Folklore is the expressive body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses

the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such
as tales, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to
handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of
celebrations such as Christmas and weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Each one of these,
either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore
also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one
generation to the next. For folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine
arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either
through verbal instruction or demonstration. The academic study of folklore is called folkloristics.

Folklore began to distinguish itself as an autonomous discipline during the period of romantic
nationalism in Europe. A particular figure in this development was Johann Gottfried von Herder,
whose writings in the 1770s presented oral traditions as organic processes grounded in locale. After
the German states were invaded by Napoleonic France, Herder's approach was adopted by many of
his fellow Germans who systematized the recorded folk traditions and used them in their process
of nation building. This process was enthusiastically embraced by smaller nations like Finland,
Estonia, and Hungary, which were seeking political independence from their dominant neighbours.[9]
Folklore as a field of study further developed among 19th century European scholars who were
contrasting tradition with the newly developing modernity. Its focus was the oral folklore of the rural
peasant populations, which were considered as residue and survivals of the past that continued to
exist within the lower strata of society.[10]The "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" of the Brothers Grimm (first
published 1812) is the best known but by no means only collection of verbal folklore of the European
peasantry of that time. This interest in stories, sayings and songs continued throughout the 19th
century and aligned the fledgling discipline of folkloristics with literature and mythology. By the turn
into the 20th century the number and sophistication of folklore studies and folklorists had grown both
in Europe and North America. Whereas European folklorists remained focused on the oral folklore of
the homogenous peasant populations in their regions, the American folklorists, led by Franz
Boas and Ruth Benedict, chose to consider Native American cultures in their research, and included
the totality of their customs and beliefs as folklore. This distinction aligned American folkloristics
with cultural anthropology and ethnology, using the same techniques of data collection in their field
research. This divided alliance of folkloristics between the humanities in Europe and the social
sciences in America offers a wealth of theoretical vantage points and research tools to the field of
folkloristics as a whole, even as it continues to be a point of discussion within the field itself.[11]
The term Folkloristics, along with its synonym Folklore Studies,[note 1] gained currency in the 1950s to
distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. With the
passage in 1976 of the American Folklife Preservation Act, (P.L. 94-201),[12] passed by the U.S.
Congress in conjunction with the Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, folkloristics in the United States
came of age.
"…[Folklife] means the traditional expressive culture shared within the various groups in the United
States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, regional; expressive culture includes a wide range of
creative and symbolic forms such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, literature, art,
architecture, music, play, dance, drama, ritual, pageantry, handicraft; these expressions are mainly
learned orally, by imitation, or in performance, and are generally maintained without benefit of formal
instruction or institutional direction."

Added to the panoply of other legislation designed to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the
United States, this law also marks a shift in national awareness. It gives voice to a growing
understanding that cultural diversity is a national strength and a resource worthy of protection.
Paradoxically, it is a unifying feature, not something that separates the citizens of a country. "We no
longer view cultural difference as a problem to be solved, but as a tremendous opportunity. In the
diversity of American folklife we find a marketplace teeming with the exchange of traditional forms
and cultural ideas, a rich resource for Americans".[13] This diversity is celebrated annually at
the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and many other folklife fests around the country.

Definition of folk[edit]
The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore", was
characterized by being rural, non-literate and poor. They were the peasants living in the countryside,
in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban
proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with the rural poor as folk. The
common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of
society.[14]
Moving forward into the 20th century, in tandem with new thinking in the social sciences, folklorists
also revised and expanded their concept of the folk group. By the 1960s it was understood
that social groups, i.e. folk groups, were all around us; each individual is enmeshed in a multitude of
differing identities and their concomitant social groups. The first group that each of us is born into is
the family, and each family has its own unique folklore. As a child grows into an individual, its
identities also increase to include age, language, ethnicity, occupation, etc. Each of these cohorts
has its own folklore, and as one folklorist points out, this is "not idle speculation… Decades of
fieldwork have demonstrated conclusively that these groups do have their own folklore."[4] In this
modern understanding, folklore is a function of shared identity within any social group.[5]
This folklore can include jokes, sayings and expected behavior in multiple variants, always
transmitted in an informal manner. For the most part it will be learned by observation, imitation,
repetition or correction by other group members. This informal knowledge is used to confirm and re-
inforce the identity of the group. It can be used both internally within the group to express their
common identity, for example in an initiation ceremony for new members. Or it can be used
externally to differentiate the group from outsiders, like a folkdance demonstration at a community
festival. Significant to folklorists here is that there are two opposing but equally valid ways to use this
in the study of a group: you can start with an identified group in order to explore its folklore, or you
can identify folklore items and use them to identify the social group.[15]
Beginning in the 1960s, a further expansion of the concept of folk began to unfold in folkloristics.
Individual researchers identified folk groups which had previously been overlooked and ignored. One
major example of this is found in an issue of "The Journal of American Folklore", published 1975.
This edition is dedicated exclusively to articles on women's folklore, with approaches that were not
coming from a man's perspective.[note 2] Other groups that were highlighted as part of this broadened
understanding of the folk group were non-traditional families, occupational groups, and families that
pursued production of folk items through multiple generations.

