You Go, Hugh Jackman!

I'm usually a fan of the laid-back response--don't sweat the small stuff (I'm not saying I do this, by the way; just that I'm a fan of it). However, I completely and totally applaud Jackman's reaction:

Hugh Jackman Chides Cellphone Offender

One of the things that amazes me as a college instructor is the number of students who have no idea how to behave in a professional or even semi-professional environment. I really push my students to take care of business (bathroom, throwing out trash, checking messages) before class begins. However, I accept that sometimes there are emergencies (bathroom-wise, that is; as far as I'm concerned, there are precious few messages that can't wait fifty minutes to be checked).

What amazes me is how many students I have had to pull aside to say, "You really need to wait until I finish talking to get up to throw away your trash." The other day, I had just begun class; I was explaining a rhetorical mode and was about to introduce a video clip. A student in the front row got up and got ready to walk directly in front of me.

I stopped (first time I've done this; I usually wait and talk to the student privately) and said in a non-angry voice, "Hey, can you wait till I finish?"

The class laughed. The student stopped, startled, and said, "Okay" and went back to his seat.

I was pleased, but I was amazed that it happened at all. The rules I enforce are fairly basic--nothing extreme or ultra business-professional. And yet, there are a substantial number of students who don't seem to know that it's rude to walk in front of an instructor or classmate while that person is speaking, it's rude (and stupid) to leave the room while the instructor is explaining an assignment (wait until an opportune moment, people!), and it's rude to interrupt the teacher (wait until she's done talking!). It isn't even that the students are trying to push my buttons (that does happen). They honestly don't seem to know!

They are also, I'm sorry to say, on elementary school/high school potty time. I've never known so many people who couldn't hold it for two or ten or twenty or fifty minutes. I'VE GOT TO GO NOW is their mantra. Sometimes, this is because they are checking their cellphones in the bathroom, but a number of male students seem to have this "I'm bored, I think I'll go pee" bodily reaction to just about any occasion. If I wasn't such a stickler, I swear I'd have ten boys going pee about seven times each in a single fifty minute class.

So, kudos to Jackman!

(In defense of the current youthful generation, I need to state that "substantial" is about three to four students per class--of twenty-odd--so the majority of them know how to behave; however, the twenty percent still throw me.)

Translation Problems

In my continuing effort to learn at least one other language, I've begun watching Lois & Clark with the French subtitles on. I can read French at a third grade level (I never really hope to speak it), and my vocabulary needs some serious expansion.

While watching Lois & Clark with French subtitles, I encountered an interesting translation problem. At the end of an episode in Season 1, Lois and Clark have an argument. Basically, Clark is trying to persuade Lois that they can work well together as a reporting team. Lois is holding out. Exasperated, she says, "It will never happen. How long can you hold your breath?"

The French translators translated this as "How long can you be patient?" Okay. The phrase "how long can you hold your breath" is a colloquialism that means, well, how long can you be patient (or, how long can you endure).

The problem is, the translation misses the joke because Clark (aka Superman) mutters, as Lois stomps off, "A very, very long time."

This is funny and touching (Clark's unending goodwill and unflappability is one of the best parts of the show), and the French translation completely misses it. (Actually, to be precise, in French, Lois says, "I hope you are a patient man," and Clark mutters, "Very, very patient," so the romantic implication remains, but the Superman joke never makes it.)

And I wondered, is there any French colloquialism that would mean the same thing--both from Lois's and from Clark's perspective? Or are translators doomed to simply miss some jokes when they move from one language to the next? Or must they always compromise--pick one part of the meaning (the romance) but give up the other (the joke).

It also makes you wonder, What exactly are you reading when you read a translation?

Things That Annoy Me As I Get Older (and Things That Don't)

In the song/speech/diatribe "I Can't Get Behind That" on the William Shatner album Has Been, two old guys basically yell at each other about stuff that annoys them. I know I'm getting older because I'm beginning to compile my own list:

1. People who pencil-correct grammar errors in library books.

2. People who incorrectly pencil-correct grammar errors in library books.

3. People who "nicely" wave you ahead of them into dangerous oncoming traffic. No, you are NOT doing me a favor.

4. Reviewers on Amazon.com who write things like, "This is my favorite character of all time, so everything I write about this book/movie is right and true, and everybody else has to be wrong" or "I hated this book/album/movie; everybody who wrote positive reviews was obviously paid off, plus the Amazon.com star system is obviously dysfunctional because it gave 4.5 stars to this book/album/movie based on all the 4 and 5 star reviews!" (Ohhkaay, explain to me mathematically why that shouldn't happen.)

