Here are a few of the many definitions describing that vast literary genre, folklore.

It is unwritten literary manifestations of all peoples, literate or otherwise.

It is part of a people's culture which is preserved, consciously or unconsciously, in beliefs and practices, customs and observances.

It is the depository of popular traditions.

It is oral literary tradition.

The scope of folklore is to reconstruct the spiritual history of man, not as represented by the outstanding works of poets, artists, and thinkers, but as exemplified by the more or less inarticulate voices of the "folk."