Genres: the lore of folklore[edit]

Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or
customary lore. For the most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects
(material folklore), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs (verbal folklore), and beliefs
and ways of doing things (customary folklore). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined
for children's folklore and games (childlore), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is
peculiar to school yards and neighborhood streets.[16] Each of these genres and their subtypes is
intended to organize and categorize the folklore artifacts; they provide common vocabulary and
consistent labeling for folklorists to communicate with each other.
That said, each artifact is unique; in fact one of the characteristics of all folklore artifacts is their
variation within genres and types.[17] This is in direct contrast to manufactured goods, where the goal
in production is to create products which are identical, and variations are considered mistakes. It is
however just this required variation that makes identification and classification of the defining
features a challenge. And while this classification is essential for the subject area of folkloristics, it
remains just labeling, and adds little to an understanding of the traditional development and meaning
of the artifacts themselves.[18]
Necessary as they are, genre classifications are misleading in their oversimplification of the subject
area. Folklore artifacts are never self-contained, they do not stand in isolation but are particulars in
the self-representation of a community. Different genres are frequently combined with each other to
mark an event.[19] So a birthday celebration might include a song or formulaic way of greeting the
birthday child (verbal), presentation of a cake and wrapped presents (material), as well as customs
to honor the individual, such as sitting at the head of the table, and blowing out the candles with a
wish. There might also be special games played at birthday parties which are not generally played at
other times. Adding to the complexity of the interpretation, the birthday party for a seven-year-old will
not be identical to the birthday party for that same child as a six-year-old, even though they follow
the same model. For each artifact embodies a single variant of a performance in a given time and
space. The task of the folklorist becomes to identify within this surfeit of variables the constants and
the expressed meaning that shimmer through all variations: honoring of the individual within the
circle of family and friends, gifting to express their value and worth to the group, and of course, the
festival food and drink as signifiers of the event.

Verbal tradition[edit]

Hansel and Gretel, Arthur Rackham, 1909

The formal definition of verbal lore is words, both written and oral, which are "spoken, sung, voiced
forms of traditional utterance that show repetitive patterns."[20] Crucial here are the repetitive patterns.
Verbal lore is not just any conversation, but words and phrases conforming to a traditional
configuration recognized by both the speaker and the audience. For narrative types by definition
have consistent structure, and follow an existing model in their narrative form.[note 3] As just one simple
example, in English the phrase "An elephant walks into a bar…" instantaneously flags the following
text as a joke. It might be one you've already heard, but it might be one that the speaker has just
thought up within the current context. This is folklore in action. Another example is the child's
song Old MacDonald Had a Farm, where each performance is distinctive in the animals named, their
order and their sounds. Songs such as this are used to express cultural values (farms are important,
farmers are old and weather-beaten) and teach children about different domesticated
animals.[21] This is folklore in action.
Verbal folklore was the original folklore, the artifacts defined by William Thoms as older, oral cultural
traditions of the rural populace. In his 1846 published call for help in documenting antiquities, Thoms
was echoing scholars from across the European continent to collect artifacts of verbal lore. By the
beginning of the 20th century these collections had grown to include artifacts from around the world
and across several centuries. A system to organize and categorize them became necessary.[22] Antti
Aarne published a first classification system for folktales in 1910. This was later expanded into
the Aarne–Thompson classification system by Stith Thompson and remains the standard
classification system for European folktales and other types of oral literature. As the number of
classified oral artifacts grew, similarities were noted in items which had been collected from very
different geographic regions, ethnic groups and epochs, giving rise to the Historic-Geographic
Method, a methodology which dominated folkloristics in the first half of the 20th century.
When William Thoms first published his appeal to document the verbal lore of the rural populations,
it was believed these folk artifacts would die out as the population became literate. Over the past two
centuries this belief has proven to be wrong; folklorists continue to collect verbal lore in both written
and spoken form from all social groups. Some variants might have been captured in published
collections, but much of it is still transmitted orally and indeed continues to be generated in new
forms and variants at an alarming rate.