5. Students text-messaging in class. (OHMYGOSH, YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT MESSAGING YOUR BOYFRIEND EVERY TWO MINUTES!!)

6. Internet Explorer. I updated; it destroyed a bunch of stuff and then start self-destructing. I've moved over to Mozilla Firefox fairly permanently.

7. How, when you pull a piece of clothing from your closet, every single piece of cat hair in the entire apartment zooms through the air to rest on that piece of clothing (but I do love my cats).

8. Television episodes where the music editors have dubbed in music that (unintentionally) covers up the dialog. I don't mean montages of people doing stuff where the music is playing merrily away as a homage or whatever. I mean, atmospheric music that has been thrown in to emphasize a scene, and the music is way too overwhelming, and there's no way you can adjust it on your TV/DVD player directly (wouldn't that be great?)--makes you wonder how the director feels.

9. Trash collectors not picking up my trash. I put it out on time every week, and I haven't been on a vacation in over two years. It's always there! I never change my mind!

10. Market research people who call you up and put you through a spiel about whatever, and then find out you don't fit the correct demographic and hang up. I try to be nice to people on the phone--I know they're just trying to make a living. But listen up, telephone marketing people, (cue gospel music) consider the state of your soul!!!

On the up-side, I don't especially mind some things (I haven't reached the beat-them-with-a-cane stage yet):

1. I don't mind email spam all that much. I would probably mind if it flooded my mailbox (thank you, Yahoo filters), but in general, I don't mind deleting emails here and there. I'm rarely fooled, and I don't have to worry about missing an email because I filtered it by accident.

And I don't mind Google-advertised sites popping up first during a search--someone's got to pay for the perfection of Google.

On the other hand, I do loathe pop-ups that actually get in the way of reading text and can't be "X'd" out.

2. How kids dress today. I really don't notice all that much. (This piece of indifference is single-handedly keeping me from old-people-dom.)

3. Student drivers--at least, they have those big signs that say STUDENT DRIVER on their cars. I don't have (much) good to say about Massachusetts drivers though. I've lived in New York, Washington (State), Utah, and Maine. Washington drivers are terrible in the rain (ironic, huh?); New York drivers are scary but good; Maine drivers are excellent but completely random (they follow their own rules); Utah drivers are . . . don't remember. All I remember is that Provo, Utah streets never seem to be fixed. Whenever I visit, yup, 900 East is under construction again.

Massachusetts drivers, with one exception, are fairly horrible. They don't do random things, like Maine drivers; they do random, stupid things, like suddenly backing up on a busy, one-way boulevard in order to grab a parking space. (I start shouting, "I'm going to die!" as I slam on the brakes.)

However, I could be reacting more to "tourist drivers" (since most Massachusetts drivers here are "tourists"): that is, I may be reacting to general, stupid behavior by tourists rather than specific, stupid behavior by state. Probably, Mainers who are reckless enough to drive in Boston are totally annoying to Bostonites.

Sorry, back on the negative.

4. I don't mind commercials. I love them, even though I don't watch TV directly anymore. (In fact, I kind of miss them; running to the kitchen to get a drink during a commercial is FUN! Pausing the DVD to do it is boring.)

5. The price of gas. Seriously: it really doesn't bother me. Taking inflation into account, I'm spending the same proportion of my paycheck on gas now as I was fifteen years ago.

6. The news. I don't watch it; it doesn't bother me. Ditto, pundits. Can't get upset about stuff you don't listen to. (I do know basic stuff--like when Michael Jackson died.)

