folklore stories
Passed-down oral narratives
Folklore stories are traditional narratives passed down through generations within a culture—myths, legends, fairy tales, and fables that carry cultural values and beliefs.
The term is somewhat redundant, since folklore already encompasses such stories, but it emphasizes the narrative component over other folklore elements like customs or superstitions: She collected folklore stories from rural Appalachia.
- once upon a timeTraditional narrative opening
- fairy taleMagical children's narrative
- Bloody MarySpiced tomato vodka drink
- old wives taleUnverified traditional belief
- Arthurian legendBritish medieval king mythology
Beowulf · John Henry · Cinderella · Beauty and the Beast · pantheon · creation myth · Johnny Appleseed · Atlantis · Davy Crockett · Anansi · Rumpelstiltskin · happily ever after · enchanted forest · trickster · cosmic egg · sacred tree · flood myth · oral tradition
folklore storieshistorical records
Preserved accounts of the past
eyewitness testimony · journalism · news reports · archival records · primary sources
folklore storiesoriginal compositions
Freshly created musical works
modern fiction · contemporary fiction · contemporary literature · modernist literature · published novels
folklore storiesclassical literature
Foundational Western texts
literary fiction · belles-lettres · scholarly works · modernist literature