Folklore Rules

by Lynne S. McNeill

  Variation also implies another important marker of folklore: there has to be more than one version of something in order for it to vary. So in order to identify something as folklore, we have to find it in more than one place. Let’s say that you write down a story in your secret journal that you never let anyone read. Even if it sounds like a folktale (with princesses and witches and fairy godmothers and magic mirrors) or sounds like an urban legend (with hook-handed maniacs and persecuted babysitters), it’s not folklore until it’s been passed along. Remember, identifying folklore is all about identifying how it travels; if it hasn’t traveled at all, then it’s simply not folklore.13 In fact, if it hasn’t been shared, it’s simply not “folk”—remember, “folk” implies “culture,” which implies “group,” not a single person. This is why we so often call folklore “traditional”—it gets passed on from person to person, leaving multiple versions in its wake.

  This isn’t exactly the way that most people use the word traditional.14 Sure, the idea that traditional means “passed on” makes sense given the fact that we commonly think of traditions as coming to us from the past. A meal you’ve prepared is traditional if your great-grandparents cooked it, too. A holiday custom is traditional if that’s the way it was done in the old country. A ballad is traditional if it was composed thousands of years ago. In the study of folklore, however, it’s important to note that calling something “traditional” doesn’t mean it’s “old.” A brand-new legend or rumor can be passed along via e-mail to thousands of people in just a few days—and that’s still traditional. Traditional simply means passed on, whether that’s over many generations or over just a few days, resulting in the same expressive form cropping up in multiple places.

  Let’s put these two ideas together. Folk transmission is informal, and so one identifier of folklore is variation. And folklore is traditional, so another identifier of folklore is that it’s passed on.

  At long last we have boiled it down to some basic rules we can follow when identifying folklore: folklore is informal (meaning variable) and traditional (meaning passed on). Folklorist Barre Toelken used the words “dynamic” and “conservative” to express the same idea.15 Dynamic means variable; conservative means traditional. If we were to watch a piece of folklore travel through a population, we would be able to identify the dynamic elements as the details that change with each new telling, that reflect the unique contexts in which the folklore is shared. We would be able to identify the conservative elements as the parts that stay the same, that tell us we’re still looking at the “same” piece of folklore, despite the variation. To identify a cultural form—a story, joke, custom, or anything, really—as folklore, we want to seek these two basic qualities: it’s folklore if it’s passed on via person-to-person transmission, creating multiple versions in which we recognize conservative elements (that is, it’s traditional), and if those multiple versions are dynamic and variable, with details changing to fit new contexts and new tellers, so that there’s no single right version (that is, it’s informal).

  So finally, many pages later, we have reached our answer: folklore is informal, traditional culture. Those three words are our short­hand for the whole general mish-mash of what folklore is. In those three words we are reminded of the importance of both halves of the word folklore: without the folk (people sharing an informal culture) we wouldn’t have dynamic variation, and without the lore (the stories, beliefs, and customs), we wouldn’t have anything to pass on traditionally. It’s a big concept in a small package.

  So What?

  The definition of folklore as “informal traditional culture” is much broader than many people initially expect, and it also helps to work against the common misperception that folklore has to be old (and rural, backward, and untrue). For a long time, back when folklorists thought the “folk” were peasants, folklorists thought that all folklore was slowly disappearing from the world as peasant populations were becoming more educated and economically independent. The conception of folklore as informal traditional culture, however, highlights that folklore is always coming into and falling out of use. A particular item of folklore may indeed disappear if it’s no longer relevant to people’s lives, but folklore on the whole will never disappear—we’ll always have informal, traditional aspects to our cultural lives.16

  This is a pretty uplifting message, if you think about it. We’ve got a lot going on in the realm of culture these days—globalization, McDonaldization, homogenization, digitization, depersonalization—lots of -izations that make people worry about the cultural, expressive, and interpersonal future of the human race. To be sure, folklore isn’t all butterflies and rainbows—it includes racist, sexist, xenophobic, and vulgar content as often as not17—but the continued existence of folklore does have some good news to offer. Even if some aspects of our society are homogenizing, or even if some aspects of our interpersonal communication are being stripped of spontaneity and individuality, there’s always going to be a folk realm where shared, emergent, discursive, and expressive culture is growing and developing. Even in the most dry and scripted of corporate environments, folk culture exists—always has, always will. And studying it will help us gain a more balanced understanding of life, the universe, and everything.

  Now, I realize that those are some big claims for a little discipline, but I stand by them. The study of a group’s folklore can often reveal the heart and soul of that group in a way that focusing on other aspects can’t. Folklorists have long noted what they call the “triviality barrier”18 in the field of folklore studies. Because people’s own folklore is so common, so familiar, so everyday, many people feel that it’s not worth studying. Now, if we look to the folklore of other cultures, it may indeed seem exotic and strange, but it’s important to remember that folklore isn’t defined by being exotic and strange; it only looks that way from the outside. To the people who grew up in that other culture, that same exotic and strange folklore appears mundane and familiar.

