Diagrams of Types of Folk Literature

The diagram below shows how different types of folk literature overlap as tales are passed down from one generation to another and from one culture to another. If this drawing looks too complicated for your purposes, click here for simplified diagrams, including one that shows how Jack Tales or trickster tales and other wonder tales fit into the folktale categories.

The black circles outline the major types of literature in the oral traditions. Myths deal with the creation of the universe, relationships between the human and the divine, and cosmic conflicts between good and evil or political power struggles. Folktales tend to focus more on the earthly adventures and fortunes of individuals rather than nations or souls, although supernatural villains and magical helpers often appear. Legends are associated with real people or places or historical events. These labels have been used very loosely in different times and places so you may find wide variations in stories called myths or folktales or legends. Religious beliefs and cultural bias may influence whether people object to calling their own stories or other groups' stories myths or legends.

Links on this page are to AppLit pages that give examples and background on particular Appalachian tales. These diagrams and the examples below can be used to show how Appalachian tales relate to other oral traditions of the world.

Some examples to illustrate these types of tales and the ways they overlap:

"Cupid and Psyche" is a Roman story based on Greek myths in which Psyche gets involved with a god, Cupid or Eros. She is made to fall in love with a monster but in the end gets to marry Cupid and become immortal. Very similar folktales are "Beauty and the Beast," "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," the Appalachian Whitebear Whittington, and other tales about marriage with a beast. The characters aren't immortal, but the beast is often an enchanted prince, nobleman, or princess (see also The Snake Princess and The Frog King). Other myths are about the creation of the universe, struggles between good and evil, and relationships between the human and the divine.
Some individual folktales are related to longer epics or sagas about great culture heroes. Jack the Giant Killer has been associated for centuries with legends of King Arthur. Tales of dragon slayers, such as Jack and the Fire Dragon, may be related to the Old English epic about Beowulf, who dies in battle with an underground dragon. St. George is one of the most famous European heroes, the patron saint of England, a knight who became a Christian saint throughout Europe. In some legends about him, said to occur in specific places, his slaying of the dragon inspires a people to convert to Christianity (and the dragon represents the devil in the Bible). St. George was the subject of mummers' plays, medieval holiday folk performances that remained popular for centuries and were brought to America by European settlers.
Davy Crockett is a legendary hero (definitely a real person, in his case) who became the hero of tall tales in nineteenth-century America. Like other tall tale heroes, he could talk to animals and achieve superhuman feats, such as preventing a comet from hitting the earth or thawing out the earth when the machinery that makes it move was frozen. His fictional wife, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett (or Polly Finley Thunder Whirlwind) is the heroine of tall tales that are also pourquoi tales explaining origins, or why things are the way they are—when she invents bald eagles, for example. (Pourquoi means why in French.)
Many people pass on stories about their own family history, which may be realistic and true or may develop into comical noodlehead stories about foolish behavior, or ghost stories or other supernatural or magical tales. Donald Davis is a popular Appalachian storyteller who tells and publishes stories about his own family as well as traditional Jack Tales and other folktales (such as Jack and the Animals and Jack and Granny Ugly).
Other examples of Jack tales and trickster heroes are given on the page of simplified diagrams.

What do you think?

You and your students might change the relative sizes or positions of the circles, or add other circles, depending on which types of tales you are studying. For example, in many folk traditions, most of the culture heroes and other folktale characters are animals, so animal tales should have a bigger circle. Let me know if you have new ideas, if you have corrections or suggestions for this page, or you would like your students' diagrams or comments to appear in AppLit.

This page created 9/9/02 | Site Index | Top of Page | Last update 6/14/10

Back to General Guidelines for Teaching with Folktales, . . . and Other Short Works of Folklore

Timeline of Appalachian Folktales

Bibliography of Appalachian Folktales
Complete List of AppLit Pages on Folklore

Home