Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the sudden transformation of men into beasts and vice versa, or by other unnatural incidents. A number of aggadic stories bear folktale characteristics, especially those relating to Og, King of Bashan, which have the same exaggerations as have the lügenmärchen of modern German folktales.[1]
There is considerable evidence of Jewish people bringing and helping the spread of Eastern folktales in Europe.[2] Besides these tales from foreign sources, Jews either collected or composed others which were told throughout the European ghettos, and were collected in Yiddish in the "Maasebücher".[2] Numbers of the folktales contained in these collections were also published separately.[3] It is, however, difficult to call many of them folktales in the sense given above, since nothing fairy-like or supernormal occurs in them.[2]
There are a few definitely Jewish legends of the Middle Ages which partake of the character of folktales, such as those of the Jewish pope Andreas and of the golem, or that relating to the wall of the Rashi chapel, which moved backward in order to save the life of a poor woman who was in danger of being crushed by a passing carriage in the narrow way. Several of these legends were collected by Abraham Moses Tendlau [de] (Sagen und Legenden der Jüdischen Vorzeit).[4]
In the late 19th century many folktales were gathered among Jews or published from Hebrew manuscripts by Israël Lévi [fr] in the Revue des Etudes Juives, in the Revue des Traditions Populaires, and in Melusine; by Moses GasterinFolk-Lore and in the reports of Montefiore College; and by Max GrunwaldinMitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Jüdische Volkskunde;[5]byL. Wiener in the same periodical; and by F. S. KraussinUrquell, both series.
