Genres
Folklore
The body of expressive culture shared by a group: tales, legends, proverbs, poems and jokes passed along informally rather than taught.
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. Its oral traditions include tales, legends, proverbs, poems and jokes, alongside material culture and customary lore such as festivals, weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Transmission is the defining behavior: folklore passes informally from one individual to another, through verbal instruction or demonstration, not through formal institutions. William Thoms coined the word in 1846, as a replacement for the older terms "popular antiquities" and "popular literature".
For writers, folklore is the shelf above the genres: myth and the fairy tale both sit inside it, each with a different relationship to belief. A story world with living folklore is one where characters quote proverbs and argue over tellings.