7. Cats biting me. I mention this because my cats are not especially friendly (although they don't bite or scratch me in the regular course of the day), and I try to keep them away from people when people come to visit. I understand someone getting upset if my cats bite him or her. What I don't get is vets getting all squeamish about it. It's their job! I've cleaned my cats' ears, held them down for a "dry bath," clipped their nails, and kept them from escaping when they got freaked about someone. So I get scratched. So what? That's how vets should feel.

However, I do have some sympathy for people who have been bitten by dogs. I never have, but everybody I know who has been is fairly traumatized and never feels the same about dogs again.

8. I wish I could say "smoking" doesn't bother me. Smokers don't bother me in an abstract sense. Smokers who huddle right outside the door to a building, blowing smoke in my face when I exit, yeeaah, that does.

9. Unmowed yards? Not sure--never lived anywhere where it applied.

10. People not opening doors for me. I try to remember to do it for others because I know some people mind, but I don't care usually.

I'm not sure the positives outweigh the negatives; I'll have to work more on the positives, so I don't get too "weird cat lady who screams at the neighbor kids" (yet).

Folklore: Puritans, Magic, and Witches

Puritans brought over from the Old World a belief in magic. The difference between magic and religion is that magic is about controlling the supernatural (for gain), and religion is about supplicating the supernatural. Naturally, Puritan theologians preached against magic and so did some believers, but just as many believers switched between and combined the two ideologies--kind of like a fundamentalist Christian who also adopts New Age health practices.

Of course, New Age health practices don't get you hung for being a witch, but then, neither did a belief in magic all that much. Many more people practiced magic, including counter-magic (against witches) than were ever considered threats to their communities.

Basically, there were two types of magic: "like produces/cures like" (a leaf shaped like a kidney will fix that organ) and "part of the whole effects the whole" (think of the Buffy episode "The Witch" where Willow tests a piece of Amy's hair to find out if Amy is, in fact, a witch). Like in Buffy, counter-magic involved identifying the witch and then practicing one of the two types of magic against the witch.

However, the theological stance was that magic was the result of a contract with the devil and should be avoided. (In fact, some preachers opposed the practice of counter-magic, stating that all negative effects should be endured, even effects brought on, supposedly, by an evil agent; since the devil, not the witch, was the real culprit, it was God's will that the sufferer be afflicted, and the sufferer should just grin-and-bear-it.) The contract is what jeopardized the witch's soul, not necessarily what the witch did.

This motif (devil and human sign a contract which then must be honored or somehow voided, sometimes through a contest) has produced some real literary/music classics: "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet, "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and don't forget "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

But what about those witches?

A lot of scorn has been poured on, well, everyone in Puritan times from the victimized witches (who are always portrayed as feminists) to the evil paranoid ministers. The scorn ignores some important points:

1. The Puritans, including many accused witches, truly believed in magic. Think about it: how would you feel if your neighbor could actually control the weather, crops, and livestock? Oh, wait, the environmentalists do believe that! (Sorry, I would never bring up environmentalists in the classroom: I would say something like, "Why would the belief that others could control nature be both frightening and comforting?")

2. Although most accused witches were female, witchcraft was also practiced by men, and some male witches were accused, and some were hung (but yes, women were the bulk of the accused and executed).

3. Witches (male and female) tended to be accused in batches (this was true in Europe as well). Arthur Miller was right: you really did have to have a zealous McCarthy type on hand to get witch trials started at all. Kramer, author of the big witch book that supposedly paints the entire Middle Ages as prejudiced and anti-fun-loving-witches--Malleus Maleficarum--was a real zealot, who just about everybody in power thought was nuts (I agree with scholars who claim Sprenger's name was added by Kramer to add gravitas to the work.) Of course, it doesn't say much for the Middle Ages that this crazyman ended up giving public lectures, but he was one guy, not everybody in Europe at the time.

Absent a zealot McCarthy-type, witch accusations tended to occur in small communities against a particular individual (gives you a whole new respect for civil lawsuits!).

4. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was more likely for a woman to die in childbirth than to be accused of being a witch. (Check out Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization by Dan Burton and David Grandy.)

