Folk memory is a term sometimes used to describe stories, folklore or myths about past events that have passed orally from generation to generation. The events described by the memories may date back hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years and often have a local significance. They may explain physical features in the local environment, provide reasons for cultural traditions or give etymologies for the names of local places.
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or memory:
“An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
An’ the Crucified maun bleed.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)