, building styles, art, and artifacts. He believed that folklore, with its stories, songs, customs, and myths, represented a world distinct from the centers of wealth, industry, and progress that characterized metropolitan life. 

While the simplistic divide between the rural and the urban initially postulated by Herder has largely collapsed, folklore continues to be studied as the traditional, non-institutional aspects of culture that connect the present with the cultural heritage of the traditional past. 

Folklore is sometimes mistakenly viewed as a relic of the past existing between traditional and modern worlds. In this light, the culture of the folk is talked about in terms of the survival of hidden, forgotten cultures. It might be visualized as the ritual magic of Haitian Voodoo, the culture, or the early blues and folksong of the Southern United States. Either way, the traditional stories, customs, and culture of folklore have classically been understood as something separate from everyday modern life.

Today, folklore is not understood as confined to the past, but continually created and transmitted in the present. For instance, the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress, known for its vast collection of traditional folksongs, now archives video games, websites, and internet memes. In this regard, folklore does not have to be ‘old’ – as new groups emerge, surfers, motorcycle gangs, and computer programmers, new folklore is created (Dundes, 1980). 

Contemporary Folklore

In the digital age, as in every era, folklore continues to evolve and adapt to new societal complexities. Amidst the ongoing crisis of climate change, cryptozoologists search for mythical beasts such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. 

Meanwhile, “fake news” travels faster than factual information, as “alternative facts,” disinformation, and rumor attempt to explain the world around us. Popular tales of alien abductions and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), demonstrate the enduring power of folklore in contemporary times, while fantasy worlds such as Game of Thrones and The Legend of Zelda, offer escape from the pressures of life.

Events like Comic-Con see people of all ages engaging in cosplay, where they transform into their favorite characters from films, television, and video games, to blur the lines between fiction and reality. In the negative, digital folklore such as Momo and The Slenderman captures the primal fears and social anxieties that define modern life.