Lore: A Closer Look

There are several different categories that lore and folklore fall into, based on how its recorded, mainly. People generally think of folklore as just stories told around a fire, or lore as old books, parchments, and scrolls from old kingdoms. There’s much more to it than just that. For one thing, there’s the euphemism describing one class, or study of folklore as being a “describable and transmissible entity”. This idea mainly circulates around how, usually the most popular religion of the time, i.e., Christianity, will look upon the religions as other cultures as myth, mythology, or folklore. Or even as devil worship, which is more often than not the case with Judeo-Christian tradition.

Another major class of folklore is that of artifact, –dolls, sculpture, handmade items for rituals, or clothing, for any specific religious or traditional purpose. These items are called “material folklore/culture”, because more often that not, certain items are imbued with significance that is specific to the ethnicity, and cultural beliefs of the society that makes such items. Such artifacts are “material folklore”, because many times they also tell their own stories as well, with carvings, painted pictures, or just left over clues from the use of the item itself, as a ceremonial tool of some sort.

Then there is the study of how folklore is created with an ethnicity’s own culture, and also their behaviour. Cultural folklore is the way a social ethnicity gradually builds up in its own religious, medical, scientific, distinctions from those among the rest of the world; everyone does these things differently. Behavioral folklore are basically acts of superstition, or festivity; weddings, childbirth, baptisms, festivals of different kinds. All these are part of the traditions of a society, and while America may not see a baptism or wedding as a type of folklore in  our country, we can meanwhile look at the same practices in other countries and call them folklore. Don’t worry, the double standard applies everywhere; they’re pointing back at this country as well.