Folklore

Folklore (or lore) consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs included in the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It also includes the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The people who study folklore are sometimes referred to as folklorists. The English antiquarian William Thoms introduced the word "folklore" in a letter published in the London journal The Athenaeum in 1846 CE. In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology.

Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.
 * 1) artifacts (such as voodoo dolls)
 * 2) describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition)
 * 3) culture
 * 4) behavior (rituals)

