CRYPTOFOLK: How Folktales Flourish, Fade or Return
Myths and Folktales are born when human beings need a story to explain the unexplainable or teach themselves an important lesson. These stories are often made up of oral narratives which include legends, proverbs, music, jokes and stories which belong to a particular culture or social group. Over time, this folklore becomes part of people’s identity, often tied to a specific region or place.
Some folk tales carry on for generations, while others simply fade and die away. For the past few decades, it’s been my mission to resurrect and save some of these old folk tales from oblivion. In what I term as “Cryptofolk” or “Hidden Stories of the People,” I’ve endeavored to find these fading or lost tales from different regions around the world and blend them in to a newer, more modern narrative.
Cryptofolk is a new style of storytelling within the existing Folklore/Mythology literary genre.
Regional folk tales are often lost and obscured through time or remain localized within their specific community. These stories contain themes and archetypes that resonate across cultures and borders, providing an opportunity for others to learn and grow through the discovery of these powerful legends.
Cryptofolk (Crypto, from the Greek kryptós, meaning hidden and Folk, archaic for people or tribe) resurrects old and obscure folklore and legends from around the world. It uses descriptive narrative and various transmedia applications to present stories that are thought provoking, visually rich, and accessible to a global audience.
In his Scientific American essay, “Likely Story,” Klaus Manhart believes that, “Myths persists in modern culture because of the brain’s biological need to impose order on the world.”
There is a lot of truth in that statement. Our biological need for order and patterns is the breeding ground for folklore and myth. Humans tend to see patterns everywhere. That’s important when making decisions and judgments and acquiring knowledge, as we tend to be uneasy with having only chaos and chance impacting our lives.
In his book, “How We Believe,” Michael Shermer argues that:
“Our brains have evolved as pattern recognition machines. Our brains create meaning from patterns we see or at least think we see in nature. Often, the patterns are real, while other times they are manifestations of chance. Pattern recognition tells us something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that help us with survival and reproduction. Pattern recognition is imperative to learning.
From an evolutionary perspective, seeing patterns even when they are not there is preferable to not seeing patterns when in fact they are there.”
Folktales manifest when we take the things we already know about (e.g. plants, animals, constellations, weather, etc…) and use them to explain the unknown. This is how folk tales originate and grow. They flourish when the stories begin to embody the culture and lifestyles of the people who created them.
Conversely, folklore fades and dies when cultures change and adapt, creating a misalignment between the folk tale and the people who used to represent and support the story. Folktales perish when people find them outdated, irrelevant, or offensive to the current culture.
In Detroit, they resurrected the 300-year French legend of the Nain Rouge (Red Dwarf). The legend tells of a little red gnome who appears as a harbinger of doom just before bad events. The French brought this legend with them when the city was founded in 1701, but the story faded due to British and American occupation over hundreds of years.
As a rust-belt city now in the process of growth and regeneration, the people of Detroit sought out their own personal history and discovered this lost legend. Many people felt the little creature embodied the ups and downs the city had over the years and began to embrace it as their own once again.
Thus, a folktale rises from the ashes, demonstrating the complete cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth of a folk story.
Now how cool is that?
