Chapter I

1. Folklore

Folklore is the popular heritage of a group joined together by common interests. It includes legends, songs, tales, beliefs, common ways of speaking, jests, games, homely wisdom, festivals,dances, music, dances, crafts, customs, crafts, folk arts, etc. [Folklore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore ]

Folklore divided into four areas of study: artifact, describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas don't stand alone, but, as often a particular item or element can fit into more than one of these areas. [1, p.8]

Folklore is the term which was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He wanted to replace the phrase «Popular Antiquities, or Popular Literature». Nearly a century earlier, Bishop Thomas Persy had popularized the collecting of English and Scottish ballads; and in 1812-15 Grimm brothers in Germany issued their epoch-making book of children’s household tales. In America Professor Francis J. Child, of Harvard, published his scholarly edition of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads from 1882 to 1898 [16, p. 2-3]

American folklore studied were fixed by the appearance in 1888 of the Journal of American Folklore as the official organ of the American scholars, amateur collectors, popular entertainers, and creative artists. [9, p. 89]

It tells us, then, folklore may be defined as those materials in culture which circulate traditionally among members of any group in different versions, whether in oral form or by means of customary example, as well as the processes of traditional performance and communication [1, p. 24]

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Although oral or customary tradition and the presence of different versions serve to define folklore, the two other qualities, anonymity and formularization, are important enough to belong in a complete description. Folklore is usually anonymous simply because authors' names are seldom part of texts that are orally transmitted and folk artifacts are seldom signed, but sometimes a ballad may contain the unreal name or initials of its composer in the last verse and sometimes local tradition preserves the name of a notable folk composer or artisan. On occasion, too, research has unearthed the identity of a creator of folklore, but the most of folklore bears no trace of its authorship, and even the time and place of its origin may be a mystery.

The folklore was connected with national a life. Various purpose of works generated genres, with their various subjects, images, style. In the most ancient period the majority of the people had patrimonial legends, labor and ceremonial songs, mythological stories, plots. Emergence of the fairy tale divided folklore and mythology. In ancient and medieval society was formed a heroic epos. There were also legends and the songs reflecting religious beliefs.

In spite the bright national coloring of the folklore texts, many motives, images and even plots at the different nation are similar. So, comparative studying of plots of the European folklore led scientists to a conclusion that about two thirds of plots of fairy tales of each nation have parallels in fairy tales of other nationalities.

The folklore can contain religious mythic or religious elements, it equally concerns itself with the sometimes ordinary traditions of everyday life [ Folklore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore]. Folklore often ties the practical and the esoteric into one narrative package. It has frequently been conflated with mythology, and vice versa, because it has been assumed that any figurative story that does not pertain to the dominant beliefs of the time is not of the same status as those dominant beliefs. Thus, Roman religion is called "myth" by today's dominant religions.So both "myth" and "folklore" have become universal terms for all figurative narratives which don't correspond with the dominant belief structure [Folklore: http://www.answers.com/topic/folklore-1 ].