The European Tale Tradition

Fall 2013OLLI Course

Portland, Maine©mbachem

W.H. Auden in The New York Times Book Review,

12 November 1944, reviewing a complete edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.• “…among the few

indispensable, common property books upon which Western culture can be founded—that is excluding the national genius of specific peoples a exemplified by Shakespeare and Dante—it is hardly too much to say that these tales rank next to the Bible in importance.”

• ..\DSettingsbachemm\My Documents\My Pictures\whauden.jpg

Terms to Define•Old Europe•Fairy/Folk Tale•Oral/Written Tradition•Myth-Legend-Fairy Tale

Forms of Narrative

Myth Legend Folktale

Attitude Sacred Sacred/Secular

Secular

Principal Character

Non- Human

Human Human orNon-Human

Place Earlier/other

Our world

Any Place

Time Remote Recent AnyBelief Fact Fact FictionSetting Some

Time/Place

Some Place/Time

TimelessPlaceless

The habitat of the fairy tale• Tales have roots in a pre-literate culture.

• The only surviving evidence is in the form of inscriptions, charms, incantations, formulaic utterance.

• Indirect evidence is found in the earliest epics, especially the Homeric epics, as well as medieval heroic epics. (Anytime you encounter a dragon slayer in a fairy tale, you have a downgraded version of a heroic tale.)

Oral & Written• The tales we will read have come to us in written form.

• They are a bridge between an oral and a literary tradition.

• The earliest printed Italian and French tale collections were intended for an audience that appreciated colorful, sophisticated use of language.

• In some cases (Charles Perrault) the tale writer mimicked the language of ‘the folk.’ Not always successfully.

When the last Ice Age was at its coldest, the sea level was more than 100 meters lower than today. Britain and Ireland were joined to the continent. 11,500 years ago, in a little more than a

century, July temperatures in southern England rose from an average 48 to 63º

(F)

Nature, June 2009

Here we report the discovery of bone and ivory flutes from the early Aurignacian period of southwestern Germany. These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonizedEurope, more than 35,000 calendar years ago. Other than the caves of the Swabian Jura, the earliest secure archaeological evidence for music comes from sites in France and Austria and post-date 30,000 years ago6–8. Excavations in the summer of 2008 at the sites of Hohle Fels and Vogelherd in Germany produced new evidence for Palaeolithic music in the form of the remains of one nearly complete bone flute and isolated small fragments of three ivory flutes (Figs 1 and 2). On 17 September, an excavator uncovered the most significant of these finds, the bone flute, in the basal Aurignacian deposits of archaeologicalhorizon Vb at Hohle Fels Cave in the Ach Valley, 20 km west of Ulm.

Bird figurine carved from mammoth tusks, found near

Ulm (Germany). • The Dec. 18, 2003 journal

Nature reported a spectacular find of figurines of birds, horses heads, and a figure half human half animal. They are estimated to be 30-33000 years old. Probably used in shamanistic practice.

• “Without question…the oldest body of figurative art in the world.” Anthony Sinclair (University of Liverpool)

Before the last global warming what is now the British Isles was part of the European continent.

The Megalith Builders of Western Europe

• “The idea of erecting megalithic tombs developed in Stone Age Europe during the 5th millennium BCE, but the meaning and function of them …remain one of the great enigmas of archaeology.”

Megalith Sites in Europe

• The oldest known megalithic tombs in France and Ireland were built c. 4700 BCE –2000 years before Egypt’s pyramids were erected.

The Spread of Farming

• “Global warming created bays, inlets, and brackish lagoons providing one of the richest ecosystems on earth for human subsistence.

• Wild cattle and pigs were found throughout postglacial Europe. Sheep and goats had to be domesticated.

• Farming spread slowly into Central Europe around 5300 BC. It took longer to penetrate the coastal regions.”

• From: The People of the Stone Age

The Great Migrations• From about the 1st to the 3rd century of the CE, migrations mixed up the European tribes.

The Expanse of the Roman Empire• The influence

of Greco/Latin culture, by extension near and far eastern culture, was profound and lasting. The European Middle Ages are to a great extent Latin Middle Ages.

The Routes of the Christian Missionaries– Christian

Missionaries came to the ‘continent’ via the majors rivers. For example, St. Gallen in Switzerland was founded by an Irish missionary (*c.555-†645)

Major Western European Tale Interpreters/Collectors

Italy: Giovan Francesco Straparola: The Pleasant Nights (1550/53)Giambattista Basile: The Pentameron (1634/36)

France: in the 1690s Marie Jeanne l’Heritier; Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy; Charles Perrault,”Mother Goose Tales” (1697)

Germany: 1812 Jakob & Wilhelm Grimm publish the first edition of their Kinder- und Hausmaerchen (KHM). Followed by six complete edition, the last one in 1857.

