Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses the shade part of nationally valued oral tradition. It highlights folklore as a struggle of cultural recognition and access to the canon. The example material consists of popular rhymed folk songs used by writers but narrowly published by folklore editors in 19th century Finland.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, following Bendix (1997, 59), we argue that publishing folklore in books has ensured selected part of the oral tradition as valued and recognized. However, utilizing folklore within literature has not gained any acknowledgement to the tradition. To elucidate our argument, we focus on rhymed folk songs of 19th century publications and literature.

Rhymed folk songs, especially the rhymed couplets, consisting of one stanza length units with two rhymed lines, were mainly sung in the contexts of dancing and games, and addressed themes such as love, often in openly erotic or satiric way. Popular among peasants, rhymed songs were documented and transmitted widely in a literary form, in chapbooks and broadsides, but they were never presented in nationally acknowledged publications of folk poetry.

While being overlooked by folklore editors and publishers, Finnish writers of the late 19th century began to utilize rhymed folk songs in their writings. The widespread utilization of rhyming folk songs in literature, and the apparent popularity of this kind of literature, substantiate for its part the cultural importance of this singing tradition. However, despite - or maybe because of - their popularity and literary spreading, rhymed folk songs have not been recognised as highly valued folklore.

The remaining question is: how and to what extent the rhymed folk songs, if acknowledged and canonized, would have changed ideals and knowledge of oral tradition?

Literature

Bendix, Regina 1997. In Search of Authenticity. The Formation of Folklore Studies. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.