5. Witches were NOT, collectively, sweet, wise, herb-collecting midwifes. In her excellent book The Witch Throughout History, Diane Purkiss tackles the New Age image of the sweet, wise, herb-collecting midwife witch. Purkiss, by the way, represents the commendable side of Women's Studies: women scholars who refuse to accept comfortable, self-gratifying images at the expense of true history or at the expense of the real women who struggled and believed and endured those times.

Many witches in Europe and Puritan New England believed they were witches. Many midwifes were not only not witches but helped to identify witches. And whatever anyone likes to tell you, the environmental/Wiccan stuff is a late development.

6. The push to stop witchcraft trials came from Puritan ministers (who were bothered by the lack of tangible evidence), not from "enlightened" outsiders. Prolific blatherers like Increase Mather expended great energy trying to focus attention on the theological principle rather than on the accused: "It is then evidence that the devil himself did that mischief [not the self-accusing woman]. It must, moreover, be sadly confessed, that many innocent persons have been put to death under the notion of witchcraft, whereby much innocent blood hath been shed." Of course, Mather then goes on to paint Catholics as more likely to burn witches than Protestants. This is incorrect. Inquisition or not, Protestant countries hung/burned as many if not more witches than Catholic countries. So, he's a two steps forward, three steps back politically correct kind of guy.

Now, none of my points make up for what we moderns consider innocent people being tried and convicted on what we consider false testimony. Just: any trial/accusation should be judged by the times in which it occurred.

In terms of folklore, despite my list of "true" facts, the popular image of the witch--female, crone, pointy hat, broom (think Wicked Witch of the West)--appeared very early on. And, whether I like it or not, the image of the witch as a sweet, peaceloving, herbal collector has gained sway in popular culture. The Wiccans are right about one thing: beliefs in witches and magic lasted long after the Puritans morphed into gentler (but just as noisy) religions. Stories about magic and witches were collected from the Schoharie Hills (New York) as late as the 1930s:

Mrs. Elisha Case used to be witched. She would sit in a chair with one knee uplifted, the foot off the floor, hours at a time. When her folks asked her why she sat like that, because of course it was "an awful hard position to keep," she said she couldn't help it. Her family sent a lock of hair, her name, and her age to Dr. Jake Brink, and he cured her.

There are literary and film references to the older folkloric image of the witch--The Wizard of Oz being an excellent example. However, contemporary thought is more in sympathy with the witch than with her accusers. One common literary motif (not necessarily a folktale) that I've encountered is "teenage girl accused of being a witch and then saved by providential (scientific) intervention": The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare; Elizabeth in which Willo Davis Roberts basically stole Speare's entire book and rewrote it as a Sunfire romance; Gallow's Hill by Lois Duncan (nice twist at the end); Buffy episode "Gingerbread" (Season 3).

Folklore: Native Americans and Puritans

The folklore course that I hope to teach in the spring is split into two parts. In the first part, after I define folklore (which could be an entire course by itself!), I focus on types of folklore and their appearance in literature. The second part of the course looks at how folklore is interpreted and reinterpreted.

When it comes to organizing material, I'm a big fan of the historical approach. This is difficult with folklore since tales exist in one time, disappear, then crop up in another time. Nevertheless, when teaching American-anything, it is always a good idea to start with Native Americans and Puritans.

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Regarding Native American myth and legends, I stuck to New England tribes: the Penobscot, Algonquian, and Pequod, for example.

A great deal of Native American folklore was not taken down until the 1800s or later--consequently, using Native American folklore for "historical" purposes is fraught with problems. Nevertheless, I discovered several folktales that I plan to also use in my Working Women course.

"Corn Mother," for example, stresses the importance of corn to many Native American tribes and the connection between corn and women's work. In "Corn Mother," the human-goddess First Mother sacrifices herself, so corn can grow, thereby saving her family and their descendants.

Other tales, like "Big Eater's Wife" (which is also very funny), stress the importance of a woman's grinding tools: her mortar and pestle. This connection of women to food preparation tools is a general motif in older folktales and myths. In Good Wives, Laurel Ulrich points out the importance of basic kitchen tools to Puritan women: a family's wealth was determined by their kitchen pot. When survival becomes a community's main concern, access to food becomes a source of power (just watch Survivor or Big Brother).

