Folk tales
Folk tales basically are the fruits of man's personal and social needs. More importantly, they throw light on our ancient culture and tradition. They provide appropriate background to build new culture.

The habit of narrating stories and listening to them is as old as human society. To forget the strain of a hard day's work, to spend the leisure hours comfortably, to get entertainment in the monotonous life - and due to various other reasons, man developed the art of story telling.

Folk tales telling is a special form of orally narrating the story, wherein the artistic imagination of the storyteller should be able to capture the curiosity of the listeners continuously. The narrator recognizes this as 'Ajji kathe'(Grand mother's story) till date. Because nobody can surpass grandmothers in telling stories. To narrate stories and to listen to it, there is no distinction as men, women, old people and youngsters. This activity is similarly present all over the world and at all places having people. Similarity is found in the Folk tales of different parts of the world and at the same time differences are present too. As they are communicated orally, they are subjected to continuous change. As they exist in different regions and different times it is normal to undergo change geographically. As the years roll by they are subject to historical changes also. For the reasons mentioned above the stories have acquired distinct forms geographically and wide range historically. The stories provide ample information to study the different stages of man's cultural evolution.

In the verbal literature, Janapada stories occupy the most popular place. Traditionalism is the special feature of these stories. After listening to the stories from the learned, it is re-narrated, as and when the opportunity comes, as per the story that has been retained in the memory. This re-narrating continues and grows, depending upon the individuals' memory power, imagination and experience. Under such circumstances some ideas may be dropped or forgotten and new ideas may get included.

Similarity is one more common feature found in all the Folk tales available in the world. This may be due to the travel trend of the stories or the basic nature of man to imagine and tell stories. In addition to these main features, Folk tales have some general features that may be listed as follows.

Folk tales neither begins from an action all of a sudden nor it ends abruptly. It gradually builds up the enthusiasm, takes you to ecstasy, and comes to an end leisurely. Descriptions are brief. Repetition is common. Hero is good person, anti-hero is evil. Those who are bad in the beginning become good at the end. Young, weak and neglected succeed. Subject of the story is simple and devoid of complications. Generally two characters appear in a scene. If there are many characters only two are active. Folk tales depict characters that are opposite in nature such as young-old, man-demon, good-bad, hero-anti-hero. Heaven, Earth, Hell - all the three worlds are found in the stories. Angel, demon, ghost, betala, animals also take part as characters along with human beings. It has its effect on ups and downs of dame luck. Besides, Mantra danda , magic carpet, magic cap, ring, black mirror, magician's handiwork is also seen. On close observation of all these features one can conclude without any hesitation that Folk tales are fruits of ancient man's rare talent of artistic narration.

Totally Folk tales are classified into two groups viz. simple stories and complex stories. While simple stories are divided into humorous, animal stories and moral stories, complex stories are divided into fiction and real stories.

Motif and type play an important role in classification of Folk tales. Motif is about the story content; type speaks of its technical form. Motif is the smallest unit of the story. Sometimes though these are simple imaginations they are unnatural wonderful and unusual. Witch, sorcerer, stepmother, talking animal, bodily vagaries, magic wand etc., make the narration lively. So they are identified as motifs. According to scholars, in all the Folk tales there are some fundamental motifs whose number may be about ten thousand. Any Folk tales with independent existence may become a type. It should be complete by itself in the meaning and should not depend on a different story. Some types that are extensive in nature may contain several motifs. Some other types with a single motif may be short creations. Types may be identified by making a comparative study of the stories. A type may contain several motifs.

Since Folk tales have a changing trend it is difficult to clearly classify them after distinctly identifying their various forms. During its verbal transfer, narrative story becoming bookish story, bookish story becoming narrative is very common. Since the stories are spread in the entire world it is all the more difficult to classify them. To obviate this Russian. Vlazimir J. Prop propounded a classification philosophy applicable generally to the Folk tales. That philosophy was christened as 'Philosophy of formation'. In kannada Dr. Sandhya Reddy, Dr. Veeranna Dande, and Dr. Hi. Shi.Ramachandregowda have written great essays with regard to the stories.

Folk song
Folk song is an important form of Folk literature. This is also known as 'Folk song'. Songs which are continuously in vogue in verbal tradition among the masses are popular as geethe or folk song. As in the case of other forms of Folk literature it is difficult to pinpoint the birth and time of Folk songs. But they owe their birth and growth to pure verbal tradition. Folk artists are the main contributors for this. There is no defined procedure to compose and sing them. It is learnt only by memory and singing in chorus with other veteran singers. The learning has been passed on from one generation to the other through these groups. A member of a group goes on learning by involving himself in the group singing. Like this, the salient features of Folk songs that express the motifs of a community are verbal tradition and anonymous creation. Talent with full of ecstasy is the true spirit of Folk song. For Folk songs association of music is imperative. Creativity is an important feature in Folk song. Folk songs sung in specific circumstances fulfill the aims of society and community and they have become part and parcel of social life. Sobane padagalu, Nati padaagalu, Devara padagalu are examples. Childhood, adolescence, marriage, death are the important turning points in life and Folk songs accompany these events. It has become a part of several important activities of community.

Folk songs can be classified into songs and ballads. In the case of songs bhavageethe (song with full of meaning and feeling) with its intense self-faithfulness and feeling gets lion share. The other category consists of lullaby, nature songs, seasonal songs, romantic songs, marriage songs, agriculture songs, work oriented songs, sport songs and dance songs, etc. Story in a song version is usually called as narrative song. Women sing these songs without any accompaniment. Songs sung by men are known as lavani and accompanied by instruments. Some people disagree to accept lavani as equivalent to ballad.

Though Folk songs belong to particular community it cannot be sung at all occassions by everybody. Generally, rendering of children's songs by elders, romantic songs by old people, lullaby and sobane by men, kamsalepada by women, is not in vogue. Singing while working in fields is a normal practice. Songs are sung at the time of ploughing, seeding, harvesting etc., Songs sung during household activities like grinding ragi in the grinding stone, pounding with pestle are very popular. Songs with philosophical bent of mind composed with belief in supernatural powers and establish contact with them also exist. Praying God has become an essential part of life. Songs explaining the bonding between families, reflecting the ups and downs of domestic life are touching. The romantic songs laced with a sense of humour sung during festivals and marriages may be named as humourous songs. Romantic songs full of vigour are found in large numbers in the Folk granary. But in recent times Folk songs have lost their dynamism and are being used only for entertainment.

Editors
Dr.D. Lingaiah
Dr.Chakkere Shivashankar