Donald Bán and the Bócan

Although ATU 510A, ‘Cinderella’, is known to have ancient origins, it was widely thought that the ash-name did not become a feature of the tale type until Giambattista Basile’s ‘La Gatta cenerentola’ (The Ashy Cat) in the seventeenth century. However, it is preceded in this regard by a little-known fourteenth-century Icelandic romance, Vilmundar saga viðutan (The Saga of Vilmundr the Outsider). Using this saga as a starting point, this article traces the literary transmission of ATU 510A through the extant corpus of Old Norse literature, with particular reference to the development of three key aspects of ‘Cinderella’: the persecuted heroine; the lost-and-found shoe; and the cinder-name.     

The Cure of Elf-Shooting in the North-West of Ireland

In this article the study of literary and oral versions of ‘The Tree Demon’ (ATU 1168B) relates to the broader issue of the oral versus written transmission of folktales, which was raised in the late nineteenth century and is still relevant today. It examines three literary versions in compilations from the Middle Ages: a Hebrew version from the tenth century and two Muslim versions from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in Persian and Arabic. These are compared with three oral variants from Burma and Cambodia. The development of the ‘Tree Demon’ tale type as a test case is demonstrated through an analysis of the versions' different religious, cultural, and social functions, which reflect their different channels of transmission and historical settings.     

The Hǔngbu and Nolbu Tale Type: A Korean Double Contrastive Narrative Structure

There is a large class of Korean folk tales composed of parallel sets of contrasting narratives showing how good actions are rewarded and evil actions punished. This type of narrative structure, which I have termed double contrastive narrative structure, can be found throughout East Asia and the world. "The Story of Hǔngbu and Nolbu", the best-known Korean example of this tale about a good younger brother and evil elder brother, is distinguished from similar tales in China and Japan by the Confucian "subtext" of its narrative which emphasises the moral power of the younger brother to influence his elder brother to reform his behaviour. The Korean tale is thus an illustration of the Confucian concept of moral suasion and not simply about rewards and punishments.     

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbours": History and Significance of an Ambiguous Proverb

This essay focuses on the narrative traditions of the Nama-speaking peoples in Namibia, South Africa. It describes tales in which children are the main protagonists and discusses the character of African tales of magic. It shows that in these tales the “laws” of tale-telling that are known from studies of Western tales by Axel Olrik and Max Lüthi, for example, are stronger than a desire to depict reality. The African tales about children are compared with Western ones about children, particularly in relation to the ATU 327 complex. The paper suggests that both these European tales and African tales of magic should be treated as a special subgenre.     

“Tell Thou the Tale”: Shakespeare's Taming of Folktales in The Taming of the Shrew

William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew adapts two European folktales, “The Taming of the Shrew” (ATU 901) and “Lord for a Day” (ATU 1531). The playwright adapts these tales in order to negotiate his role as storyteller with the audience, alternately insisting on his right to innovate and deferring to the audience by allowing them to choose among multiple possible endings.     

‘White as Cheese’: A Discussion of ‘Jbene’, the Palestinian Oicotype of ATU 403

This article examines the oral versions of the Palestinian tale ‘Jbene’, an oicotype of ATU 403, focusing on the relationships between two plot details that neutralize each other: whitening the heroine, as an act of creation/blessing; and blackening her in an attempt to ruin/destroy her. Socio-cultural aspects are examined, taking into consideration the status of female sexuality in Palestinian society, as well as the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The oicotype is viewed as both strengthening Palestinian collective identity and at the same time conveying messages to young women on how to handle their sexuality within a patriarchal society.     

The Jackal and the Lion: Aspects of Khoisan Folklore

This article explores the relationship between southern African Khoekhoe and San folktales through discussion of a specific nineteenth-century tale. Indigenous meanings embodied in the selected narratives rather than in Khoisan trickster tales in general are sought by explication of highly significant words and phrases.     

The Paganism of the Ancient Prussians.