Like most folklore, Native American folklore also includes trickster tales. In many such tales, Coyote appears as a dangerous trickster; in others, the trickster is "Glooscap" who seems to be less dangerous than Coyote but still respected. From my reading, "Glooscap"'s character seems to be a combination of Hermes, Loki, and Br'er Rabbit.

For a decent collection of Native American myths and legends (with source notes!), I recommend American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.

Native American myth and lore in literature: Contemporary Native American poets include Suzanne Rancourt and Cheryl Savageau. Both writers use mythical imagery in their poems. Also, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about The Old Man in the Mountain, a supposed Indian legend about an Abenaki chief waiting for his Mohawk wife to return, but there's no evidence that the tale originated amongst Indian tribes; more likely, Hawthorne made the whole thing up!

Speaking of Nathaniel Hawthorne . . .

The Puritans also had folklore. Oddly enough, they did not bring over beliefs in elves and fairies from England, but they did bring over beliefs in magic. Basically, Puritan folklore falls into three categories:

Religious
Magic (Witches)
Ghosts

I'm going to deal with religious folklore in this post.

What is "religious folklore"?

In (most) religions, there is a core theology. That theology is official--preached on Sunday, printed and discussed in manuals, textbooks, dissertations, etc. Religious folklore is what members tell each other about the theology/day-to-day practice of religion. The Puritans had tons of it.

We know about Puritan folklore mostly due to Increase Mather. The Mathers were the radio-talk-show hosts of their day, and Increase Mather really should be commended for collecting verbal accounts of folklore in true radio-talk-show host fashion. He may have had an agenda (what Mather didn't?) but in his collections (which he does not refer to as folklore), he bothered to distinguish between word-by-word accounts versus summarized accounts versus "I heard that someone said that" accounts. Pretty amazing!

The tales that come under "religious folklore" have to do with tales of providence and tales of judgment--basically, tales of good people who are rescued fortuitously from natural disasters, boat wrecks, and having their brains busted out of their skulls versus bad people who are struck by lightening, lose their sight, and have other hideous things happen to them.

These tales are staples in religious and pseudo-religious cultures (I had to throw "pseudo" in there for all the environmentalists who started saying that Katrina was a judgment for America's bad environmental practices--talk about starting a myth!) although while I was reading Increase Mather's tales, I kept thinking of those shows which focus on animals who providentially save their owners--there isn't a direct religious connection, but it's the same idea.

To be fair (to me), there isn't always an religious connection in Mather's tales either; he really gets excited about the kid with the brain problem: "[The surgeon] gently drove the soft matter of the bunch into the wound and pressed so much out as well he could; there come forth about a spoonful; the matter which come forth was brains and blood (some curdles of brain were white and not stained with blood): so did he apply a plaister . . . This child lived to be the mother of two children; and (which is marvellous) she was not by this wound made defective in her memory or understanding."

I can't close this section without referring also to religious folkways. Religious folkways, like religious folklore, grow up around the day-to-day (month-to-month) practice of a religion. A good example of a religious folkway occurred recently in my congregation (recently, as in June).

The young children usually sing a song for the entire congregation on Mother's Day and Father's Day. When I say "usually," I mean "usually for those of us who grew up in the church." However, the head of our children's organization did not grow up in the church--she's been a member approximately seven years. She was completely taken-aback by the whole singing thing. Witnessing her reaction was a real eye-opener to me; I suppose if anyone had asked me, I would have said, "Yeah, it's a folkway" (it certainly isn't proscribed), but I had never really thought about it. Talk about a custom being perpetuated simply on the basis of expectation! I supported her not going through with it (can't throw things, even customs, at people's heads at the last minute), but she ended up agreeing (to be honest, nobody really cares about the singing; they just want the kids to stand up and look cute).

Puritan folklore in literature: Anne Bradstreet's poetry ("Deliverance from a Fit of Fainting" and "Deliverance from Another Sore Fit") and, of course, Hawthorne. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne particularly relies on the lore of "omens" as indications of providence or judgment.

M is for Muddly (Morrison)

What I read: The graphic novel Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, illustrated by J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke.

