[f. FOLK + LORE.] The traditional beliefs, legends, and customs, current among the common people; the study of these.
1846. Ambrose Merton [W. J. Thoms], in Athenæum, 22 Aug., 862/3. What we in England designate as Popular Antiquities, or Popular Literature (though by-the-bye it is more a Lore than a Literature, and would be most aptly described by a good Saxon compound, Folk-Lore,—the Lore of the People).
1862. Ecclesiologist, XXIII. Oct., 279. In connection with one of these curious beads of coloured glass, commonly called ‘Druids’ beads,’ Mr. Lee gives us a piece of folks-lore.
1863. Max Müller, Chips (1880), II. xxi. 206. A healing virtue is ascribed in German folk-lore to the mistletoe and the ash.
1884. A. Lang, Custom & Myth, 11. Properly speaking, folklore is only concerned with the legends, customs, beliefs, of the Folk, of the people, of the classes which have least been altered by education, which have shared least in progress.
Hence Folklorism, a piece of folk-lore; Folklorist, a student of folk-lore, Folkloristic a.
1876. N. & Q., 5th Ser. VI. 12/2. Success to the Folk-Lore Society!
1886. The Saturday Review, LXII. 28 Aug., 306/2. The Revue des traditions populaires with some galled geese hissing on the cover, is a pleasing periodical, and contains divers ‘folklorisms.’
1888. Bullen, Peele’s Wks., I. Introduction, p. xl. The Ghost of Jack ought to be an object of interest to folklorists.
1888. A. F. Chamberlain, in Science, XII. 132/1. A recent visit to the Mississaguas of Scugog Island (a remnant of a once powerful branch of the great Ojibwa confederacy) has enabled me to collect some interesting philological and folk-loristic information.
