Blog #2 (Living Folklore by Martha Sims)

         This reading opened my eyes to realize that folklore's are not all false but not true at the same time. The origins of a folklore can come from anywhere and anyone, meaning that anyone person can say something somewhere and in time it will spread and become a common or uncommon folklore we hear in our everyday lives. I am not one to believe in folklore's with out definite proof that it is true. For example, the lore about the chain letter, that is one that I most definitely don't believe in. I think folklore's are stories told by individuals from the past that are meant to be warning or stories that come with a moral. Stories that are meant to tell more about a culture, so that the outside world can understand and live through the eyes of the story teller. Folklore's are interesting to read because they can give a insight in the society during the time period in which it is or might be told. An example would be the witches of Salem, it is amazing how fast something spreads like wildfire and the consequences that it has. The fact that a story can cause this much panic among people and lead them to commit such horrible actions. Language is, of course, both a carrier of folklore as well as a cardinal element of nationhood in itself, without which it cannot exist. "Folklore is many things, and it’s almost impossible to define succinctly. It’s both what folklorists study and the name of the discipline they work within. Yes, folklore is folk songs and legends" (Sims 1). The word "folklore” names an enormous and deeply significant dimension of culture. Considering how large and complex this subject is, it is no wonder that folklorists define and describe folklore in so many different ways. Try asking dance historians for a definition of "dance,” for instance, or anthropologists for a definition of "culture.” No one definition will suffice–nor should it. 

Blog #1 (Aesop's Fables “Aesop, Aristotle, and Animals: The Role of Fables in Human Life” by Edward Clayton)

                The two stories that I found very interesting was the story about the wolf and the lamb and the cobra and the water snake. Both these stores highlighted very important points and lessons for the reader to learn. The story with the wolf and the lamb represents oppression and makes a statement that those with power over other would tend to abuse it and use it for their own personal gains. Those with power will always misuse it because they have a god like complex. As for the little guy, the lambs in this world of wolves, they are helpless to that fact. To quote a saying from on my my favorite book, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, "The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf is the strong." This is another analogy using a wolf to represents the powerful people of the world. It means that the lesser animal (the rabbit) accepts the its role in nature and plays it well, that role being prey for the wolf.  In this world we can either be weak or strong but not both. The Other story featuring the cobra and the water snake gives two life lessons, either which is a valid point. The first one is that everyone needs to be an Altruist and do things from the good of their heart and not accept anything in return.  The other lesson is that everyone likes to use their fellow individuals without any compensation for their help. This enforces the idea that people are not kind and will always try to find not only an easy way to get what they want, but a way in which they are the ones that only benefit. In my opinion, there needs to be wolfs and lambs in the world. If everyone was equal there would never be competition, people will not strive to be better than others. The wolves in the world are the one that gets the lambs going, they are the one that pushes then into becoming more than just a lamb, more than just prey for others to feed on. We have to all become wolves if we are to survived in this cruel world. And altruism is never a bad thing, it is something more people should embrace often.