I should say first that I liked the artwork, and that goes a long way for me. There's a line between overly artistic and overly comic, and Jones and Mahnke find the balance. The bound book is very appealing appearance-wise (I was tempted to buy it).

The overall plot is not difficult to figure out: really, really bad guys are beating the good guys. Some gods die. Parallel universes are falling to pieces. End of the world on its way. Yeah, I saw it all on Star Trek.

Unfortunately, all the stuff that probably makes the plot more fascinating (the nuances and internal references) are way over my head. I don't really hold this sort of thing against superhero/graphic novel writers. After all, they aren't writing for me (a person who watches Batman, Spiderman, and Superman movies, collects Frank Miller, and did, once, collect The Next Nexus, and who reads the occasional graphic novel, but has no more investment than that).

On the other hand, I was able to read and enjoy the graphic novel Identity Crisis (Meltzer, Morales, and Bair) despite my lack of inside knowledge. In fact, I picked up on a lot of storylines and was able to put some scenes from Frank Miller's graphic novels into context. In other words, Identity Crisis furthered my interest in the DC characters. Final Crisis, however, just left me feeling, "That must be the character who died twice and . . . oh, who cares."

Having said that, the story itself (if you ignore the participants) is engaging. It is rather like reading the Book of Revelations: you don't understand it, but boy, there's lots of great images and interesting ideas floating around.

Here's the downside: I'm not one of those people who has reread the Book of Revelations, not because I'm avoiding the depressing end-of-the-world colloquy; I just already know the end game: blood and guts and glory. Fun while it lasts, but not something to get excited about twice.

The fascinating thing about Identity Crisis, and the reason I've reread it 3-4 times, is that although I knew, sort of, where it would end up (not the WHO, just the WHAT), the story itself engaged me: it was touching and problematic, all about personal relationships and getting on with life. Final Crisis is, well, just that: final crisis.

This must be the same reason I can't get excited about comet-hitting-the-earth movies. I mean, the end of the world, WOW!

So . . . what's for dinner?

Final thoughts: Final Crisis is interesting, but I'm glad I didn't buy it (libraries are wonderful places!).

What Is Folklore?

Sadly, my folklore course canceled: not enough students signed up. The course hasn't been offered in a long time and is an elective; this is how I comfort myself over the lack of interest. (I spoke to a professor Monday morning who told me that often a course needs to be "on the books" for awhile before students take advantage of it.)

My wonderful boss has agreed to let me try again next semester. However, since I was looking forward so much to teaching the course this semester, I decided to post about folklore occasionally over the next four months using my lecture notes.

This is actually a good way for me to go through the material--the fact is, one learns how to teach by teaching, and one learns whether something will work in a particular course by trying it out. For example, concerning the material below, I was initially going to have the students read the Wilson article between class one and class two; now, I'm thinking that would be too confusing (though I might still include the article in the reading packet): all the "what-is-folklore-folklore-versus-history" stuff needs to be presented upfront. That way, I can focus on the relationship between folklore and literature as early as possible.

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What is Folklore?

The folklore course examines the connection between folklore and literature, specifically the mobility of ideas, images, and stories. For example, an urban legend can develop in the school yard; that legend can then be used in a commercial; that commercial can then be taken up by viewers, and eventually translated/transmuted back into a folktale.

Likewise, an image or idea that occurs in a novel--literary or popular--can worm its way into everyday culture, showing up as an example of "folk" to later anthropologists.

To summarize: Ideas do not stay put in one place.

But what is folklore?

Nobody really knows! Just about every book I found on folklore had a slightly different definition (see below for a chart I created to try to order the various definitions).

Here are my definitions:

Folklore refers to pervasive (common) songs and tales that are transmitted person to person rather than by an official institution or author. Strict folklorists believe folklore can only be transmitted orally; however, I believe that folklore--such as urban legends, jokes, songs, and stories--are also spread through the Internet. These legends, jokes, songs, and stories become "folk" when they are transmitted person to person (through email, for instance).

Folkways, like folklore, are transmitted person to person, often within a specific group (a family or an occupational group). Folkways refer to customs, traditions, and practices: schoolyard games, food and dress customs, crafts, holiday/birthday/funeral rituals.

