Folklore 

consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and

customs that are the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of
practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes
called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William
Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal in 1846. In usage, there is a continuum
between folklore and mythology. Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of
both folklore and mythology, providing an outline into which new motifs can be placed, and
scholars can keep track of all older motifs.
Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and
transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand
alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these
areas.
A myth is a sacred narrative that validates a religious system. Normally, myth transpires outside
or before human time. Mythic events within human history are often termed legends. Origin
myths concern the origins of the world, and explain how the world and the creatures in it came
to have their present form, whereas founding myths (Greek aition) are the etiological myths
that explain and justify the origins of a ritual or the founding of a city. A political myth can
represent a particular interpretation of a historical experience or policy, or some acknowledged
historical antecedents, invoked in the present to justify a certain policy.

A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived

both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities
that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants includes no
happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of
parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within
the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be
transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic.

The Brothers Grimm defined legend as folktale historically grounded. A modern folklorist's

professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:

Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified historicized

narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic
representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of
commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs."

CUBILLAS, ANDRIAN JIM T. LIT 101 Page 1