Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to lesson two of the Oral Tradition with me, Miss Kuhivchak.

Today's topic is Myths and Folk Stories.

And I'm really excited to talk to you about some of my favourite stories from my childhood.

We are also going to be kind of travelling around the world a bit and think about some stories from different places and cultures.

So I hope you're ready to travel mentally to some different places and hear about some slightly weird and wonderful things that go on when people tell their stories as part of the Oral Tradition.

Are you ready? Let's go.

Okay, so in order to start today, you're going to need three things.

You're going to need your pen, you're going to need a piece of paper, and you're going to need your brain.

As usual, the lesson will still work if you don't have a pen and paper, but if you don't have your brain, it's definitely not going to work.

So pause now.

If you need a pen and paper, go and get one.

I'm going to quickly take you through the agenda for today.

An agenda is the things we're going to do.

First, we're going to start with a recap of the Oral Tradition from the last lesson because you will need that to think about the next few things.

We're going to learn about myths, what myths are.

We're going to learn about folk stories and what folk stories are.

And finally, you're going to learn how to tell the difference which can be a bit tricky.

After that, as usual, you'll have a little quiz to see how much you have learned.

Okay, first task.

I would like you to write down a definition of what the words "Oral Tradition" meant.

Now, if you're stuck, you have an image on the screen, the blue icon, to jog your memory a little bit.

And if you still can't remember, there are two sentences for you to finish off.

The first sentence is, "The oral tradition is when stories are passed on by.

." finish it off.

And, if you can remember, what was one downside of the oral tradition? So pause, see if you can finish off those two sentences.

Okay, so hopefully you found the first one not too difficult.

The oral tradition is when stories are passed on by learning them by heart and telling them to others.

So well done if you got that right.

You might also have written something like, the oral tradition is when you speak instead of write.

That's absolutely fine as well, that's completely correct.

And the downside to the oral tradition, well done if you put that sometimes stories can be forgotten if they're not written down, and also, the authors can be forgotten as well.

We don't always know who spoke these stories originally.

And now, remembering that oral tradition is about passing on stories, we're going to talk about what kinds of stories usually get passed on.

So we have got myths, and we have got folk stories.

I would like you to take just a couple of minutes to think about whether you could explain what is a myth, what is a folk story, and if there might be a difference between the two.

Let's start with the idea of what is a myth.

Now, if I ask this in class, often students are able to give me examples of myths, even if they can't explain what one is.

And actually, if you look at the picture on the screen, there's a clue.

Often, the examples they give me are myths from ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

And that's one definition of a myth.

Another definition is what happens in myths.

Myths are stories often with a basis in some kind of religion and they often involve gods as a character.

So gods exist in these stories and they act as characters within these stories.

They often do actions that have consequences for the humans in the stories.

Myths often explain something about the world we live in.

So they might explain how the universe came to be, or they might explain why we have certain animals that exist, or they might explain why humans behave in a certain way.

They have some kind of explanation for us in the universe.

And most of the examples that we have and that we teach in schools, are stories that come from what we call the classical world, so ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

But as you'll learn in this lesson, there are myths that come from other cultures as well, and those are just as important.

Now, folk stories are different to myths.

One point that is important to know about folk stories is that often, story is told in one particular place, by one particular group of people.

So it might be people in a certain country or people who speak the same language, but that story is unique to that setting.

Folk stories, unlike myths, are often based on everyday events where something might go wrong.

So an example in this might be the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

That's an ordinary day for her, she goes to see her grandmother, but something goes wrong.

And that makes it a folk story, it's something that's normal, but then there's a problem that has to be solved.

And finally, folk stories are fictional, and by fictional we mean they are made up.

They are events that wouldn't be possible in real life.

So the story of Little Red Riding Hood, not really possible in real life.

A wolf is not going to go steal a grandma, dress up in her clothes.

That's just not going to happen.

So folk stories are not so much about explaining the universe, but it's more about a particular kind of story from a particular kind of place, something that starts of believable, but is often made up and kind of fantasised.

All right.

Having said that, pause the video.

I would like you to list three differences between myths and folk stories.

Okay.

Some of the differences you might have been able to list based on what we said: remember, myths are based on religion.

Well done if you remembered that.

They contain gods and characters that are gods.