Myth is a very broad term; I use it to refer specifically to stories about the relationship of supernatural beings (gods, angels) to humans. While folklore may contain supernatural beings (vampires, fairies), folklore is not centered on the supernatural-human relationship; rather, it is grounded in everyday life. Myth, on the other hand, does concentrate on the supernatural-human relationship. So, for example, Gawain may leave King Arthur's court to meet the Green Knight, but the meeting takes place in an earthly environment. Psyche, on the other hand, leaves the mortal world to deal with a god, Eros, in his environment. The first is a British legend or folktale; the second is a myth. Likewise, stories about ghosts visiting family members are folklore; stories about humans visiting the great beyond (near-death-experiences) I would classify as myth. (It's a fine line.)

Clarification

The most important aspect of folklore is that it is transmitted person to person within a community. It occurs at the "grassroots" level rather than in the official/institutional "face" of that community. So, for instance, a published collection of folklore on the Internet has stopped being folklore and become "official." But a story picked up from someone's blog and transmitted through email to friends and family (without credit to the original author) would be folklore. (Are "folklore" festivals--paid for through official state and university funds--really folk? Who knows! I would never be this legalistic with my students. I just don't want them relying on folklore websites rather than collecting stories from their friends. However, I do find it interesting that most general books about folklore were published in the 1970s; once folk studies become a government-funded issue--after the 1970s--general books about folklore practically disappeared. Well, and Richard Dorson died.)

Media Example: In the Psych episode, "Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast," Shawn and Gus single-handedly create an urban legend or folktale when they tell all their elementary school friends that a woman committed suicide at the local mental hospital on Halloween night. The legend becomes anonymous; it enters the culture and is passed person to person until even Shawn and Gus have forgotten, fifteen plus years later, that they were the originators. In this case, the event never actually happened; Shawn and Gus just thought it did. The legend, however, has had an impact on the (television) town's culture.

Media Example: In the X-Files episode "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," Mulder opens the episode by telling Scully a story that "everyone" knows about a haunted house. The story is prevalent and, in this case, supernatural.

On the other hand, the imaginative stories that Sara invents in The Little Princess are just that: imaginative invented stories. They are transmitted orally, but they are not pervasive or anonymous. Therefore, they are not folklore.

The relationship between history and folklore

Although both history and folklore deal with narratives (making connections between events to explain what happened), folklore is collected and transmitted differently than historical documents. History is about learning, or trying to learn, what actually happened. Folklore is what people say about what happened. The two disciplines often merge since learning what people say about an event can help historians grasp the overall aura or "feel" of an event. But historians and folklorists do not approach cultural/historical material in the same way.

The relationship between history and folklore is wonderfully elucidated by William A. Wilson in his article "Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall" (from his collection of essays, The Marrow of Human Experience). In this article, Wilson argues the following:

1. Folklore has existed throughout time.
2. All people (cultures) have folklore.
3. Folklore is both universal and culture-specific.

Wilson is arguing against the idea that folklore is only produced by uneducated, country peasants and also against the idea that cultures outgrow folklore. Folklore is created in specific circumstances to explain events or to justify actions; it is also used to connect people. Therefore, specific types of folktales will arise from specific cultures, but the habits of folklore appear to transcend human behavior, technology, and "progress." Consequently, particular tales will appear over and over again in many different cultures and times. Cinderella is one example.

If folklore indicates particular reactions to particular events as well as reflecting the general human condition, how (and why) is it different from history?

Wilson explains the difference this way: "[Historians] . . . attempt to come as close as possible to that [full] story, and . . . do so through the use of verifiable, documentary evidence" (57, my emphasis). Wilson continues: "Folklorists would also be interested in what really occurred . . . but their principal interest would be in oral narratives . . . because people govern their lives not on the basis of what actually happened in the past but rather on what they believe happened--that is, on folk history." Wilson attempts to distinguished between the roles of the folklorist and the historian, but he also shows how the two "hands" can reflect and help each other.

I highly recommend Wilson's article. Not only does Wilson have intelligent things to say about folklore, he says all those intelligent things in a calm, friendly, enlightening way.

Diagram of the relationship to folklore to history and what folklore is.