Folklore is  a strong influence on culture and society. It is through folklore that we learn about the knowledge, beliefs, and culture of people who have gone before us in all parts of the world.  Even within contemporary folklore, we can experience the attitudes and values of people from different regions within one’s own country or from nations near and far.

In ancient times, folklore was a means of explaining natural occurrences in nature such as lightening, the phases of the moon, the tides, seasons and other phenomenon. From there, folklore explained humanness and why people do things and how their emotions affect their decisions and their lives. Folklore enabled people from one generation to another to understand cause and effect and the long-term implications of their actions.

Many people who are considered important to our culture and society have been inspired by folklore or have made contributions to our folklore.

William Shakespeare-

In William Shakespeare’s time, people went to live performances of familiar stories, including folktales.  Shakespeare was strongly influenced by these stories and we find elements of folklore in his work such asfaeries, witches, magi,  spirits and ghosts. Others of  his works are set in  legendary realms such as  Ancient Athens and Rome, pre-historic Briton, as well as tales set in the  Renaissance courts of Venice and Vienna, or on other continents such as Cyprus and Morocco.

It is as though Shakespeare is included in our folklore. Certainly his early years in the English rural countryside and the culture and society he experienced have been handed down through the generations and continue their influence on what we consider literature, vocabulary, and characterization.

Mark Twain-

Samuel Clemens, perhaps better known as Mark Twain is know for work rooted in folklore.  William Faulkner referred to Twain as “the father of American literature”.  His biographies and academic experts say that Twain’s stories are packed full of folklore, folk terminology and folk beliefs. 

Much like the development of many examples of folklore worldwide,  Twain’s work examined life and gave us a description of many different places and societies. He blended in dialogue that gave true meaning to their individuality in how they spoke and the expressions they used, often unique to a location.  His stories revealed a great deal about culture and society.  Twain’s work reverberates across the century since his birth and will continue to be seen as a significant piece of our folklore.

William Butler Yeats  and  Irish Novelists.

Irish folklore influenced author William Butler Yeats and his using folklore elements in his  literary and dramatic works.  This breathed new life into Irish legends and myths. In her book Folklore and the Fantastic in Twelve Modern Irish Novels (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy), Marguerite Quintelli-Neary describes how folklore has contributed to the work of authors such as James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Mervyn Wall, Darrell Figgis, Eimar O’Duffy, and James Stephens. The book examines examines how these writers have incorporated in their own works heroic obligations, metamorphoses, and the blending of pagan and Christian myths. These works were born of the Irish culture and society and they continue to influence the body of literature and storytellilng unique to that  culture and society

Studs Terkel-

Studs Terkel is remembered for his oral histories of common people, a folklore of sorts.  Terkel said, “People are hungry for stories. It’s part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another.” - .

Folklore helps us find our way and to see where we are in the development of mankind. While it is a thrill to see how we have advanced, it is just as thrilling to see how we are like early people and that their fears and dreams are really not so unlike ours.

The storyteller brings a story to life and puts the listener in the middle of another time, location, or situation and completes the circuit for humanity and each person’s own sense of purpose and belonging. That is why folklore has endured the test of time and still offers us something worthwhile in today’s society wherever it may be in the world.

Folklore has contributed to culture and society because:

1) Each person who listens to or reads a story becomes part of the flow of culture within a society that has flowed since the dawn of humanity.

2) Folklore is dynamic. The sharing and retelling of the story moves that development along a continuum of cultural and societal understanding..

3) It manifests itself by being relevant to each member of the audience as part of the human experience.

4) As each of us longs for a sense of belonging, folklore sets the scene for the common experience witnessed and felt emotionally by all who are there. We become so like other audiences over hundreds of years who sit in some room, some dwelling, some gathering place in order to be entertained and informed.

5) The valuable lessons of another age can light the way even in modern times. The most basic revelations have endured and have been meaningful for even the men and women of the 21st century.

6) Makes connections that too many people do not have from generation to generation. Regardless of a person’s family unit, there is that humanness that binds him or her to earlier people within a society or in an entirely foreign community of man.

Author Ursula LeGuin wrote, “There have been great societies that did not use the wheel. There have been no great societies that did not tell stories.”

Find your place in the universe by reading or listening to oral renditions of a wide variety of folklore. You may find a sense of belonging and you may very well see how folklore has contributed and will continue to contribute to culture and society.

What are your stories? How do they compare and contrast to those being cherished and retold throughout the world? Your own stories may have a place in the treasure of experiences we call folklore.