#Folklore studies

[vyvilha]

thinking about a ukrainian wedding folk song where a girl is upset that her mother can't visit her wedding and sends a nightingale with an invitation, and the mother responds with: "I would love to go / To my child, to my child / To give her a gift / But the soft weed had wrapped around my legs / So that I can't walk / The raw earth had layed upon my chest / So that I can't talk / The pine boards had trapped my feet / So that I can't get up"

[tiger-manya]

People cry about discarding russian books destroying Ukrainian science, while the opposite is actually true: overreliance on russian and soviet sources is what holding Ukrainian education back, especially when it comes to universities.

For example, I relied heavily on Vladimir Propp when I was writing my bachelor's thesis on Oedipus. Once I found one of his articles in an American anthology, and I was shocked to discover the editor described the text I so heavily relied on as "historically important for the field, but obviously outdated." And the anthology itself was from the 90's, so this wasn't a new development in any way!

Never, not even once during my university course on folklore studies did we ever mentioned why Propp might be considered outdated. So many russian and soviet thinkers have been left in our curriculums unchallenged, because the professors (even those familiar with postcolonial theory) got used to them and never bothered to teach about the alternatives.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

So my Viking Mythology prof informed the class, in response to my question of (to paraphrase) "what the FUCK are Disir" that Disir, whatever they are (we aren't quite sure), had a more specific role than Norns or Valkyries in that "they dealt with the deaths of kings and heroes"

....MORE TO FOLLOW SOON

[average-acorn]

happy 2025!! which, according to the ATU folktale cataloguing system, corrisponds to the timeless story of The Runaway Pancake

[ID in alt text]

[opera-ghosts]

Watch the only known film footage of legendary 20th Century Czech composer Leos Janacek (1854 - 1928). Although it lasts just seven seconds, this very short clip shows the then-71-year-old Janacek manically interacting with his fellow passengers aboard a riverboat in Prague in 1925. (It has also been rather comically looped to match the soundtrack.) The true value here is that even from this tiny scrap of footage, we can get a strong sense of the septuagenarian Janacek’s incredibly youthful vitality and his highly animated personality – personality traits which proved impossible for photographers to capture in still portraits, but which are well documented in written accounts and also feature strongly in his inimitable mature musical style. Frantisek Kudlacek (1894 - 1972), the leader of the famed Moravian String Quartet, later described a string quartet rehearsal at which Janacek himself was present: “As we began, the viola player was comfortably seated next to me with his legs crossed and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He smoked away, and here and there he even played a few notes… Suddenly, [the elderly Janacek] jumped up, rushed at him, and began shouting: ‘My dear sir, what on Earth do you think you are playing?! What are you dreaming about?!’ Janacek then proceeded to stamp and shout out the parts as he thought they *should* sound, and the amazed violist tried -- with constant repetitions of a single, typical ‘Janacekian’ figure -- to perpetrate this unknown style, until the cigarette fell straight out of his mouth and he lost all desire to continue smoking…”

[rapha-reads]

Unrelated things I manage to evoke in my thesis on Beauty and the Beast, modern fairy tales and self-love (titled From Folktales to Fantasy: Beauty and the Beast, Contemporary Rewritings and Self-Love), a list (caution, long post ahead):

Hayao Miyazaki's environmental tales.

In contemporary rewritings of folktales and fairy tales, these revised critical versions often follow the major issues of the time: the feminist tales of Angela Carter or Margaret Atwood of the 20th century are amongst the prime examples, but one may just as well cite Hayao Miyazaki's contemporary environmentalist and anti-war stories.

Arthurian Legends:

Nonetheless, ages change, people’s priorities change, ways of life change, and with these evolutions, heroes and stories mutate too. They evolve, but they’re never forgotten. King Arthur and Merlin are still household names, even after a millennia and a half of legends; their stories followed the times and took on new shapes to keep on meaning something to their audience.

Le Roman de Renart and "Le hérisson, le chacal et le lion" (the hedgehog, the jackal and the lion, a traditional animal tale in North Africa, Tamazight in origin):

Animal Tales are the first chapter of the ATU Index, going from ATU 1 to 299, in which the characters are talking animals usually interacting between themselves (think Roman de Renart or the tales of the hedgehog, jackal and lion in North Africa).