  But there’s a strong argument to be made in favor of studying the mundane, the familiar, and the trivial, and we can see it when we look at the root of the word trivia.19 It comes to us from the Latin trivium, which means “three roads” or, specifically, the spot where three roads come together. Like this:

  Fig. 1.4

  Now, let’s say you were going to build a marketplace for people from towns A, B, and C to visit. Where is the most likely place to put that market? At the trivium, of course, the place that is most relevant to all three of those populations. Seeking cultural understanding is a similar endeavor. If we want to understand a group of people—not individuals, but the group as a whole—we need to look at the things they share, the places where their lives intersect, rather than at the things that distinguish them. In other words, we can learn a lot about the Irish people by reading the works of James Joyce, as he was an insightful man who had a way with words, but when we read his books, we’re also learning a whole lot about James Joyce as an individual. If we look to the folklore—the customs, stories, beliefs, and so on—that’s been shared, promoted, and shaped by the Irish people as a whole, we’re going to have a much better understanding of that group.20 The commonness of folklore is exactly what makes it so important as a subject of cultural study.

  So, what are we left with, here? Are you ready to show up at a party and field the “What is folklore?” question that inevitably arises when you reveal that you’re taking a folklore class? It’s okay if the answer is no—any folklore grad student can tell you that it sometimes takes years to get to a point where you’re comfortable explaining the discipline to others on the fly. For now, here’s a helpful script. You can carry it around with you to read to people when they ask.21

  Folklore is informal, traditional culture. It’s all the cultural stuff—customs, stories, jokes, art—that we learn from each other, by word of mouth or observation, rather than through formal institutions like school or the media. Just as literature majors study novels and poems
or art historians study classic works of art, folklorists focus on the informal and traditional stuff, like urban legends and latrinalia.

  Want to Know More?

  Barre Toelken, The Dynamics of Folklore (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996).

  Toelken presents a readable and informative introduction to the study of folklore, offering lots of case studies that allow for learning about the traditions themselves as well as how to approach and analyze them. Examples from Toelken’s experiences with the Navajo culture make this a great book for anyone interested in Native American culture.

  Martha Sims and Martine Stephens, Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005).

  This book covers a lot of those complex, ambiguous, theoretical ideas of the field and presents them in a way that helps them make sense. It doesn’t skimp on the detail, making it an excellent choice if you’re looking to go beyond a basic introduction to folklore.

  Alan Dundes, The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1965).

  And oldie but goodie. Dundes has influenced several generations of folklorists with his straightforward assertions about the field, and while any of his works come with a touch of his favorite method of analysis—psychoanalysis—his ability to encompass the subject of folklore clearly and concisely can’t be beat.

  Elliott Oring, Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1986).

  Oring brings together a number of folklorists, each of whom provides a chapter on his or her own area of expertise, while Oring himself introduces the subject nicely, highlighting the need for identification of the common denominators that unite all things folk. There is a reader that accompanies this text for those who want even more elaboration and backstory on the concepts at hand.

  Notes

  1. On August 22, no less, which I declare to be International Folklore Day from now on. William Thoms, “Folklore and the Origin of the Word,” in International Folkloristics, ed. Alan Dundes (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 9–14. Return to text.

  2. It’s a bit confusing, but “folklore” is both the name of the academic field and the stuff that people in that field study. There have been many debates over the years about changing the name to something more scholarly and impressive (like “cultural studies” or “verbal art” or “ethnology”), but folklore just seems to stick. Occasionally you’ll see the phrase “folklore studies,” which this book uses, or “folkloristics,” which folklorists use when they want to seem more impressive. Return to text.

  3. There’s actually a technical term for bathroom graffiti: latrinalia. It’s a fun idea to try to work this word into as many college essays as possible. Return to text.

  4. Interestingly, many of the most famous definitions of folklore can be boiled down to this two-part concept. Possibly the most commonly taught definition of folklore is Dan Ben-Amos’s “artistic communication in small groups,” and we can see that “artistic communication” is basically “lore” and “small groups” is basically the “folk.” Dan Ben-Amos, “Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context,” Journal of American Folklore 84 (January–March 1971): 3–15. Return to text.

  5. Ward Goodenough, Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics, Report of the Seventh Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study, ed. Paul L. Garvin, Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 9 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1957). Return to text.

  6. Alan Dundes, The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1965), 2. Return to text.

  7. Or even just two members: think about all the inside jokes and coded words that couples or siblings share—nicknames, single words that reference entire experiences, coded gestures to let the other person know you need to be rescued from an awkward conversation at a party, etc. Return to text.

