o Folklore – Fairy tales

Any traditional stories, proverbs or songs are Folklore. Folklore studies culture, its
rituals, traditions, and artifacts. A popular type of folklore is a fairy tale. Fairy tales are
not real and they are told by someone with a starting phrase like, ‘Once upon a time,
there was-‘. That takes you back to your childhood days.
Popular fairy tales include Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Tom Thumb, etc. These tales
have fictional characters, dragons, witches, spirits, elves as well as supernatural elements
like magic and some far-reaching powers, etc.

o Folklore – Tall Tales

Tall tales are those wherein you find the exaggeration, imaginary animals and humans
performing unbelievable things, and you will laugh at the end due to its humorous nature.
While some tall tales end with a moral. They are the basic element of American folk
literature, like storytelling.

o Folklore – Parables
Parables are the religious or moral stories. They can be written or told in a prose or verse
form, they are always found in a narrative form. There are no animal characters (which
show emotions) like we have in Fables, and parables describe a universal truth. Bible is
an example of parable.

o Folklore – Myth
Myths are sacred, so they’ve a deep meaning. These are the tales of origin of the world
and people. That’s why you will find gods and goddesses in Greek mythology. You will
find lots of adventure, magic, supernatural elements (creatures, giants) in them although
they lack scientific proof. Nature myth has stories of the stars and moon, weather, etc.
e.g. Zeus is the god of thunder, lightning. Do you believe in afterlife? Well Chinese,
Greek, Roman cultures had myths on rebirth, afterlife, and concepts of hell and heaven.

o Other types of folklore include fables (stories with moral), cumulative, trickster (stories
of god, goddess, man, spirit, or animal who disobeys normal rules and behavior), beliefs
(power that controls human beings), ghost stories, and legends (collection of ancient
religious stories of origin and human civilization such as story of Robin Hood), etc.

MYTHS ARE CERTAIN PRODUCTS OF THE IMAGINATION OF PEOPLE WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF STORIES.

MYTH IS A STORY ABOUT GODS, OTHER SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, OR HEROES OF A LONG PAST TIME.

MYTH IS A COGNITIVE STRUCTURE ANALOGOUS TO LANGUAGE THROUGH WHICH PRIMITIVE PEOPLE

ORGANIZE THEIR EXPERIENCES.

MYTH IS THE SYMBOLIC FORM WHICH IS GENERATED, SHAPED, AND TRANSMITTED BY THE CREATIVE
IMAGINATION OF PRE AND EXTRA- LOGICAL PEOPLE AS THEY RESPOND TO AND ENCAPSULATE THE
WEALTH OF EXPERIENCE.