Well done if you remembered that myths explain the world and also that they often come from Greece and Rome, though not always.

For folk stories, if you listed that they come from one particular place or group of people, fantastic.

Well done.

Same if you remembered that they come from sort of everyday events, something that you would do normally, but then it goes wrong.

And finally, a big well done if you remembered that they're fictional, i.

e.

they're made up, they're created, they're kind of fantasy.

We will go back over these ideas later.

We're going to talk about some examples of myths and folk stories, some of which you might know already.

We're going to start with one of my favourite stories, the story of Baba Yaga.

Now, you might never of heard of this story unless you have a background that comes from eastern Europe, like my family.

This was a very popular story in my house.

If you look at the image on the side of the screen, you will see a picture of an old woman feeding some chickens in a dark forest.

And behind her, there is a house with chicken legs, which is a key part of Baba Yaga's story.

Baba Yaga is a story from Russia, but also from other parts of eastern Europe.

It's a story of this old woman who lives deep in a dark forest.

Now, she lives in a hut, which has chicken legs.

Why does it have chicken legs, I hear you ask.

I don't know, that's just part of the story.

I think it's kind of great.

And of course, it means that the hut can move around 'cause it's got it's chicken legs and it can just walk around the forest.

And Baba Yaga is interesting because let's say you're travelling deep in a Russian forest in the middle of winter, you see a light, you see this house, you think, "Oh, fantastic! I can stay somewhere, it's warm, and I can have food." Baba Yaga doesn't always decide in a good way whether she's going to help you or not.

She might decide to trick you, she might trap you in the forest forever.

Or if she's in a good mood, she might invite you in, give you some soup, give you a place to stay, send you on your way, you just don't know.

She's quite unpredictable.

So you've got to hope, if you're in a Russian forest, travelling somewhere and you see the light, that she's feeling cheerful and she's not going to trap you in her chicken house for 100 years, which might happen.

Now, that was a very, very quick explanation of the story of Baba Yaga.

Based on those points, I would like you to think about whether this story belongs in the category of a myth, or whether it belongs in the category of a folk tale.

Pause your screen, decide which one is is, write down why you think it is.

Off you go.

Okay, well if you put the answer: a folk story, well done.

Baba Yaga is a folk story and not a myth.

There are three reasons why.

Baba Yaga is a story from Russia.

It's a story from one particular place, told in a particular language, which means that it belongs in the category of a folk story.

It's not from Greece or Rome.

It's not a universal myth.

This is something specific, a story from a specific place, that makes it a folk story.

And of course, it's impossible to have a hut with chicken legs.

That puts it in the fictional category.

I mean, I haven't met a house with chicken legs yet, and until I do, I'm going to assume that this is completely made up.

That makes it a folk story.

And it also fits in the category of things that can go wrong because she either help a traveller or trick a traveller depending on her mood.

So a lot of stories about Baba Yaga, you have a traveller who's just having an ordinary day, trying to get home, comes across her in the forest, and then things go wrong.

So that puts it in the folk story category.

This is the story of Pandora's Box.

Some of you may know this story, you may have already studied it in primary school.

This is the story of Pandora, which comes from ancient Greece.

Pandora is a beautiful woman, she's created to be beautiful, she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but the gods curse her with the curse of too much curiosity.

Now, because she's curious, she doesn't listen to instructions.

She's forbidden to open a beautiful box which sits in the corner of her house.

And one day, when her husband goes out, she can't stop herself, she opens up the box, which she has been forbidden to touch.

Once she opens the box, all the bad things in the universe get released and they follow humans forevermore.

We're talking things like death, diseases, plagues, anything that is bad in the world, which has been kept inside this box, gets released forever.

And in fact, the only good thing in this box, it's left at the very bottom, is hope, which still doesn't make her feel better about the fact she opened the box.

Okay, based on that very quick summary of the story of Pandora's Box, and what we know about myths and what we know about folk tales, think again, which category does this belong to? Is it a myth? Is it a folk tale? Why? Pause your screen, have a go.

All right.

Well done if you put that the box story is a myth.

It is a myth, and there are several reasons why this could be.

Well done is you spotted that this is a story that has the gods in it.

She is cursed by the gods, and therefore, that puts it in a myth category.

Also, she releases bad things into the world that stay forever.

This is a story that explains the origin of bad things.

