Folklore and Oral Tradition

Abstract

Whereas some of the cultural models for folklore are of a relatively constant nature, performing situation and variation are characteristically unstable features of oral tradition. There is no definition of folklore that would cover the whole discipline. Folklore in its oral and traditional form is in most cases transmitted orally and serves as shared tradition-based creations of a cultural community. I would not include public sector or applied folklore within this concept of oral tradition: the manifestations of applied folklore include folk festivals, various folk song and dance ensembles, or folklore festivals held all over the world. Applied folklore does not have the status of folklore proper. The Folklore Archive of the Finnish Literature Society has used an inventory or classification system based on the division of folklore into loosely defined genre groups. This system is particularly applicable to manuscript materials (older material in archives) and is still in use. It should be stressed that this system was created on the basis of Finnish folk material and therefore includes non-universal, national categories. But it was augmented as researchers in folk traditions turned their attention toward new materials and subject areas. The bulk of early collecting efforts was concentrated solely on ancient oral (folk) poetry in the Kalevala meter; gradually interests broadened to include Marchen (tales) as well, and the first half of the twentieth century saw the gradual inclusion of legends, rhymed folksongs, proverbs, and so forth. In time, the system covered the bulk of Finnish agrarian oral culture. For the sake of clarity, the following sketch of contents has been slightly simplified.