In Iceland, a witch named Grýla captures misbehaving children during Christmas and eats them in her herb stew. Grýla has been a popular character in Icelandic folklore for centuries and is known for eating one of her husbands. Other scary Christmas traditions include a haunted ghost in South Africa, evil witches in Norway, and an […]
Folklore encompasses oral traditions and beliefs of a culture, including myths, legends, jokes, proverbs, tall tales, fairy tales, and superstitions. It is diverse across cultures and constantly changing. Folklorists study and record these traditions, which can reveal interesting things about a culture’s people. Folklore is a term referring to the collective oral traditions and beliefs […]
Mythology and folklore are often used interchangeably, but mythology refers to large-scale stories spanning a wide geographic range and involving titanic events and characters, while folklore involves smaller, more intimate settings and characters. The scale of the story determines the difference between the two, but the distinction can be blurred when smaller tales become larger […]