Some contemporary fairytales have antecedents in pre-modern documents. That oral traditions lie behind much medieval literature is likely; this is no less true for the “Constance” tales (ATU 706 and ATU 706C). Through the historic–geographic method, Alexander H. Krappe determined that these plots originated in Eastern Europe. An ahistorical anecdote in The Chronicle of Morea is related to the earliest documented variants of the “Constance” group, two thirteenth-century romances, Mai und Beaflor and Le Roman de la Manekine, and two episodes in historical narratives by Matthew Paris and Jans der Enikel. In addition to the basic outline of events, the common themes of relationship between an imperial centre and outlying districts are shared. The birth of this plot type, under the influence of both western and eastern sources, may then be situated in the historical context of the Fourth Crusade's aftermath in formerly Byzantine territory.     

Alexander of Macedon in Georgian Folktales

In European and Eastern folklore, Alexander of Macedon (Alexander the Great) is an important figure, introduced through literature and subject to diverse interpretations in folklore, in line with patterns common in folk narratives. Alexander the Great never visited Georgia during his campaigns, yet is one of the most popular characters in Georgian folklore. The Georgian folktales featuring Alexander draw on literary influences from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, representing at the same time an integral part of national folklore. This article shows how a historical figure can be transformed in folk traditions and what role the genre specifics of folklore may have for the formation of the image of such a character.     

The meaning of El Roi and the mythological dimension in Genesis 16

Abstract

This article discusses the literary debt of the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 to the Ugaritic text KTU 1.23, suggesting that behind the present tale lie ancient royal ideological motifs. These have a bearing on the present form of the story, ans suggest a message of hope to an exilic readership. The divine epithet Roi is explained as “seen”, expressing Hagar's surprise at surviving a vision of God.     

The Case of the Case History: Detecting the Medical Report in Sherlock Holmes

Critics have examined both the influence of the medical case model and the newer laboratory sciences on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, but they have often overlooked key aspects of the stories' turn-of-the-century historical context. I argue that in response to the indefinite rewards offered by the up-and-coming laboratory sciences and the grandiose claims of many of those practicing these sciences, Conan Doyle chose to circle back to an earlier clinical method and to echo a type of case narrative that provides both closure and disclosure via post-mortem exam. Thus, Conan Doyle's stories, with their breakdown into Watsonian history and Holmesian summation, register the value of clinical procedures by using the established medical case study that ends in autopsy as a template. In his fictional echoing of the case culminating in post-mortem exam, Conan Doyle's Holmes stories draw attention to the accuracy of knowledge that only such cases can provide, and in doing so, Conan Doyle highlights the uncertainty inherent in both many Victorian medical practices and the unproven laboratory sciences of the day – an uncertainty, the tales suggest, that could only be remedied by accruing information through this particularly revealing type of case documentation. In the process, the Holmes tales reflect on the case's unique ability to narrate a type of resolution which cannot be otherwise represented. In its emphasis on making comprehensible that which defies mastery through other means lies the case's essential fit with literary narrative more generally – and narratives of detection like the Holmes stories, in particular.     

宫泽贤治的童话创作

在日本近代文学史上,宫泽贤治是一个独特的存在。英年早逝的宫泽贤治作为儿童文学作家,他的童话文学也迥异于当时儿童文学的主流作家们。本文论述了宫泽贤治独特的童话创作观念,艺术上独创的故事性、小说式的展开方法以及思想主体上具有宗教色彩的求道性,以期阐释其童话文学传世的因由。     

The Proverbial Wisdom of a Georgian Language Island in Iran

The Georgian language island in Iran is not yet on the radar of international scholars. Studies by Georgian scholars have mostly focused on linguistic, ethnologic and historic issues concerning the Georgian community living in Isfahan province; no paremiological approach has been undertaken. This article is based on the analysis of Fereydani proverbs recorded from 1968 to 2014. Study reveals that the proverbs used by the Georgians of the Fereydan region in their mother tongue are: proverbs translated from Persian; proverbs of Georgian origin and proverbs existing in both Persian and Georgian paremiological funds. Archaic Georgian vocabulary preserved in proverbs is also considered. This paper highlights the need for a deeper paremiological approach to the proverbs of the Fereydani Georgians.     

A Georgian Language Island in Iran: Fereydani Georgian

This article describes a dialectal variant of the Georgian language in Iran, Fereydani Georgian, which has survived in Iran for about 400 years. Various relevant aspects of the history and research on Fereydani Georgian are analysed. The choice of topics and sources focuses on previously unknown or, for the English-speaking reader, inaccessible authors. Since 2009, a large part of the linguistic data has been collected in several field studies in Fereydan. They serve as sources and show a revealing perspective on the origin, preservation and existence of the Georgian language island of Fereydani in Iran.     

