The Tell-Tale Hat: Surfacing the Uncertainty in Folklore Classification

Classification is a vexing problem in folkloristics. Although broad genre classifications such as "ballad", "folktale", "legend", "proverb", and "riddle" are well established and widely accepted, these formal classifications are coarse and do little more than provide a first level sort on materials for collections that can easily include tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of records. Many large collections of folklore have been classified using systems designed for very specific tasks, usually related to early theories about the spread of folk narrative. Beyond the straightforward parsing of folk expressions into easily recognized formal genres (e.g. ballad, riddle, joke, legend, fairytale, etc.), the overarching emphasis of these schemas is on topic indexing. Perhaps best known of these indices is the ATU index of fairy tales, designed to assist scholars who are interested in the comparison of fairy tales from one or more cultures. Another well-known index, the motif index of folk literature compiled by Stith Thompson (1955-58), is designed to assist scholars in discovering the relationships between complete narratives and their component parts, as well as the movement of motifs across time and space, where the motif is conceptualized as "the smallest element in a tale having a power to persist in tradition." Other genre specific classification schemes include the Migratory Legend [ML] catalog and Danmarks gamle Folkeviser [DgF]. More collection specific indices include the Child Ballads and, of particular interest to this study, the typological indices to the Danish folklore collector Evald Tang Kristensen's legend collections