The story of Jahangir and Anarkaliis popular folklore in the former territories of the Mughal Empire.

Below is listed a small sampling of types and examples of verbal lore.

 Aloha
 Ballads
 Blessings
 Bluegrass
 Bremen Town Musicians
 Chants
 Charms
 Cinderella
 Conspiracy theories
 Country music
 Cowboy poetry
 Creation stories
 Curses
 English similes
 Epic poetry
 Fable
 Fairy tale
 Folk belief
 Folk etymologies
 Folk metaphors
 Folk poetry
 Folk music
 Folksongs
 Folk speech
 Folktales
 Ghost stories
 Greetings
 Hog-calling
 Insults
 Jokes
 Keening
 Latrinalia
 Legends
 Limericks
 Lullabies
 Myth
 Oaths
 Leave-taking formulas
 Pecos Bill
 Place names
 Prayers at bedtime
 Prayers at table
 Proverbs
 Retorts
 Riddle
 Riddles
 Roasts
 Sagas
 Sea shantys
 Street vendors
 Superstition
 Tall tale
 Taunts
 Toasts
 Tongue-twisters
 Urban legends
 Word games
 Yodeling
Material culture[edit]
Horse and sulky weathervane, Smithsonian American Art Museum

The genre of material culture includes all artifacts that you can touch, hold, live in or eat. They are
tangible objects, with a physical presence intended for use either permanently or just at next meal.
Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects which have been created by hand for a specific
purpose. However folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as dreidels or Christmas
decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore due to their long (pre-industrial) history
and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside
mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across the generations and subject to the same
forces of conservative tradition and individual variation"[20] that are found in all folk artifacts. Of
interest to folklorists are their physical form, their method of manufacture or construction, their
pattern of use as well as the procurement of the raw materials.[23] The meaning to those who both
make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies is the complex
balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration.

Traditional highlanders' pins hand-made by a goldsmith in Podhale, Poland

In Europe before the Industrial Revolution everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of
the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became
literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes
were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and
transmitted in today's culture, so these handicrafts, possibly with a shift in purpose and meaning, can
still be found all around us. For there are many reasons to continue to hand make objects for use. It
could mean these skills are needed to repair manufactured items. Or perhaps a unique design is
wanted which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered to be simple
home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. Handicrafts have also become for many
an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Last but not least, handmade objects have taken on the sheen of
prestige, where extra time and thought is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is
valued.[24] For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives
of the craftsmen and the users, which is completely lacking in mass-produced items without
connection to an individual craftsman.[25] Regardless of the motivation for the handicraft, this is
folklore in action.
Many traditional crafts have been elevated to the fine or applied arts and taught in art schools, such
as ironworking and glass-making.[26] Or they are repurposed as folk art, characterized as objects in
which the decorative form supersedes its utilitarian needs. Folk art is found in hex signs on
Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays,
decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and
individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative
creation is featured."[27] This is in contrast to our understanding of folklore artifacts which are nurtured
and passed along in community.[note 4]
Many objects of material folklore, big and small, are challenging to classify, difficult to archive and
unwieldy to store. How do we preserve these bulky artifacts of material culture, and how do we use
them? That is the assigned task of museums. Toward this goal the concept of the Living history or
open-air museum has been developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century.
These museums are here to teach, not just display. Actors show how items were used, reenacting
everyday living by people from all segments of society. In order to achieve this, these museums rely
heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the
processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. These Living
history museums are now found throughout the United States and the world as part of a
thriving heritage industry. This is folklore in action.
This list represents just a small sampling of objects and skills which are included in studies of
material culture.

 Autograph books
 Bunad
 Embroidery
 Folk art
 Folk costume
 Folk medicines
 Food recipes and presentation
 Foodways
 Common Handicrafts
 Handmade toys
 Haystacks
 Hex signs
 Decorative ironworks
 Pottery
 Quilting
 Stone sculpting
 Tipis
 Traditional Fences
 Vernacular architecture
 Weathervanes
 Woodworking
Customs[edit]
Customary culture is remembered enactment, i.e. re-enactment. It is the patterns of expected
behavior within a group, the "traditional and expected way of doing things"[28][29] A custom can be
a single gesture, such as thumbs down or a handshake. It can also be a complex interaction of
multiple folk customs and artifacts as seen in a child's birthday party, including verbal lore (Happy
Birthday song), material lore (presents and a birthday cake), special games (Musical chairs) and
individual customs (making a wish as you blow out the candles). Each of these is a folklore artifact in
its own right, potentially worthy of investigation and cultural analysis. Together they combine to build
the custom of a birthday party celebration, a scripted combination of multiple artifacts which have
meaning within their social group.

