Folklore

[pasithea]

This is vaguely related to the Noah post but has been bubbling in my head for a few weeks now. It's just an odd little thought about story ideas. I feel like, as an american, I'm somewhat robbed of folklore. Most stories americans have are from Europe. There's a few odd ones of course: Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, but all of those are caricatures of people. There's no local version of elves, fairies, pixies, trolls, sprites, etc. We just steal from other cultures. Yes, there is native american lore and some of it I even know. The problem is that you can't do that as a story without people expecting pounding drums and warpaint and you have to say 'Inspired by a Cherokee legend' or something at the beginning. They're not stories that most americans are familiar with. What americans are familiar with are all European legends.

But even European legends would be something. I don't think americans really even have those any more though. They have TV. Cartoons loosely based of legends but often with recognizable and identifable trade-marked characters. We _know_ those legends aren't true and we know that Bugs Bunny will witty mock the wolf rather than cutting him open and filling his belly with hot coals. Legends have become quaint and dated, replaced with aliens and dinosaurs and video game fare. Where in the 1940's everyone likely would have known most Mother Goose rhymes, I doubt more than 10% of children today might know them while 90+% probably recognize the Pokemon theme song.

Culture is a living thing and I don't 'yearn for a more simple time' or anything like that. Just saying that sometimes I feel a little robbed for culture references to work from.

Perhaps I'm just not looking hard enough. Every small town has ghost stories, most of them even have variants of the same sort of story and someone has to have collected those. It would be fun to find some and see if there's anything I could work with as material that hasn't been done to death but many people would recognize without the prefix of, 'Based on american folklore'.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

We have folklore, it is just hard to recognize from the inside. All those hitchicker stories, the hook guy who terrorizes couples, poprocks etc. Them, they count. Stupid ain't it?

[schlake.livejournal.com]

America has lots of fairy tales and folklore. You just don't realize it.

You know the story about not flashing your lights at a car with its headlights off because it is a gang initiation and they will kill you?

You know the story about the razor blade in the Halloween apples?

You know the story about the guy who strapped a JATO onto his truck and sped off across the Arizona desert?

You know the story about the girl giving head to a guy and she got hit by lightning and fused her braces to his zipper?

Fairy tales teach us to be nice to people, and to live our lives well, or we will die. Don't cry wolf, and don't flash your lights at people. Don't trust the little old lady who gives you an apple, even if you are a fair skinned princess living with dwarves, or a little girl dressed as a fair skinned princess out looking for candy.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Actually, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are corporate mascots. :) They're from an ad campaign for a wood company.

[apoidea.livejournal.com]

Bookstores usually have local folklore books. I was really intrested in the spooky ghost stuff in my early teens

[lazarian.livejournal.com]

Maybe AmericanFolklore.net might be helpful.

Perhaps another reason that there doesn't seem to be very many actual legends or folklore in north america (with the exception of aborigional cultures) is because contemporary north american culture is relatively young, as compared to say, eastern europe. There's probably dozens of variations of old european folklore tales like Baba Yaga, which has existed and been retold for hundreds and hundreds of years, if not longer. Domestic folklore like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed is more, as you said, like caricatures from the american frontier days. If north america was discovered by europeans a thousand years ago there'd probably be more tales and legends which appeared like they origionated from here.

I'm not sure what to think about urban legends*, though - that's probably considered different from actual folklore. Maybe some folklore got started with an urban legend and the tale became more elaborate over time.

* probably referred to as "village tale" way back when...