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Folklore lets people escape from repressions imposed upon them by society. Folklore validates culture, justifying its rituals and institutions to those who perform and observe them. Folklore is a pedagogic device which reinforces morals and values and builds wit. Folklore is a means of applying social pressure and exercising social control.
A creation myth (or creation story) is a cultural, religious or traditional myth which attempts to describe the earliest beginnings of the present world. Creation myths are the most common form of myth, usually developing first in oral traditions, and are found throughout human culture.
Origin myths are narratives that explain how a particular reality came into existence. [3] They often serve to justify the established order by attributing its establishment to sacred forces [3] (see § Social function). The line between cosmogonic myths which describe the origin of the world and origin myths is not always clear.
Chinese creation myths fundamentally differ from monotheistic traditions with one authorized version, such as the Judeo-Christian Genesis creation narrative: Chinese classics record numerous and contradictory origin myths. Traditionally, the world was created on Chinese New Year and the animals, people, and many deities were created during its ...
The dualistic creation myth by "evil god" diving has 24 credentials in Balto-Slavic areas and 12 credentials in Finno-Ugric areas. The Bulgarian myth does not mention the Devil's catastrophe, but it develops the theme of creation by the formula "by God's and my power", and the Devil, who twice reversed the order of the formula, could not reach the bottom until the third time he pronounced the ...
Many tropes of European folklore can be identified as stemming from the Proto-Indo-European peoples of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, although they may originate from even earlier traditions. Examples of this include the 'Chaoskampf' myth-archetype as well as possibly the belief in knocking on wood for good luck. [ 1 ]
In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. [10] Origin myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified. [2] [8] National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values.
Legends are sometimes distinguished from myths in that they concern human beings as the main characters and do not necessarily have supernatural origins, and sometimes in that they have some sort of historical basis whereas myths generally do not. [2] [3] The Brothers Grimm defined legend as "folktale historically grounded". [4]