Santa Claus giving gifts to children, a common folk practice associated with Christmas in Western nations

Folklorists divide customs into several different categories.[28] A custom can be a seasonal
celebration, such as Thanksgivingor New Year's. It can be a life cycle celebration for an
individual, such as baptism, birthday or wedding. A custom can also mark a community festival or
event; examples of this are Carnival in Cologne or Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This category also
includes the Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrated each summer on the Mall in Washington, DC.
A fourth category includes customs related to folk beliefs. Walking under a ladder is just one of
many symbols considered unlucky. Occupational groups tend to have a rich history of customs
related to their life and work, so the traditions of sailors or lumberjacks.[note 5] The area of ecclesiastical
folklore, which includes modes of worship not sanctioned by the established church[30] tends to be so
large and complex that it is usually treated as a specialized area of folk customs; it requires
considerable expertise in standard church ritual in order to adequately interpret folk customs and
beliefs that originated in official church practice.
Customary folklore is by definition folklore in action; it is always a performance, be it a single gesture
or a complex of scripted customs. Participating in the custom, either as performer or audience,
signifies acknowledgment of that social group. Some customary behavior is intended to be
performed and understood only within the group itself, so the handkerchief code sometimes used in
the gay community or the initiation rituals of the Freemasons. Other customs are designed
specifically to represent a social group to outsiders, those who do not belong to this group. The St.
Patrick's Day Parade in New York and in other communities across the continent is a single example
of an ethnic group parading their separateness (differential behavior[31]), and encouraging Americans
of all stripes to show alliance to this colorful ethnic group. Another multicolored social group, the Gay
Pride Movement, also parades in communities across the country to show the strength of their
culture and demonstrate for recognition of their group within the contemporary legal and social
systems.

Practitioners of hoodening, a folk custom found in Kent, southeastern England, in 1909

These festivals and parades, with a target audience of people who do not belong to the social group,
intersect with the interests and mission of public folklorists, who are engaged in the documentation,
preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folklife. With a swell in popular interest in folk
traditions, these community celebrations are becoming more numerous throughout the western
world. While ostensibly parading the diversity of their community, economic groups have discovered
that these folk parades and festivals are good for business. All shades of people are out on the
streets, eating, drinking and spending. This attracts support not only from the business community,
but also from federal and state organizations for these local street parties.[32] Paradoxically, in
parading diversity within the community, these events have come to authenticate true community,
where business interests ally with the varied (folk) social groups to promote the interests of the
community as a whole.
This is just a small sampling of types and examples of customary lore.

 Amish
 Barn raising
 Birthday
 Cakewalk
 Cat's cradle
 Christmas
 Crossed fingers
 Folk dance
 Folk drama
 Folk medicine
 Giving the finger
 Halloween
 Hoodening
 Gestures
 Groundhog Day
 Louisiana Creole people
 Mime
 Native Hawaiians
 Ouiji board
 Powwows
 Practical jokes
 St John's Eve
 Shakers
 Symbols
 Thanksgiving
 Thumbs down
 Trick or Treating
 Whaling
 Yo-yos
Childlore and games[edit]
Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560) shows five boys playing buck buck in the bottom right
hand corner of the painting.

Childlore is a distinct branch of folklore that deals with activities passed on by children to other
children, away from the influence or supervision of an adult.[33] Children's folklore contains artifacts
from all the standard folklore genres of verbal, material and customary lore; it is however the child-
to-child conduit that distinguishes these artifacts. For childhood is a social group where children
teach, learn and share their own traditions, flourishing in a street culture outside the purview of
adults. This is also ideally where it needs to be collected; as Iona and Peter Opie demonstrated in
their pioneering book Children's Games in Street and Playground.[16] Here the social group of
children is studied on its own terms, not as an derivative of adult social groups. It is shown that
the culture of children is quite distinctive; it is generally unnoticed by the sophisticated world of
adults, and quite as little affected by it.[34]