• Giovanni Francesco "Gianfrancesco" Straparola (c. 1480 – c. 1557) was an Italian writer and fairy tale collector from Caravaggio, Italy. He has been termed the progenitor of the literary form of the fairy tale in Europe.[1] Charles Perrault borrowed most of his stories from Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile.

The Crucifix Comes To Life" Night the Ninth, Sixth Fable in Straparola’s “Pleasant Nights,”

“Watercolor by E. R. Hughes

Giambattista Basilec. 1575 – 23 February 1632

• He is chiefly remembered for writing the collection of Neapolitan fairy tales titled Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille (Neapolitan for "The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones"), also known as Il Pentamerone published posthumously in two volumes by his sister Adriana in Naples, Italy in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis. It later became known as the Pentamerone. Although neglected for some time, the work received a great deal of attention after the Brothers Grimm praised it highly as the first national collection of fairy tales.[1] Many of these fairy tales are the oldest known variants in existence.[2] They include the earliest known versions of "Rapunzel" and "Cinderella".[3]

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie française. He laid the

foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known of his

tales include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots) and La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard).[1] Many of Perrault's stories were rewritten by the Brothers Grimm, continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (such as Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty), theatre, and film

(Disney). Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th-century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction

during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.

‘Rapunzel’ in the Grimm collection

Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wanderWould ride through the air on a very fine

gander

Walter Crane’s Illustrations for "The Frog Prince", London and New York, 1874 • Illustration #1

Walter Crane: KHM1 Illustration #2

Walter Crane: KHM1 Illustration #3

• A gentleman/frog caller.

Walter Crane: KHM1 Illustration #4

• Note the right to left cartoonish progression on the upper left.

Frogs• Portrayals of the frog or toad goddess with human features continued through the Bronze and Iron Ages. (a) 11th ctry BCE Maissau (Austria) and (b) votive painting next to the Virgin Mary (1811 AD, Bavaria)

Frogs• Neolithic reliefs of the goddess of regeneration are found on temple walls and vases. This one is from Cucuteni Culture, c. 4500-4400 BCE; Truşeşti (Moldova) From M. Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess

Frogs

• This terra cotta Neolithic frog goddess dates from the mid-sixth millenium BCE. (Hacilar, Western Turkey)

Frogs

• Portrayals of the frog or toad goddess with human features continued through the Bronze and Iron Ages. (a) 11th ctry BCE Maissau (Austria) and (b) votive painting next to the Virgin Mary (1811 AD, Bavaria)

Hedgehogs• a) The hedgehog goddess portrayed as a vase, her face on the lid. Karalnovo-Gumbenitja culture, 4500-4300 BCE

• b) Late Minoan III culture (14th ctry BCE)

From: Petronius (died 66 CE)

“The Satyricon”

• … qui fuit rana nunc est rex

Walter Crane Illustration of “The White Snake”

(KHM17)• In an English translation of 1882, the illustrator chose to depict the provocative ending of KHM17: “They divided the apple of life and ate it together.”

The Mesopotamian Tree of Life• The Lord of the

Tree of Life offers a cup of ambrosial drink to the supplicant who holds an offering of a goat in his left hand. (Sumerian seal from c. 2500 BCE) (from J. Campbell, Flight of the Wild Gander)

The Garden of Immortality (Babylonia,

1750-1550 BCE)• This seal also includes images of life/fruit giving and the ever-renewing crescent of the moon.

The Lord and Lady of the Tree

• A Sumerian seal (c. 2500 BCE) shows a scene bafflingly reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, with many crucial differences.

The Cross and the Tree• This 15th century five-armed candelabra from St. Kunibert’s church in Cologne, shows Christ as a tree-cross.

The contribution of the Grimms• In the earliest versions, the Grimms tried to remain faithful to the exact language of the ‘informant’ or written sources they obtained.

• However, the editions of 1812 and the seventh edition of 1857 are often very different.

• One example is the story of ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’

Dorothea Viehmann• The Grimms’ most important informant, the documented source of 37 of the 200+ tales in the complete tales.

Part of a story received by the Grimms from a

retired police officer. Unedited.

Oelenberg MS 1807-1810Rediscovered 1920 (now @ Fondation Bodmer)

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was given a clump of flax which she was to spin into thread. But every time she spun, it turned into a thread of gold and she could not manage to spin flax. She became very sad and sat on the roof and began to spin, but for the next three days, all the spun was gold.

First Edition:1812

Once upon a time there was a miller who was poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. It so happened that he got to talk with the king, and he told him, “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.”

Oelenberg End v. 2d edition, 1819

• When the little man heard that, it was startled and said: “the devil must have told you that,” and it flew out of the window on his wooden spoon.

• “The devil told you that! The devil told you that!” the little man screamed and in his anger he stomped so hard with his right foot that his right leg went into the earth up to his hips; in his anger he grabbed his left foot with both hands and he tore himself into two pieces.

Ecuadorian Women Handspinning