Folk belief

In folkloristics, folk belief or folk-belief is a broad genre of folklore that is often expressed in narratives, customs, rituals, foodways, proverbs, and rhymes. It also includes a wide variety of behaviors, expressions, and beliefs. Examples of concepts included in this genre are magic, popular belief, folk religion, planting signs, hoodoo, conjuration, charms, root work, taboos, old wives' tales, omens, portents, the supernatural and folk medicine.
Folk belief and associated behaviors are strongly evidenced among all elements of society, regardless of education level or income. In turn, folk belief is found in an agricultural, suburban, and urban environments alike.
Terminology.
One of a variety of compounds extending from the coinage of the term "folklore" in 1846 (previously "popular antiquities"), the term "folk-belief" is first evidenced in use by British folklorist Laurence Gomme in 1892.
Common parlance employs the word "superstition" for what folklorists generally refer to as "folk belief". A proponent of this conceptualization includes Alan Dundes, the American folklorist who proposed that the term as superstition denote traditional expressions that have conditions and results, signs and causes. There are also those who include in the term's coverage the belief narratives such as legends, which are differentiated from folktales in the sense that they are believable for telling stories about human beings who lived in the recent past.