okay for today's lecture we're going to talk about some common characteristics of the folktale most of us know some very old folk tales people share these stories orally for years before writing them down since people told stories instead of writing the stories changed in between places and with each Storyteller Storyteller made changes to the stories based on his own traditions and culture for example many cultures have stories like the Raven tale about how people got life in these Tales though the main character is another type of animal so to sum up folktales began in the oral tradition and as a result they have changed over time next the characters in folktales are similar they are usually ordinary characters who do extraordinary things they usually have only one or two strong characteristics for instance the chief in The Raven story is selfish and not very smart but Raven is very generous he wants to help people and he's very clever as he finds a way to get the light in addition often the characters and folktales are not people but animals with human qualities they talk make plans and have strong emotions small animals such as the popular spider and turtle play this role in West African stories in summary the characters of folktales are simple but often clever and achieving their goals finally the plot or what happens in the folktale is usually exciting most folktales begin with an expression like a long time ago and then moved very quickly into the story which starts with the problem for instance Strong Bad character often gives a weaker character a task and Promises something if he completes the task the weaker character often uses clever tricks special skills or magic to complete the task in the end of a folk tale the good characters usually win and the Bad characters lose in conclusion the plot of a folktale is interesting so in summary we know that the tradition of folktales is very old they are told all over the world but they share several of the same features they began in the oral tradition and changed through the years they also have the same types of characters and a strong plot