Introduction

Children’s folklore is not easy to define. Folklore itself as a scholarly discipline is in a process of transition. In earlier definitions, attention was given predominantly to traditional stories, dances, proverbs, riddles, poetry, material culture, and customs, passed on orally from generation to generation. The emphasis was upon recording the “survivals” of an earlier way of life, believed to be fading away. Attention, therefore, was on the antique, the anonymous in origin, the collective in composition, and the simple in character (Ben-Amos 1971).