Folklore Studies and the English Rural Myth

Abstract

Academic folklorists today define their subject matter in a way which runs counter to popular conceptions of the field, both as regards the ‘lore’ and the ‘folk’ part of this old composite term. They see the ‘lore’ as a body of beliefs, activities, ways of making, saying and doing things and interacting with others that are acquired through informal, unofficial channels by the processes of socialising in family, occupational, or activity-related groups. The ‘folk’ in the old sense of a group of people distinguishable by class, education or location therefore disappears from the modern equation, for it follows that we are all folk. As academic folklorists use the term nowadays, ‘folklore’ is best seen as a ‘cultural register’ – on the analogy of a linguistic register – one of several options available to members of a cultural grouping for thought, activity and interaction. It follows that ‘folklore’ can be found anywhere and among any group of people, urban as well as rural, professional as well as ‘peasant’.