Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also encompasses customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas, weddings, folk dances, and initiation rites.
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of folktales, popularizing stories such as "Cinderella", "The Frog Prince", "Hansel and Gretel", "Town Musicians of Bremen", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Snow White". Their first collection of folktales, Children's and Household Tales, began publication in 1812.
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, monarchy, pixies, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures, a form of spirit, often with metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities.
The Sleeping Beauty Quartet is a series of four novels written by American author Anne Rice under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure. The quartet comprises The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, Beauty's Release, and Beauty's Kingdom, first published individually in 1983, 1984, 1985, and 2015, respectively, in the United States. They are erotic BDSM novels set in a medieval fantasy world, loosely based on the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. The novels describe explicit sexual adventures of the female protagonist Beauty and the male characters Alexi, Tristan, and Laurent, featuring both maledom and femdom scenarios amid vivid imageries of bisexuality, homosexuality, ephebophilia, and pony play.
"Jack the Giant Killer" is a Cornish fairy tale and legend about a young adult who slays a number of bad giants during King Arthur's reign. The tale is characterised by violence, gore and blood-letting. Giants are prominent in Cornish folklore, Breton mythology and Welsh Bardic lore. Some parallels to elements and incidents in Norse mythology have been detected in the tale, and the trappings of Jack's last adventure with the Giant Galigantus suggest parallels with French and Breton fairy tales such as Bluebeard. Jack's belt is similar to the belt in "The Valiant Little Tailor", and his magical sword, shoes, cap, and cloak are similar to those owned by Tom Thumb or those found in Welsh and Norse mythology.
A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found throughout much of European folklore. A changeling was a substitute left by a supernatural being when kidnapping a human being. Sometimes the changeling was a 'stock', more often the changeling was a supernatural being made magically to look like the kidnapped human.
Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born psychologist, scholar, public intellectual and writer who spent most of his academic and clinical career in the United States. An early writer on autism, Bettelheim's work focused on the education of emotionally disturbed children, as well as Freudian psychology more generally. In the U.S., he later gained a position as professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children, and after 1973 taught at Stanford University.
Folklore studies is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. It became established as a field across both Europe and North America, coordinating with Volkskunde (German), folkeminner (Norwegian), and folkminnen (Swedish), among others.
An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment, or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung, or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremonial rituals or prayers. In the world of magic, wizards, witches, and fairies are common performers of incantations in culture and folklore.
The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally published in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910), the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson, and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU index is an essential tool for folklorists, used along with the Thompson (1932)Motif-Index of Folk-Literature.
"Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a 19th-century English fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of an impudent old woman who enters the forest home of three anthropomorphic bachelor bears while they are away. She eats some of their porridge, sits down on one of their chairs, breaks it, and sleeps in one of their beds. When the bears return and discover her, she wakes up, jumps out of the window, and is never seen again. The second version replaces the old woman with a young, naive, blonde-haired girl named Goldilocks, and the third and by far best-known version replaces the bachelor trio with a family of three. The story has elicited various interpretations and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is one of the most popular fairy tales in the English language.
"The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" or "The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear" is a German folktale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tale was also included by Andrew Lang in The Blue Fairy Book (1889).
The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, also known simply as the Orthogenic School or informally as the O-School, is a therapeutic day school for children and adolescents typically classified as emotionally challenged. The O-School specializes in the treatment of youth and help them with their behavioral and emotional problems. The school is located adjacent to the campus of the University of Chicago (UC). The school works with many schools and universities, and has affiliation with several Chicago area schools including the Family Institute at Northwestern University, the School of Social Service Administration of the UC, and the Jane Addams School of Social Work of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Romani folklore encompasses the folktales, myths, oral traditions, and legends of the Romani people. The Romani were nomadic when they departed India during the Middle Ages. They migrated widely, particularly to Europe, while other groups stayed and became sedentary. Some legends say that certain Romani have passive psychic powers such as empathy, precognition, retrocognition, or psychometry. Other legends include the ability to levitate, travel through astral projection by way of meditation, invoke curses or blessings, conjure or channel spirits, and skill with illusion-casting. The Roma from Slavic countries believe in werewolves. Romani chovihanis often use a variety of herbs and amulets for protection. Garlic is a popular herb used by the Roma.
Seelie is a term for fairies in Scottish folklore, appearing in the form of seely wights or The Seelie Court. The Northern and Middle English word seely, and the Scots form seilie, mean "happy", "lucky" or "blessed." Despite their name, the seelie folk of legend could be morally ambivalent and dangerous. Calling them "seelie," similar to names such as "good neighbors," may have been a euphemism to ward off their anger.
Traditional stories, or stories about traditions, differ from both fiction and nonfiction in that the importance of transmitting the story's worldview is generally understood to transcend an immediate need to establish its categorization as imaginary or factual. In the academic circles of literature, religion, history, and anthropology, categories of traditional story are important terminology to identify and interpret stories more precisely. Some stories belong in multiple categories and some stories do not fit into any category.
"Puss in Boots" is a European fairy tale about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand in marriage of a princess for his penniless and low-born master.
The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature is a six volume catalogue of motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson. Often referred to as Thompson's motif-index, the catalogue has been extensively used in folklore studies, where folklorists commonly use it in tandem with the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU), an index used for folktale type analysis.
Dombey and Son, published in 1848, draws from popular literature influenced by folklore, contemporary melodramas, and traditional pantomime. It incorporates numerous songs, particularly those celebrating maritime themes, as well as elements from fairy tales and ancient myths, such as those of Argus and the Cyclops.
