Humorous Folklore in everyday life

The nature of humour has intrigued researchers for centuries. It is a field of research in many disciplines, from literary studies, linguistics and psychology to anthropology and folklore studies. Folklorists have often been confronted with humour because it is present in all traditional genres – fairy tales, poems, proverbs, riddles – and it also often punctuated the oral performances of serious folklore. In everyday life, pranks and jokes circulate in practices, narratives or short folklore forms. They have been collected by folklorists for more than a century. In recent decades, humour has become an important aspect of research, especially in the study of contemporary folklore, as jokes and other forms of humorous expression become recognisable as dominant expressions of folklore in contemporary urban society (Oring 2008, 2016; Marsh 2015; Blank 2013). Although humour is difficult to define (Apte 1985), research on humour and humorous folklore genres reveals the most recurrent forms of mockery that occur among friends, family members and colleagues, as well as the cases when humour becomes an expression of social hierarchy, a mechanism for surviving at the times of social and personal crisis, etc. A comparison of Slovenian and Estonian archival and contemporary humour will show which genres and motifs are most popular today and which themes related to humour are most prominent, as well as shed light on the broader structure of the relationships in society and society's creativity in dealing with difficult times. The comparison will be focused also on the different geographical, historical and political contexts of the two countries, which have an impact on the chosen topics as well as the forms of humour. We will also explore the ways global trends and topics transpire in the humorous folklore of the two countries.