Contamination

Contamination in folklore is the combining, within one work, of elements (motifs, episodes, images, formulas) from two or more different works, arising in the process of oral existence and variation. Contamination is a natural mechanism of folk creativity: a performer, relying on memory and tradition, may join the plot of one song to the opening of another or 'write in' familiar formulas. The phenomenon is especially characteristic of dumas, ballads, and historical songs, where stable formulaic blocks easily pass from text to text. Contamination complicates the establishment of an 'original' text but testifies to the living, creative character of the tradition. The term is also used in textology — to denote a copyist's mechanical mixing of different redactions. Contamination in the Ukrainian epos was studied by Kateryna Hrushevska, compiler of the corpus 'Ukrainian Folk Dumas' (1927–1931).