INTRODUCTION

Many attempts have been made to define folklore. Let us describe it here as ‘the world of people's imagination’. It comprises almost every aspect of our cultural life, including oral literature, material culture, customs and rituals, festivals, drama and so forth. Often we talk of how folklore has influenced literature. For example, we say: ‘The Old Testament contains stories of folk heroes’ (Leach 819). Indeed, oral literature precedes written literature, logically as well as chronologically. Scholars like Bishop Percy and Chadwicks saw folk literature as the precursor of written literary forms. A study of oral and written literatures together may reveal parallel content and themes, styles, forms and structures. The focus of this paper thus is on the ‘lore’ rather than on ‘folk’.

Folklore in Literature: The Varied Functions

Archer Taylor makes three observations about the different relationships between folklore and literature: (i) Folklore is, in many cultures, indistinguishable from literature. (ii) Literature contains elements borrowed from folklore. (iii) Writers have imitated folklore. (Taylor 37).

The correlation between folklore and literature is obvious. The story of Rama in the Indian context is a part of the oral tradition even as it is a literary text composed primarily in Sanskrit and later in all the major Indian languages. The Kalevala in Finland is a compilation of folk songs, but at the same time it is considered a classical work in Finnish Literature.