Folklore

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and performances, dances and plays. Moreover, is not a science about a folk, but a traditional folk-science and folk-poetry" (Balys, 255). The term "folk" means "working class, marginalized, and grassroots" (Montenyohl, 230). The term traditionally meant, according to Montenyohl, community-based, orally transmitted, and historically rooted (230).
is an "integral part of American culture and are told and believed by some of the most sophisticated 'folk' of modern society" (Brunvand, xi) The definition of has changed throughout the changing of time. Today represents many different forms of artistic expression. The term "contemporary urban legend" is fairly a new and unique term. "The juxtaposition of the terms 'modern,' 'contemporary,' and 'urban' and the word '' may seem contradictory to those who think of as charming, obsolete, unsophisticated traditions passed along in the backwood villages of bygone days" (Brunvand, xi). is today "popular knowledge", and originates for ...

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of characters and its own little script. To some degree, urban legends must be considered false, at least in the sense that the same rather bizarre events could not actually have happened in so many localities to so many relatives, friends, and family of the many tellers of the tale (Brunvand, xii). "Both the narrative structure of these legends and their characteristic traditional folk motifs and oral variations disqualify them as literal accounts of actual events" (Brunvand, xii).
Though heartily skeptical of anything we read in the paper, the vast majority of us tend to unquestionably believe urban legends. Most of the time it’s a close friend or relative or even someone we look up to ...

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