How Do You Define Folklore?

Folklore is usually defined as those traditional tales, myths, practices, proverbs, riddles, stories and legends of a community that are transmitted by word of mouth. It could also be a baseless belief about something. The comparative study of folk culture and knowledge is called folkloristics. It always refers to the unwritten literature of a specific culture. The idea of folklore originated during romantic nationalism as part of the nineteenth century ideology.

It was however only in the twentieth century that that endeavours were made to collects folklore with any underlying political goals. The term folklore was created by William Thoms an Englishman in 1846. He wanted an alternative term to what was than labelled as 'popular antiquities'. In addition to some mythic or religious aspects folklore is also concerned with the apparently mundane traditions of daily life