ABSTRACT
Folklore is formal, performative and thematic and becomes delightfully, dynamically alive as it is integrated into life and custom through ‘the sieve of communal approval’.1 Folklore is that active part of any culture which is transmitted by word of mouth or by habit and practice. Predominantly passed on in daily life through oral, physical and written traditions, and increasingly through the media, it is a moral repository which is renewed though repeated folksay (proverbs, riddles, rhymes, dialect), games, folk literature (folktales, poems, songs, dramas), customs and beliefs, music, dance and ethnography (the study of arts, crafts and the manufacture and use of artifacts). Folklore is as much part of the modern urban cultures of industrialized societies as it is of American Indians, Australian aborigines and ancient and modern Greek and Egyptian cultures. It is something we all do, not just ‘the things our grandparents used to do’ for it is a vital part of the way all societies operate. There is folklore for children and adults. It can be found at home, school, hospitals and work; in politics, religion and banking; in self-help and therapeutic groups; in cities, towns and rural areas and in both complex and simple organizations. By convention folklore draws on themes that are anonymous, but universally shared, although it is given life and continuity through individual communities and groups.
