Since both Higurashi and Umineko have a folklore aspect to them, I thought of making this folklore thread. Here we can discuss different folklore tales from many different parts of the world. I’ve always found folklore and mythology, though they’re not the same thing, fascinating. The tales they tell are very fairy-tale like with fantasy elements included in them and I like its intertwining with the human world. It shows aspects of the society of the time when they were created too and thus it also has a cultural aspect to it. There is this really interesting website on the internet, which I can’t recall at the moment, that has many different folktales, some of which I’ll post here later for all of us to discuss but anyhow, do you like folktales? Any interesting ones that you’d want to share here with us?
I always found Native American myths to be quite interesting. The one I remember the most would be the Iroquois creation legend.
Um, while your post is fine and all, I meant folklore tales rather than fairy tales, Pandora. 
Ah, my bad then.
But is it really so bad to include fairy tales in this thread? The only real difference between folktales and fairytales is that the former gets its roots from real-life phenomenons, other than that, they are pretty similar and I do feel like the When They Cry series always took some of its inspiration from from certain fairy tales.
I love folktales. Most of the ones I read as a kid were Slavic ones though, some of the more well-known English ones and maybe a couple of Japanese ones like Momotaro and some others. Also if we touch on the subject of influence folktales and fairy tales have on modern writers, I love it when stories take characters from different tales around the world, reimagine them, gather them all in one place, add some realism and violence and write an interesting story using them. It’s just very fun and also allows you to learn about some of the more obscure tales and characters. One of the first works I read that used that concept well was a comic book called Fables, it also was one of the first works of fiction I ever read in English, so it has a special place in my heart. I recommend people who like comic books and folklore check it out.
Another good thread to discuss things in, I would say. When it comes to folktales, I must admit Im a bit less experienced than I am with classical Mythology, but I can probably dig out a book or two from my vast library that I keep around. I’m pretty sure I have a book on them, as well as one on Grimm’s Tales specifically. How would you define the difference between folklore and mythology, @Sapphire, I’m curious to hear your opinion on it. Its always refreshing to hear perspectives from people who I haven’t talked much to who seem informed on the matter, theres not a lot of us out there, at least in my experience.
I think the difference is in the scope. Mythological tales are usually grand and epic, tales about Gods and Heroes who battle them, events that shape the world and all that, while folktales tend to be about small towns and villages, mysterious creatures from within a deep forest and they also tend to follow children or other more defenseless main characters, who have to rely on their wit to overcome challenges presented to them. The line is still blurred though as I know that there are folktales that are almost comparable to myths on the level of epicness and there are mythological stories that tell of a smaller event in the world.
@Pandora Well, I’m afraid we can’t really discuss fairy tales here, while it’s true that they may be a little similar in that they are both works of fiction, there’s not much else to attest for that. And I just took the idea for this thread from Higurashi and Umineko’s folklore, I didn’t mean for this to be a thread where we discuss inspirations for Umineko, there is another one for that I believe, around here. You can always create a thread of your own about fairy tales though. 
@Restkastel Well @Doldod put it very well where they differ, and that is in that mythology is more epic and involves a larger scope of the world while folklore is more about mysterious little happenings and encounters. While I prefer mythology over folklore, I really like this aspect of it, being described as something mysterious that’s happened somewhere, that makes the inhabitants of that place whisper to one another about it and it eventually turns into a folktale. It also, like Doldod said, gives the human world some power in the tale, about you know, how to fight these creatures and such.
Here is the website I mentioned before, you can read some folklore tales on there and we can discuss them together. I’ll probably extract some of them later, too.
This is a really good podcast for anyone interested in folklore. It really does a bit of everything - mythology, folklore, fairy tales, fables and the lot - but it does a pretty good job of covering different cultures, and I appreciate the way he retells the myths - he does is own narrative complete with a little jaded modern day comments thrown in here and there. I think it is very appropriate as so much of folklore was passed down primarily via word of mouth long before they ever saw print.