By Cecilia Keehan

Alan Dundes, professor of anthropology and folklore at the University of California at Berkeley, came to the Morning Forum of Los Altos Nov. 13 to talk about folklore. Folklore, he said, comes in many different forms, including myths, folk tales, legends, folk dances, proverbs, riddles, superstitions, games, songs and narratives.

The professor doesn’t equate folklore with “error,” as people often do when they tell a story and then dismiss it as “that’s just folklore.” But he admitted that some folklore is not true. George Washington never did chop down a cherry tree, he said.

In Dundes’ latest book, “Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore,” he combines his love of the Bible with folklore. The Bible, he said, is oral tradition written down. Even biblical scholars agree with its origin.

Since early people could not read or write, they memorized the Bible. “God told Moses to learn the commandments and to teach them to the people. So the people learned and committed them to memory,” Dundes said.

When folklore is written, it is cleaned up, he said. Because the Bible was sacred, all the versions were kept. “There are different versions of every major event in the Bible,” he said.

The professor identified three parts to culture in the United States. The first, he said, is distinguished as high culture and it focuses on great music and art. Popular culture is identified with television, comics, and Nancy Drew and Harry Potter books. The third category differs from high and low culture because it has a multiple existence and shows variation. This is folklore. When people respond to folklore, they often say, “I’ve heard that, but the way I heard it was -” and they add their own variation, because “folklore is always changing.”

Even relatively fixed material will show variation. To prove his point, Dundes said some people will say “as slow as molasses,” while others will add “as slow as molasses in January.” It’s folklore when there are variations on the same basic stories, he said.

The professor was recently surprised by a $1 million gift from a former student. He used it to establish a distinguished professorship in folkloristics.

Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.

COURTESY OF CECILIA KEEHAN

Alan Dundes’ latest book, “Holy Writ and Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore,” combines a love of both subjects.