The Undiladze Feudal House in the Sixteenth to Seventeenth-Century Iran According to the Georgian Sources

In this article by one of the founders of the Georgian school of Oriental Studies, the role of the gholams in Safavid service is highlighted by focusing on the career of Allahverdi Khan and his children. First, it is shown that Allahverdi Khan was not an Armenian, but a Georgian of the noble Undiladze family. Second, the rise of the Georgian slave in the Safavid administration and that of his children is discussed, both their political and cultural roles within the Safavid kingdom as well as their continued relations with Georgia. Finally, the cause of the family's downfall, due to too much success, its continued involvement in the affairs of Georgia, and its rivalry with fellow-Georgian Rostam Khan, is analyzed with emphasis on the use of Georgian sources.     

Natural Law in Dryden’s Translations of Chaucer and Boccaccio

This article examines the influence of natural law philosophy upon four of Dryden’s translations of Chaucer and Boccaccio published in his final collection Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700): “Sigismonda and Guiscardo”, “The Wife of Bath, her Tale”, “Palamon and Arcite” and “Cymon and Iphigenia”. Situating Dryden’s tales alongside the writings of his philosophical, political and literary contemporaries as well as their classical sources, it argues that Dryden’s distinctive choice of vocabulary and innovative amplifications of his originals constitute a subtly provocative interrogation of the use of natural law rhetoric within the seventeenth century.     

Une Lecture Matérielle d’un Poète Japonais: Kenji Miyazawa

This article offers an interpretation of Kenji Miyazawa’s fairy tales using the theory of material imagination proposed by Gaston Bachelard. Putting Bachelard’s theoretical framework to the test in a totally different culture, the article focuses on the way Japanese fairy tales make use of the four elements of Empedocles. These four elements in turn help to uncover an unconscious source of creative inspiration for Miyazawa, revealing the predominant role of earth in his work.     

The Karaghiozis Performance in Nineteenth-Century Greece

Abstract

Out of the vacuum of the sparsely developed dramatic environment of nineteenth-century Greece grew a performance totally unrelated to the largely literary and western-European oriented theatre of Athens under the influence of the king and his court. It was a performance which, unlike the literary theatre, aroused the interest of the common man through its use of folk tales, anecdotes, songs, dialects, costumes and characters as the basis of its presentation. Originating in the Turkish folk form Karagöz, the Greek performance, called Karaghiozis, found its roots in an entertainment with which Greeks both on the mainland and in other parts of the Balkans and Middle East were already familiar.     

‘Aristocracies of thought’: social class in the early folklore of Yeats and Hyde

The years 1888–89 saw the production of two influential collections of Irish folklore: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry by William Butler Yeats and Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta by Douglas Hyde. These works broke strongly with the unscientific and patronising tone of the Buchmärchen tradition in Ireland and established a new theory of folklore. In this theory, Yeats and Hyde distanced peasant narrators in an attempt to secure literary and, ultimately, aristocratic origins for their tales. As a result, Hyde and Yeats, despite their Ascendancy upbringings, could view themselves (and not the peasant narrators) as the legitimate inheritors of folklore narratives. The very stories collected, however, challenge this power dynamic. Stories such as ‘Monachar agus Manachar’ directly critique the perceived unjust division of labour and profit in rural Ireland in a way that parallels the act of folklore collection. The tales themselves resist the rhetorical frameworks of their Ascendancy collectors.     

Killer Khilats,Part 2: Imperial Collecting of Poison Dress Legends in India

This article presents the English language collecting histories of seven legends of death by Poison Dress that were recorded in early modern India (set out in ''Killer Khilats, Part 1''). The tales express fears of contamination, either symbolic or real, aroused by the ancient Persian-influenced customs of presenting robes of honour ( khilats ). Rajputs, Mughals, British, and other groups in India participated in the development of tales of deadly clothing from 1600 to the early twentieth century. The tales and their variants share motifs and themes with Poison Dress legends in the Bible, Greek myth, Arthurian legends, and modern American versions, but all seven tales display distinctively Indian characteristics. The historical settings and the contexts of collection demonstrate the cultural assumptions of the various groups who performed poison khilat legends in India.