The ancient Greeks thought, "Hm.

Why do we have things like plagues and death or bad events? Must have been that Pandora woman." It explains why these things things happen.

And finally, the country of origin is ancient Greece.

And we already have said that the ancient Greek and the ancient Roman world gave us a lot of myths, so that's another clue that it's a myth and not a folk tale.

Brilliant.

Well done for doing that.

We have a third story coming up, but I want you to think really carefully this time as you listen to this.

So our third story today is the story of Anansi.

He's sometimes called Anansi the Spider or Kwaku Anansi.

He has a lot of different names which is pretty common in stories that are part of the oral tradition.

There are different versions of him.

Anansi, originally, the story's from West Africa, though you also get his story being told by African Americans and also in the Caribbean, so he travels round a lot.

And I want you to listen carefully to this explanation of Anansi, and think about, is it a myth, is it a folk tale, or is there something a bit strange about this one? So the first thing to know about Anansi, he is the son of Nyame, who is the Sky God.

So even though he lives on earth, he's related to the Sky God, he's the son.

Because he's his son, Nyame decided to gift Anansi all of the wisdom in the whole world hidden inside a calabash, which is a kind of gourd, which is quite small, so you might say maybe there wasn't a lot of wisdom in the world.

But Nyame decided to gather it all together and hand it to his son to keep it safe.

Obviously, Anansi was thrilled with this present.

He thought, "Ah, fantastic.

It's great.

I get to have all the wisdom of the world to myself." When he tried to hide the wisdom, he actually dropped the gourd, which broke open, which spread the wisdom everywhere.

And this story suggests that, actually, it's probably better to share wisdom with other people instead of selfishly keeping it just for you.

I like this story about wisdom.

It suggests that everybody has a little bit of wisdom somewhere, we all do.

We're all a little bit wise, even when we feel we aren't.

Now, based on this story, looking at the facts on the screen, I want you to pause and think, which category does the story of Anansi the Spider belong to? Is it a myth? Is it a folk story? Have a think.

Now, the story of Anansi the Spider was deliberately there to trick you.

So if you were sitting there feeling a bit confused, well done, you should have been confused.

The story of Anansi could be in either category.

It could be seen as a myth, it could be seen as a folk story, and I will explain why.

The first reason why it could be a folk tale rather than a myth is it's a story from West Africa, one particular place, one particular culture, and therefore, you'd think, oh, might be a folk story rather than a myth.

However, you might have been caught out by the fact that in the story, he's the son of a god and the story includes the god as a character who talks to his son, which would put it in the status of myth instead.

And to further make things complicated, you could also say, since he tries to hide wisdom inside the calabash and then drops it everywhere, it's an event that goes wrong.

A calabash is a sort of everyday object in West Africa, and when he drops it, he creates a problem.

So that also could put it in the folk story category.

And you will get people who argue about this and say, "Oh, it's definitely a myth," or people who say, "It's definitely a folk story." I would argue it's kind of both.

Sometimes, stories don't fit into neat categories.

But that's what happens with the oral tradition is things can be fluid, and things can change, and that just makes them more interesting.

So today, we've done quite a lot.

We have recapped what the oral tradition was, the idea of spoken stories that are not written down.

We talked about myths and how myths can be from Greece and Rome.

They include gods as characters and they often explain the universe.

Whereas folk stories are often fictional, like the story of Baba Yaga and her chicken hut.

They're often about more everyday things and they're often from a particular place or culture.

And we talked about how those are the main categories, but sometimes they might blend into one.

And hopefully, you'll remember this when you do your quiz and you can recap what we've done together.

Next time, we are going to talk about British myths and British stories and, particularly, how stories have changed and the language we use has changed.

You can see in this image, we've got a picture of a warrior with a sword facing a monster.

We're going to talk about one particular British myth which I think you will like.

I hope you're excited.

Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

Really well done on the fantastic learning you've done today.

We did cover a lot.

Now, remember to complete the quiz at the end just to review your learning.

And if you're able to, take a picture of your work and ask your parent or carer to share it with your teacher, so they can see what fantastic learning you've done today.

And if you'd like, ask your parent or carer to share the picture of your work with @OakNational on Twitter and then I can see all of your lovely work as well.

All that's left for me to say is thank you for listening and enjoy the rest of your learning for today.