600 folklorists to attend 4-day meeting in Salt Lake

What is folklore?

Stop and look around you. Chances are, you're looking at it — or at least something that is part of it.

"Folklore is the informal side of life," said Tim Lloyd, executive director of the American Folklore Society, which is based at Ohio State University. "It is not what you learn in formal institutions, but what you get through interactions with other people."

Folklore embraces what people:

Believe — planting practices, family traditions, elements of a worldview.

Do — dance, make music, sew.

Know — how to build an irrigation dam, how to nurse an ailing child, how to prepare barbecue.

Make — architecture, crafts, saddles, baskets.

Say — personal experience stories, riddles, song lyrics.

"It's an enormous part of life," said Lloyd. "Think what gives you your own cultural identity. That's what folklore is."

It is not just myths, legends and fairy tales, although they are part of it. It is not just things that are remote in time or space, although they are a part of it. It is everything involved in the traditional side of life — past, present and future, he said.

With all that involved, you can be sure that a lot of people are interested in studying, interpreting, exploring and enjoying folklore. And that's what the American Folklore Society is all about.

The group will be holding its annual meeting in Salt Lake City this year, bringing more than 600 folklorists from across the country and around the world (Mexico, Slovenia, Malaysia, Kenya, among others). The meetings will be held Wednesday through Saturday at Little America Hotel and Towers.

Sessions are open to the public but require a fee of $35 daily or $105 for the entire conference, payable at the registration desk at the hotel. The program schedule is available at www.afsnet.org/annualmeet.

This is the 116th annual meeting for the AFS — the first one was held in Philadelphia in 1889 — and the group is excited to be coming to Utah, said Lloyd. "The cultural heritage of the state is tremendous, with the Native Americans, the pioneers who came West for religion and more recent immigration patterns." (Lloyd admits to having a bias, however; his wife is from Utah.)