*On the subject of the hedgehog, the jackal and the lion, I really recommend looking up their stories. If you like cartoonish stories of the clever fox and the stupid wolf, Tom and Jerry style, you will like them.

Narnia (actually referenced a few times, the thesis does talk about Fantasy, but CS Lewis is quoted only the once):

In the dedication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis wrote “some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”. As the reader ages and grows up, the taste for stories also evolves.

Neil Gaiman (completely out of the blue, I just wanted to quote him at least once):

the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast with all its space left to creation easily lends itself to the new scene. “Fairy tales”, Neil Gaiman writes in the introduction to Fragile Things, “are transmissible. You can catch them, or be infected by them.” They are, in their most basic form, in the bare bones of their structures, the “currency we share with those who walked the world before ever we were here.”

Doctor Who (I will find a why to quote DW in any circumstances, just watch me):

“The Universe generally fails to be a fairy tale. And that’s where we [the helpers and the leaders, heroes, doctors, teachers] come in.” That’s where writers and storytellers come in. Crafting stories is recreating a kinder, more merciful and fair world, where good wins, evil is defeated, love is everything, good deeds are rewarded and bad actions punished, justice is served and honour is upheld.

Edith Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet + more Narnia, because I will also find a way to talk about the Pevensies:

Harper spends six weeks with Rhen and Grey, and when she comes back to DC, six weeks have also passed. This is different from most Fantasy novels which actions happens in both Primary and Secondary Worlds; from Edith Nesbith’s The Story of the Amulet (1906) to Lewis’ Narnia, the passage of time in the Secondary World never matches the passage of time in the Primary World—the Pevensies spent close to two decades being kings and queens of Narnia, and yet at their return in England, not a single second had gone by, and they were back to being children again, a fact that I have always found cruel; they were adults, competent and regal, soldiers, scholars and diplomats, and then they were back to being children, powerless and ordinary.

Yet another Narnia quote - in my defence, I use Tolkien's On Fairy Stories as one of my major reference, so I had to give some room to Lewis too - + me being very French:

C.S. Lewis does write that “adventures are never fun while you're having them” (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Narnia book 5), but après la pluie le beau temps—storms never last forever, and the adventure always ends. That is what Fantasy tells the reader: you will go through hard times, but there will always be joy to find after the sadness.

MeToo, Greta and Malala (I swear it makes sense):

Belle just wants to be left alone with her wood-carving tools. What introvert passionate about their hobby doesn’t understand that? Lucie wants revenge on the man who hurt her; that is the whole point of the MeToo movement. Nyx wants to save her people and is ready to sacrifice herself for the cause; real life heroines fighting for their ideals are the idols of today (Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai…). Harper represents the everyday life of millions of poor, disabled people, not only in the USA, but across the world. Beast wants to be loved; don’t we all?

*I actually really love that one tiny paragraph.

The "we live in a society meme" (aka the beginning of the descent into madness of the writer):

In meme terms: “we live in a society”. And that society can be crushing, draining, destroying. How then does one uphold one’s sense of self and worth when everything conspires to ruin and empty one’s heart and mind? Even though the meme is originally absurd, it quickly became a satire of the world in which we live now, where there is no place nor time to slow down, to just breathe, to take care of others, to take care of one’s self, because there is always a bill to pay, a meeting to run to, a deadline looming close, a train to catch.

Queerness (by the way if you guys know any queer retellings of B&tB please send them my way):

Depending on one’s level of ease and comfort, the co-existing inside the community requires more or less efforts and concessions to one’s authentic identity and tastes. Consider, for example, the way homosexuality and any form of queerness have been and are still viewed in many parts of the world throughout time: the main history of the queer community is to hide away an authentic, personal part of who they are in order to stay safe within a larger community that discriminate against expressions of queerness.

