Folklore, but different - a Research Roundup Ramble

Let’s talk about folklore. I know this is a myth blog, but as I’ve mentioned before, my view of myth is very much tied up with the other words for traditional stories, like folklore, legend, and fable. I think folklore is an interesting word to discuss in the way people think about it. On its surface, it’s the “lore” of the “folk” – the stories people say. Urban legends can sometimes be thrown into the world of folklore, and it can be difficult to sometimes parse through stories and what they potentially are: myth, legend or folklore.

Folklorist Alan Dundes urged folklorists to look beyond types of genres like these (folklore, legend, myth, fiction, etc.) and instead consider “folk ideas as a unit of worldview”. Basically, we should consider things as they come to us as conceptions and ideas that a people possess, and what this reflects in their understanding of the world around them.

So that’s what I want to do today. I want to stroll through some of the ideas that are complicating the field of folklore, and drawing attention away from written narratives and to lived experiences. From the explicit myth, to the implicit myth. From the verbal to the interpreted.

Jay Mechling is a good place to start for a couple of reasons, and they’ll probably come up a few times in this post. But Mechling started with the idea that folklore exists in the perception of it, rather than in something firmly present. Simon Bronner related this to play – how we can move between play and not play without anything incredibly firmly present. If I’m playing around with you, I don’t need to say “we’re playing around now” and then close it with “and now we’re done”. Rather, you pick up on the social shifts between play and not play and follow suit with that. Our joint understanding of play to not-play is in the perception between the two of us. For Mechling, this is kinda how folklore works.

Playing off this play-frame, Bronner describes a folkloric frame. Like the play frame, the folkloric frame is there to explore how folklore can be perceived and understood between different people. If, according to Dundes, the “folk” for folklore is “any group whatsoever”, then where folklore exists, and the ways folklore can be communicated, can be in new and interesting locations.

One way to think of this is that folklore can exist between humans and non-humans. When I’m playing with a dog, the dog understands the context of the play. Similarly, the dog also understands other aspects of my body language, and can read it and communicate back with me through their own body language. In a sense, these subtle ways of communicating can be between myself – a human – and the dog – a non-human. Mechling also brings up how folklore can be a solitary act, drawing on ideas of fantasy frames and interactions of the self with the self.

Then there’s the conversation around the field called “Bodylore” – a combination of explorations of folklore with the body. Coined by Katherine Young, Bodylore understands the body’s ability to be “read” like a textual folklore/myth.

Culture is inscribed on our bodies, but bodies are also an active part in communicating that same culture or society. Our bodies, therefore, are part of a cyclical nature of culture construction and communication. Mary Douglas described our body as generating “natural symbols”. Basically, our bodies are the boundary between our personal selves and the world around us. It communicates the differences between our bodies, and also the differences between our bodies and the world around us. Learning to read a body is part of cultural communication and literacy. As we grow in a society, we understand ways of reading the body, conveying meanings from bodily modifications (such as tattooing and piercing), clothing, adornments such as jewellery, and even in the way we move our bodies, or position them in relation to the other bodies around us.

One other alternative folklore piece I want to mention are photos. Another Jay Mechling mention here, because Mechling did some work with snapshots of hunters, exploring how these photos are part of a folk performance. Photos can communicate aspects of tradition, activities and bodies that we can read and learn from when it comes to folklore and myth.

I wanted to take some time today to complicate ideas of folklore – showing how folklore itself can be something very different than we think of. It’s not just what we think of as older narratives that have slowly died out, or even the urban legends that spread in whispers of “did you hear…”. It’s also in the way we carry our bodies, or the way we get dressed in the morning. It’s in the photos we take, and the way we share these photos between loved ones and on Instagram. It’s the way we engage and communicate with the world around us, including our animal companions. And it’s even the way we spend time with ourselves. We are folk, and therefore our communications, traditions and interactions are part of our folk culture, even if no one else is around to see it.