WHO ARE THE FOLKS AND WHAT ARE THEIR TALES?
..................................grades 4-up

 

Before I tell you about folktales, I have to tell you who “folks” are and  why their “tales” are so special.

 Folks or folk, is another way of saying “people." The word folk usually refers to the common or regular people who are
not kings or queens or other special types of people.

Tales  or tale, is another way of saying “story.”

  Folktales are “people stories.”

 

They are the stories people love to tell to each other.

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Some folktales are very old.
They are usually short stories.
People have been telling these stories for a very long time.

The grown-ups tell these stories to each other.
They tell the stories to their children.
The children remember the stories.
The children grow up.
They can now tell the stories to each other, and their children as well.

 We say that the folktales are  passed down “from one generation to another.”

That means that the folktales are passed down by older people to younger people.  The younger people grow older, and they, in turn, pass the stories down to  the younger people.

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   At the beginning, folktales were "telling stories."The stories were not written down. We call "telling stories" ORAL stories.

Through the years, some of the folktales had some changes."Sometimes, something was added to the tale. Sometimes , something was taken out.

However, most of the time, the PLOT of the story stayed the same.The plot of  the story is the main part of the story.

The plot of the story is what the story is mostly about.  

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Some folktales are so old, no one knows who made them up  at the beginning.

People just kept telling them through the generations.

Sometimes a person or some people decided to write down some of the oral folktales.

These people were "collectors" of folktales. The Grimm brothers in Germany are examples of "collectors" of folktales. Joseph Jacobs collected many stories in England.

 

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An author of a story is the person who makes up a story.  There are some stories that we think of as folktales,but the story or stories can be traced to an author. We can then say that this story is NOT  a folktale at all. Since they are written in a folktale style these stories are sometimes grouped with folktales.
In addition, it is  not always certain whether these authors made up the idea for the stories by themselves, or, whether they based the stories they wrote on older folktales.

An example of this type of story is "Beauty  and the Beast."We know that an author named Madame de Beaumont who lived in France in l750, wrote this story.Some people think that  she might have gotten the idea for the story from two folktales, one from the Scandinavian countries, and one from GermanyOther people think that she got her idea for " Beauty and the Beast"from another story written earlier by a woman named Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve. Madame de Villeneuve also lived in France.

There are many types of folktales.

You can read about these different types of folktales in on
the folktale type link.

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 There  could be  many versions of  the same folktale.
A version of a story is the way the story is told.
One version of a story could be different from another version of the same story in some way.

Sometimes, something is added to the story.    
Sometimes, something is taken away from the story.
Sometimes, just the wording is different.

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People in different countries have their own folktales.

People in special groups within a country could have their own folktales too.

The most important thing to remember, is that the people in the group or country who tell a particular folktale belong to the same culture.

People in the same culture OWN their folktales.

The culture of people is the way of life of these people.
 

The culture is the way people live and think within their own  groups in their own countries.

The people have the many of the  same or  similar interests.

           . Similar means "almost the same."
         .....The people have the same or a similar ways of doing things.

They usually share the same customs and traditions.

      Customs  means the way people in a group live and
....... do things.
                    What foods people eat at certain times, could be an example of a
..........custom.

           Traditions are customs that have lasted for a long time.

.The words CUSTOMS and TRADITION have very similar meaning.

Most importantly, people who share the same folktales see themselves  as part of their group, sharing the same customs of their group.

We say that they IDENTIFY with that group.

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There are many reasons why folktales came about.

--FOLKTALES WERE OFTEN A FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment  means the activities that people do to have a good time. These activities are usually done in the times when they are not working.

Entertainment for children are usually  activities children do when the  are at recess in school,  when they are not in school, and not doing their homework .

A long time ago there were no televisions, movies, computers, video games or other forms of fun that we have today. Most people never learned to read or write.

Storytellers would go from place to place and tell folktales. Sometimes, storytellers would sing their folktale stories.

This was fun for people who were poor and worked very hard.

 

--FOLKTALES COULD TEACH GOOD VALUES

Parents wanted to teach good values such as honesty, kindness, hard work, courage, generosity and other good ..values to their children. Sometimes these people taught good values because of religious beliefs or superstititious fears.

.Since most poorer children did not go to school they did not..know how to read or write. Neither did their parents. Listening.to folktales was a good way of learning good values. In many folktales, good deeds were rewearded while bad deeds were punished.      

   

 .....For example:

The European Folktale, "THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER" is the story of a poor shoemaker and the little elves who helped them earn enough money make a small income.   In return, the elves were rewarded by the shoemaker and his wife with new  clothes. THE STORY TEACHES ABOUT KINDNESS.

The African folktale, "MR. MINNO," tells about a man who was not ..happy because he was poor and had few things of his own. He ...learns to be satisfied with what he has.

 

             

      Many of the people who told these stories were very poor.
.......They lived hard lives. They knew that their children could
....... not hope for a .better life.

    .. Folktales allowed people to dream of having better lives.

.......When they listened to folktales they could pretend that
.......anything was possible.

In many European folktales, for example, a common idea  was for a poor farmer's son   who was  honest, brave, and smart, would end up marrying the beautiful  princess.

        THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE.
       But people like to pretend that it could happen as they .
........listened to the folktales.

Many countries have stories in which a little character (often an animal) would outsmart a bigger animal. These are known as "Trickster Tales."
It made poor people feel important. It made them pretend that there
was a way out of their poverty. There are many African Folktales which are Trickster Tales, such as the stories about Anansi the Spider and Tricksy Rabbit.
....

..--EXPLANATIONS ABOUT LIFE

For many people, life was scary. There was disease, famine (not enough .....food) and wars. There were natural disasters such as floods, droughts and storms.
.....

There were few scientific explanations as to why things happened in the .natural world. And the few explanations that did exist were hard for these uneducated people to understand.
.

Religion provided some of the answers. Some folktales, called Explanatory ...Tales or Myths also explained the natural world.

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What is a folktale?

        1. A  folktale is usually a short story.
            Sometimes the story is very short.

        2. Folktales were "telling stories" at the beginning.
            Collectors of folktales wrote them down.

        3. Parts of some folktales have changed a little bit , over
            time.

        4. A folktale is a story that is part of the culture of a group of 
            people who share that culture.

The culture of a group of people is their way of living; that is, HOW THEY DO THINGS. These people share customs which could be traditions.

       5. A folktale is a story that is passed down from one
           generation to the next generation.
........The folktale lasts a long time because it is usually a good
          story that many people enjoy.

         

      6. We usually do not know who first told the story.
          But we may know the country or group of origin.

         The  origin  means the beginning.
          When we talk about the origin of a folktale, we talk about
          where that folktale came from , to start with.

          Usually, that folktale remains part of the culture of origin.

      7. Folktales may have many versions.

        When someone writes his or her own version of the folktale, we 
          say that he or she is doing a "retelling" of the folktale.

          Sometimes books will say, "retold by..." Then the name of the    
          person who did the  retelling of the story in that version
          is  written down after the words "retold by..."

             For example:

             At the end of the link there is a folktale  which comes from
             England.  I did a "retelling" of the story.

             So it will say:  THE LITTLE RED HEN retold by Suzie-Jean

    8. Versions of a folktale might be told as a folktale in more than one country or by people in more than one group of  people.

       This happens because people who  traveled, brought their
       stories with them to other places.  They tell people in other places
       their stories. Often the people in that other place make the story part of
.......their own culture.

            For example: 

             There are many versions of the European folktale, Cinderella.
             These versions not only appear in Europe, but in other parts
             of the world.