The "mortifying ordeal of being known" meme (sos, the writer has lost the plot):

By agreeing to play the game and follow the rules, no matter how adverse to one’s authentic nature, we tacitly agree to be seen. There is another meme, that first appeared in an essay for The New York Times in 2013: “the mortifying ordeal of being known”. The full quote goes like this: “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” In essence, trying to hide and conceal one’s authentic self is to deprive yourself from being truly known and loved for who you are; it is to take the risk of being only superficially known and loved for who you pretend to be, the role you play, the mask you wear.

The "I can fix him" meme (what the heck is the writer talking about):

Here is a third meme, much more recent, born on Twitter in 2019: “I can fix him. I can make him better.” While the urge to help your neighbour is perfectly honourable, it can sometimes take on a sort of narcissistic veneer: it becomes no longer about the person you want to help, but about the power you can exercise over that person by turning them into the exact image of them you have, no matter if this image coincide with their authentic self or not.

Shakespeare (hell yeah, finally! Okay, it's not R&J, but still; who am I if I am not rambling about Willy):

The self is not a stable entity. It evolves, adapts to its circumstances, to the situation at the hand. “All the world's a stage and all the men and women are merely players” (As You Like It, 2. 7. 139), Shakespeare was already writing at the end of the 16th century. The deal has not changed. Everyone keeps playing a part that they believe is what society demands of them.

And finally... Kintsugi. Just for fun:

The Japanese art of kintsugi consists of repairing broken pottery with gold, letting the breaks and the defects visible, thus making them part of the history of the piece. Being broken therefore is not a sign of weakness; it becomes another sort of beauty, a sign of strength. The Beast’s curse breaks him down to his base nature, but ending the curse does not mean that the breaks disappear.

[akaessi]

Since you have an education with Scandinavian folklore, I'd be curious to hear if you have any book reccomendations on Scandinavian Folklore? It's a topic I adore but I find that sources are a bit of a struggle to dig up.

I can read English, Norwegian, Danish (and tentatively with a lot of struggling and swearing) Swedish, so don't worry too much about the dreaded language barrier too much. :>

Hello hello! Thanks for asking! Pardon the late response as well, I wanted to compile a decent list as best as possible! Apologies in advance that I couldn't find easy links for most of them.

Introductory Books:

Vaesen (2013, originally in Swedish) by Johan Egerkrams (I have an English translation by Susan Beard). A beautifully drawn catalog of common Scandinavian folklore creatures. The downside of this book is the lack of direct source quotations and/or super in-depth folkloric analysis. Still a lovely easy read to familiarize yourself with some creatures!

Scandinavian Mythology: An Annotated Bibliography (1988, English) by John Lindow. Simple guide to Scandinavian mythological terms. If I'm remembering correctly, it focuses more on Norse mythological creatures (such as gods and giants) but also features explainers for folk belief figures.

Scandinavia Folk Belief and Legend (1988, English) by Reimund Kvideland and Henning K Sehmsdorf. A very detailed (and chunky!) book that focuses on folkloric beliefs and "old wives' tales" within Scandinavia. It has a lot of citations and references to folklore catalogs, which can then be used for further reading! Also, nicely organized to focus on generalized motifs.

Grimm's Fairy Tales (original German Title: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1812, German but with widely available translations.) While not exactly specifically Scandinavian Folklore, the Grimm brothers and their folklore collections did great work within the field of Germanic folkloric studies and comparative religious/folklore studies. (And if you're a linguist too, we love love love Jacob Grimm) Anyways, there are a million versions of these tales, some very watered down but if you're looking for a chance to read them here's a link (in English and German). The site is a bit clunky and doesn't have ALL the tales. But a good portion of them are available to read. It's good to familiarize yourself with these in general because of the motif commonalities in folklore studies.

More In-Depth Books:

Old Norse Mythology-Comparative Perspectives (2017, English) with Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell, and Jens Peter Schjødt, eds., with Amber J. Rose. 2017.  An anthology of scholarly articles focusing on discourse within the field of Scandinavian (Norse) religion and folklore studies. Lots of different authors and scholars, some with incredibly specific article focuses but others with more broad analysis and literature reviews. If you need a link, Harvard University seems to have one and it should work if I link it here.

