Folklore and Myth

Bibliographic Data

ID8932306
AuthorsH R Ellis Davidson (corresponding author)
Year1976
Volume87
Issue2
Pages131-145
Publication date1976-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0015587x.1976.9716027
OpenAlexW2317655528
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

HE relationship of myth to folklore is a subject which arises inevitably out of my two earlier presidential addresses. In the first of these, Folklore and History, I indicated certain repetitive patterns in popular traditions concerning historical persons and events: the generous donor, the monster of destruction, the king returning to inaugurate a golden age. In the second, on Folklore and Literature, I was again dealing with repetitive patterns found in folk and fairy tales, which may find their way also into more sophisticated literature: the patient wife, the despised youth who becomes a hero, the fight with a supernatural adversary. Some of these are patterns of a recognizable mythical type, and this means that we have to make some attempt to consider the relation of myth to folklore. It is by no means a simple question, and since our Society came into being, there have been a series of long and heated controversies about myths, in some of which folklorists have played a major part. Much nonsense has been talked and written on this subject, and many roads enthusiastically marked out by eminent scholars as major routes to a solution have been abandoned by their successors. As Andrew Lang once stated with his customary good sense: 'The history of mythology is the history of rash, premature and exclusive theories.' Nevertheless since folklore must form part of the evidence on which theories of the nature of myth are based, we cannot afford to ignore the subject altogether. Both myth and folklore are terms notoriously difficult to define. The definition I am using for a myth is that given by Joseph Fontenrose,2 who defines it as a traditional story accompanying rituals, a story with a definite plot, purporting to tell of occasions when some institution or cult, or certain rites and festivals, had their beginning, and of the original act which set the precedent for this. There are stories of a mythical type not attached to ritual in this way, which are better included in the category of legend or folklore, even though they may have a plot similar to that of a true myth. It is worth noting also that there is material not in narrative form which may be called mythical in type, although the main controversies have been over myths as stories rather than mythical patterns or characters. It is clearly not helpful to use the term too loosely, to include the whole sum of men's feelings and ideas about the gods.3 Also, as Fontenrose points out, we must not be misled by the use of the term myth in current literary criticism, where it seems to be employed for any large controlling image which the critic

Art · Folklore · HERO · Literature · Monster · Mythology · Subject (documents · Classics · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Philippine History and Culture · Themes in Literature Analysis

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