Fantasy and Fairy Tale

FOLKLORE
Folklore, since the mid-nineteenth century, has been the collective name applied to sayings, verbal compositions, and social rituals that have been handed down solely, or at least primarily, by worth of mouth and by example rather than in written form. Folklore developed, and continues even now to flourish, in communities where few if any people can read or write. It includes legends, superstitions, songs, tables, proverbs, riddles, spells, and nursery rhymes; pseudoscientific lore about the weather, plants and animals; customary activities at births, marriages, and deaths; and traditional dances and forms of drama which are performed on holidays or at communal gatherings. *.+

The folktale, strictly defined, is a short narrative in prose of unknown authorship which has been transmitted orally. The term, however, is often extended to include stories invented by a known authorsuch as The Three Bears by Robert Southey (1774-83) and Parson Mason L. Weems story of George Washington and the cherry treewhich have been picked up and repeatedly narrated worth of mouth as well as in printed form. Folktales are found among peoples everywhere in the world. They include myths, fables, tales of heroes (whether historical like Johnny Appleseed, or legendary like Paul Bunyan), and fairy tales. Many so-called fairy tales (the German word Mrchen is frequently used for this type of folktale) are not stories of fairies but of various kinds of marvels; examples are Snow White and Jack and the Beanstalk. Another type of folk tale, the set joke, or comic (often bawdy) anecdote, is the most abundant and persistent of all; new jokes, or new versions of old jokes, continue to be a staple of contemporary social exchange, wherever people congregate in a relaxed mood. The same, or closely similar, oral stories have turned up in Europe, Asia and Africa, and have been embodied in the narratives of many writers.