The Norns in Old Norse Mythology (2013, English) by Karen Bek Pedersen. This book hyper-focuses on the Norns within the larger context of Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. I highly recommend this book for people who are confused by the various female supernatural figures and their various names and titles. Though it has a specific focus, it is still helpful for overall studies on dísir, nornir, vættir, etc.

Folklore in Old Norse: Old Norse in Folklore (2013, English) edited by Karen Bek Pedersen and Daniel Sävborg. A relatively short book that focuses on literary and medieval textual criticisms about current scholarly trends within the field. Very helpful for understanding scholarly trends as well as bodies of thought in the field of Scandinavian studies--which is always useful for students and newbie researchers!

Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages (2011, English) by Stephen Mitchell. This book can be helpful in its discussion about the ambiguities between folklore, religion, magic, and witchcraft within the Scandinavian context. It references a lot of primary sources as well as historical sources commenting on said primary sources. It focuses mainly on the transition between Norse paganism to Christianity in Scandinavia but still, I think this book serves as a helpful introduction to understanding how folkloric practices change throughout time for various reasons.

Additional Miscellany Sources:

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature....(6 vols. revised and expanded from 1952-1958, English) by Stith Thompson. This is the compendium for folklore studies and is one of many folklore motif catalogs. Very helpful for understanding folklore in a broader comparative context. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find copies of the volumes, at least for me, but there is a digital link here.

Old Norse Folklore: Traditional, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia (English, 2023 pending release) (edited?) by Stephen Mitchell. This book isn't out yet so I can't comment too much on its content! But in the field, we are waiting to read it! According to the synopsis, it is an anthological book that will feature essays (mainly theoretical) that focus on the transition of mythological and folkloric material in the medium of orality. Hopefully, this book will serve as a good guide to understanding how to connect orality theory (in broader Scandinavian lit. studies) to folkloric motif studies (in Scandinavian folklore studies).

Some Scholars I Recommend:

Pernille Hermann, PhD. Focuses a lot on memory studies and literacy in Medieval Scandinavia. Writes in English and Danish.

Karen Bek Pedersen, PhD. Focuses on in-depth discussions of fate motifs in Norse sagas and mythological texts. Also frequently focuses on female folkloric figures in Scandinavian religion. I believe she writes English and Danish.

Daniel Sävborg, PhD. Focuses on comparative literature studies and somewhat psychological looks into Norse literature and motifs. Writes in English and in Swedish.

Stephen Mitchell, PhD. Focuses on various genres of Norse/Nordic literature with interests in magic, mythology, and legends. Writes in English, I don't know if any other languages.

Thanks for the ask! Hopefully this is helpful! 🖤

Most of the books are in English, since these are the texts my classes focused on specifically and my program is taught in English. It might take me a bit longer to find (throughout my laptop files) the non-English ones we read! As always, research carefully! There are a lot of people with no academic background writing in this subject and getting popularized. And there is also a danger of people using this subject to promote false and dangerous ideologies. (ahem Nordal).

[avernine]

TL;DR - anyone here like research essays? On Specific Fuckin Shit?

Okay so I was, earlier, putting my foot down and looking into the nitty gritty of how to format artwork (specifically in my case, traditional pieces) for print - which I have been putting off for years, and which is increasingly pertinent since as it stands it looks like drawing commissions and me do NOT get along well.

Aaaand then the wee devil on my shoulder told me that hey, hey, wouldn't it be more fun and gratifying for one of my specific old faves, to redraw it instead???

So basically now I'm fighting for my life in the historical clothing rabbit hole.

AND now wondering whether anyone would be interested hearing like, mini-essays slash rambling drabbles about what I turn up? God fucking knows that the content mill doesn't wait for man nor bird, and frankly I have my best ideas from when I see something and run around mental looking for More Info.

This would either be in like, common or garden tumblr post text format. Orrrrr... well we do love a good video essay, and apparently I have a "nice" "voice".

