Genre Focus: Folktales

What is a Folk Tale?

• A folk tale is a story with no known author. Folk tales are passed down from one generation to another by word of mouth.

Components of Folktales

• Stories that are generally passed along by

word of mouth from generation to

generation.

– Examples: professionals who tell stories for

entertainment, teachers who use stories to

teach lessons, mothers and fathers who share

stories with their children.

.

Components of Folktales

• Folktales are creations from a culture and its people. You will often notice dialect and cultural context clues that indicate that it is from a particular region.

• Folktales have no single author and were often told by generations of storytellers before they were ever written down.

• Because they rely upon storytellers they continuously change over time.

Central Components of Folktales

Morals:

A value or lesson taught

through the story.

Motifs:

A repeated figure in a

design or reoccurring

theme or lesson

occurring over multiple

tales.

Examples:

avoid strangers, don’t

judge a book by its

cover, mind over muscle

Examples:

A journey, magic races,

door/box that should not

be opened, great floods

Types of Folktales

• Trickster Tale—a story in which a character, often an animal, outsmarts an enemy. Can often be classified as a type creation myth.

• Origin Story—a story about origins, or beginnings, of something in nature. Can also be classified as a creation myth.

• Fairy Tale—a story with magical beings who change the lives of ordinary people.

Types of Folktales

• Legends-a story about an amazing event

or a hero’s amazing accomplishment.

Some legends are inspired from real

people or real events whose reputations

grew ―larger than life‖ over the years.

– Two types of legends:

• Urban Legends

• Tall Tales

Types of Folktales

Tall Tales:

A fantasy story about an

amazing, larger than life

person. They are

humorous, highly

exaggerated stories that

are not meant to be

believed, but immortalize

legendary figures. Ex.

Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill

Urban Legends:

Modern tales of bizarre,

horrible, or spooky

stories for entertainment

or scare tactics.

Examples: the

hitchhiker that vanishes,

kids who get killed while

―parking,‖ waking up in

a tub of ice with kidneys

cut out.

Types of Folktales

• Myths—society’s oldest stories. Myths are

designed to reflect traditions and beliefs.

• They are intended to explain mysteries of world

or customs and ideas of society.

• Parables (about people) and Fables (about

animals and objects) are types of message

myths.

• Creation myths explain how the world came to

be. Trickster tales are often creation myths.

What is a myth?

A myth is a story that usually explains something about the world and involves gods and other superhuman beings.

What is a fable?

• A fable is a very brief story in prose or in verse that teaches a moral or a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.

What is a fairy tale?

• A fairy tale is a type of imaginative writing that carries the reader into an invented world where the laws of nature, as we know them, do not operate.