  8. I should point out that the word “informal” here doesn’t mean “casual” or “laid-back” “unimportant,” it simply means that it’s not dictated by an institution. Return to text.

  9. I don’t want to encourage the misperception that folklore is only stories, or narrative forms, here, but it’s helpful at this point to have a single, familiar example to consider. There are a lot more forms of folklore than just stories, including some entirely nonverbal forms of folklore like hand gestures and material objects; if you find that the ideas in the upcoming section make sense with the story example, consider trying them out with a folk gesture or folk custom example. Return to text.

  10. Even more interesting is the situation in which I tell a joke poorly, and you turn around and tell it the right way. Because folklore is variable, it can be self-correcting—we don’t have to live with unsuccessful versions of folklore, we just make them better as we pass them on! Return to text.

  11. With some forms of folklore, especially folk songs, the original author is sometimes known, or at least can be discovered through research, but in the folk process that identification is often stripped out quickly. Return to text.

  12. Again, this just means noninstitutionally dictated. Calling folk culture “informal” doesn’t mean that folklore is necessarily casual or insignificant or unimportant. It simply means that folklore isn’t distributed via a publishing house or protected by copyright or enforced by the government, and thus is free to evolve, adapt, and be adjusted to different tellers and audiences. Return to text.

  13. Yet. It may certainly become folklore later, if it eventually gets passed around a lot. Return to text.

  14. Get used to this: folklorists love to use familiar words in specialized ways. Return to text.

  15. Barre Toelken, The Dynamics of Folklore (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996). Return to text.

  16. Just a quick note on the grammar of folklore: “folklore” is a mass noun, not a count noun. What does that mean? It means that grammatically, “folklore” is the same as “butter” or “milk” or any other (dairy or nondairy) noun that isn’t by itself countable. For example, you wouldn’t say, “I have five butters”; you’d say, “I have five pats of butter.” You wouldn’t say, “I drank three milks”; you’d say, “I drank three glasses of milk.” This is because pats and glasses are count nouns, while butter and milk are mass nouns. Similarly, you would never say, “I collected seven folklores today”; you’d say, “I collected seven pieces of folklore today” or simply, “I collected seven legends today.” In addition, “folklore” isn’t an adjective; “folk” is. So if you want to explain that a story you’ve discovered exhibits the qualities of folklore, you’d say that it’s a “folk story,” not a “folklore story.” You have no idea how many people make these mistakes, and you have no idea how silly they sound to folklorists when they do. Don’t make these mistakes. Don’t sound silly. Return to text.

  17. Many folklore course syllabi include some kind of warning about this: folklore reveals a culture as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Ignoring the unpleasant parts leaves us with an incomplete and less than useful understanding. The study of folklore can lead to some surprisingly explicit discussions, so it’s good to be prepared. I doubt your instructors will expect you to enjoy or approve of it, but any folklore student should be prepared to consider disturbing or questionable content academically. Return to text.

  18. Brian Sutton-Smith used this term to talk about the scholarly disregard for children’s folklore in particular. “Psychology of Childlore: The Triviality Barrier,” Western Folklore 29 (January 1970): 1–8. Return to text.

  19. Elliott Oring describes this in detail in his book Just Folklore (Long Beach, CA: Cantilever, 2012), chapter 18. Return to text.

  20. And this, of course, goes for any group we might want to understand better: ethnicities, families, occupations, friend circles, political parties, anyone. There’s even a recent interest in studying the folklore of corporations and office workers as a beneficial human resources practice. Return to text.

&nb
sp; 21. I used to do this. Seriously, it helps. Return to text.

  Chapter 2

  *

  What Do Folklorists Do?

  So, now you know what folklore is.1 Pretty neat, huh? There’s one more basic question to answer, though, before we start getting into some examples of folklore, and that’s what, exactly, do folklorists do when they study folklore? Just as many people have a vague and often incomplete sense of what folklore is, many people are similarly unclear as to what the work of a folklorist entails. It’s important to know, though, especially if you decide to major in it and have to justify not getting a business degree to your family and friends.

  Let me speak from experience: It’s pretty common that at parties and gatherings, when people learn I’m a folklorist, someone will turn to me and say, “Tell us a story!” Ask any folklorist—I guarantee that this has happened at least once to all of us. Since people apparently have some idea that folklore and storytelling go hand in hand, it makes sense that a professional folklorist would be good at telling stories, right?

  Well, to be honest, while I certainly do participate in my fair share of folk culture (as do we all), I’m not a particularly captivating storyteller when put on the spot. I, like a lot of people, don’t have a repertoire of rehearsed stories at my immediate disposal that would really be what the “Tell us a story!” crowd is looking for. There are certainly a lot of folklorists who are great storytellers, but studying folklore doesn’t make you one.