Folktales

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Folktales

• The Prose Fiction of Oral Literature

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Folktales -- Definition

• Folktales are traditional narratives that are
  strictly fictional and told primarily for
  entertainment, although they may be also
  illustrate a truth or a moral. (Brunvand)

3
The Folktale Type-Index

• Antti Aarne developed in 1910 a catalog the
  attempted to classify folktales. This was
  translated and enlarged in 1928 by Stith Thompson
  as The Types of the Folktale. (This should not be
  confused with Thompsons Motif-Index.)

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The Folktale Type-IndexMajor Headings

• I. Animal Tales (Types 1 to 299)
• II. Ordinary Folktales (Marchen) (Types 300 to
  1199)\
• III. Jokes and Anecdotes (Types 1200 to 1999)
• IV. Formula Tales

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Animal Tales

• These have as their main characters domestic or
  wild animals that speak, reason, and otherwise
  behave like human beings. Usually these animals
  correspond to certain stock character types, such
  as the clever fox or rabbit, the stupid bear, the
  faithful dog, and the industrious ant.

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Animal Tales II

• The Bremen Town Musicians is Type 130, The
  Animals in Night Quarters The Three Little Pigs
  is Type 124, Blowing the House In.
• Fables or moral tales are sometimes considered a
  subtype, with their distinguishing explicit or
  implied lesson.

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Ordinary Folktales Marchen

• These are what we often call Fairy tales and they
  make up about one half of the Type-Index.
• There are often fomularized openings and
  closings Once upon a time. . . And they
  lived happily ever after.
• They often include royalty a poor stepchild
  often rises to prominence and power
• There is often three-fold repetition.
• There are often imaginary creatures and
  supernatural aid.

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Jokes and Anecdotes

• These are short, funny, fictional folktales,
  longer than riddle jokes.
• These include Numskull jokes or noodles tales,
  stories about married couples, jokes about parson
  and religious orders, immigrant dialect stories,
  Jewish dialect stories, black dialect stories,
  and shaggy-dog stories.

9
Tall Tales or Windies

• These include tales of lying and exaggeration,
  with the excessiveness or cleverness of the tale
  providing the entertainment.

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Formula tales

• These are based on a strict pattern of
  development and they include
• Cummulative tales or Chains (e.g., the house
  that Jack built)
• Catch tales (the listener is led on to be
  hoaxed or to ask a trick question)
• Endless tales
• Cante Fable or singing tale

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Analyzing Folktales

• Historic-geographic method (The diachronic
  reconstruction of an archetype this has led
  researchers to conclude that many folktales
  originated in India.)
• Structural method-- this is a synchronic study
  with attempts to identify the occurrence of
  minimal units or what Dundes calls motifemes.