Lores

Lores are bodies of knowledge, stories, and beliefs that are transmitted within a community across generations. The term is commonly used in the singular as lore, but lores may be discussed as distinct strands within a culture or tradition. Lores encompass myths, legends, folk practices, language, traditional crafts, herbal and practical knowledge, navigational skills, and social norms. They function as memory repositories and identity markers, shaping behavior, values, and social organization. Transmission occurs through oral storytelling, ritual performance, apprenticeship, and, in modern contexts, written texts and digital media. Because lore evolves, it can incorporate new experiences while retaining core meanings, leading to variation between regions or groups.

Scholarly study treats lores as dynamic social practices. Folklore, ethnography, and related disciplines examine how communities create, preserve, transform, and contest lore; how power relations, gender, and class influence what is valued; and how contact with other cultures yields hybrid lore. Lore is not necessarily aligned with scientific or historical fact; it often encodes meaning, memory, and belief, and can serve to legitimate social customs or resist change.

In contemporary usage, “lore” frequently appears in discussions of fictional worlds, where it denotes the background knowledge that explains settings, histories, magic systems, and character motives. Authors and designers curate lore to deepen immersion, while fans expand it through annotations, compendia, and wikis.

Etymology traces lore to Old English lare or lar meaning instruction or teaching, related to learning and knowledge. See also folklore and traditional knowledge.