Riddles

· Riddles are questions which the listener is expected to answer; answers are difficult to answer, usually based on word play, illogic, or special knowledge.

· Riddles were once very popular in oral circulation, but today few traditional riddles are remembered (some do appear in Mother Goose books).

· Riddles are still very popular with children, but most of the riddles they ask today are ones found in books, and children do not remember them long.

Superstitions

· Superstitions are traditional beliefs which are learned orally from other people.

· Although some superstitions do have a scientific basis, the superstition usually arose long before the reason for it was discovered scientifically. (For example, the weather belief, «Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailors delight,» comes from very early times (a form of it is found in the Bible), but only much later did we learn that the earth rotates eastward so that red clouds in the eastern sky at morning means our area is heading toward a storm, while red skies in the west at night mean that we have passed the bad weather.)

· Superstitions can have to do with almost any topic, but they often deal with the causes of good or bad luck, or how to insure or predict events. (Examples: a black cat crossing one’s path is bad luck; finding a four-leaf clover is lucky; an itching nose means someone is coming to visit; showering a bridal couple with rice will bring them many children.)

Proverbs

· Proverbs are moral sayings; they are «the most highly condensed commentary on human folly or wisdom.»

· Proverbs are very short, often only one sentence or line; proverbs have two parts, a cause or condition and a result: an apple a day / keeps the doctor away; you can lead a horse to water / but you cannot make him drink; a penny saved / is a penny earned.

· Proverbs with two parts often show contrast: laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.

· Two separate proverbs may take two opposing points of view: absence makes the heart grow fonder; out of sight, out of mind.

· Thirty years ago, traditional proverbs were often used in speaking, and children learned them automatically from hearing adults say them; today they are not used nearly as often, and many children do not know the traditional forms.

Moral tales

Many types of folklore were used by various cultures to teach morals to children (and often to adults). Some of these tales are very short and openly didactic in nature.

Fables

Fables are short stories, in verse or prose, with an explicit moral ending. Didactic in tone, the objective of a fable is to teach a lesson, or at the very least guide the reader's behavior. The characters are animals and other inanimate objects. The form is ascribed to Aesop, who developed it in the 6th century BC. Other famous fables include the Panchatantra, a collection of fables in Sanskrit.

The Ant and the Grasshopper (Holiday House, 2000)

Retold and illus. by Amy Lowry Poole

Doctor Coyote: A Native American Aesop's Fable (Macmillan, 1987)

Retold by John Bierhorst. Illus. by Wendy Watson

The Lion and the Mouse and Other Aesop's Fables (DK, 2000)

Retold by Doris Orgel. Illus. by Bert Kitchen

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse: An Aesop Fable (North-South, 1998)