(Today, for example, we have - haunted locations in Scotland, ghosts of Edinburgh and Stirling castles, Lady Janet Douglas of Glamis (pronounced Glams because anglicizing Celtic languages works so so well all of the time), and courtly and medieval dress of Scotland)

[yebreed]

Interacting With Souls and Ghosts in Shamanism: Shaman as Psychopomp

The duties of a shaman involve existence in the borderline states. They also imply crossing the boundaries of the worlds and interacting with the inhabitants of various layers of the universe: shaman both welcomes a new soul that has come into the human world, and accompanies the deceased to the Kingdom of the Dead.

[fivefingrr-discount]

More blinkies I made for my page on blinkie cafe. Feel free to use!

[lorenatural]

...hey yall. finally just made a blog for it lmao. all infodumps/aus/general weirdness will be posted here from now on.

@very-offkey-kazoo

@hollywoodforevercemeterygirl

@wrenchenthusiast

[vyvilha]

just me, the night, monster energy drink, 150 mg pregabalin, and my bachelor thesis on animal as a bridegroom

[local-boob]

caption: "Prussian gods Peckols, Perkūnas and Potrimpo" photo credit: Simon Grunau via Wikipedia (Prussian mythology // Prussian pantheon)

[zenosanalytic]

Yeah.

Something I think trips people up here: There was never a "Definitive" or "Original" version of these stories. Like: IP is a contemporary idea. The people who came up with these stories understood them as stories; understood them as things which would(and SHOULD!) change in the telling.

So like: the Grimms wrote down their version as "THE" form of this tale, but that was a version they cobbled together, Importantly(!!!) through their own editorial choices, from various tellings of it they gathered from various German people. There was never a "canonical" version of this story that storytellers all tried to "get right"; you were SUPPOSED to change it and tell it in your own way, or in a new way every time, to keep it fresh and fun. Stories were folk art meant as entertainment.

I’m tired of hearing people say “Disney’s Cinderella is sanitized. In the original tale, the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to make the slipper fit and get their eyes pecked out by birds in the end.”

I understand this mistake. I’m sure a lot of people buy copies of the complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, see their tale of Aschenputtel translated as “Cinderella”, and assume what they’re reading is the “original” version of the tale. Or else they see Into the Woods and make the same assumption, because Sondheim and Lapine chose to base their Cinderella plot line on the Grimms’ Aschenputtel instead of on the more familiar version. It’s an understandable mistake. But I’m still tired of seeing it.

The Brothers Grimm didn’t originate the story of Cinderella. Their version, where there is no fairy godmother, the heroine gets her elegant clothes from a tree on her mother’s grave, and where yes, the stepsisters do cut off parts of their feet and get their eyes pecked out in the end, is not the “original.” Nor did Disney create the familiar version with the fairy godmother, the pumpkin coach, and the lack of any foot-cutting or eye-pecking.

If you really want the “original” version of the story, you’d have to go back to the 1st century Greco-Egyptian legend of Rhodopis. That tale is just this: “A Greek courtesan is bathing one day, when an eagle snatches up her sandal and carries it to the Pharaoh of Egypt. The Pharaoh searches for the owner of the sandal, finds her and makes her his queen.”

Or, if you want the first version of the entire plot, with a stepdaughter reduced to servitude by her stepmother, a special event that she’s forbidden to attend, fine clothes and shoes given to her by magic so she can attend, and her royal future husband finding her shoe after she loses it while running away, then it’s the Chinese tale of Ye Xian you’re looking for. In that version, she gets her clothes from the bones of a fish that was her only friend until her stepmother caught it and ate it.

But if you want the Cinderella story that Disney’s film was directly based on, then the version you want is the version by the French author Charles Perrault. His Cendrillon is the Cinderella story that became the best known in the Western world. His version features the fairy godmother, the pumpkin turned into a coach, mice into horses, etc, and no blood or grisly punishments for anyone. It was published in 1697. The Brothers Grimm’s Aschenputtel, with the tree on the grave, the foot-cutting, etc. was first published in 1812.

The Grimms’ grisly-edged version might feel older and more primitive while Perrault’s pretty version feels like a sanitized retelling, but such isn’t the case. They’re just two different countries’ variations on the tale, French and German, and Perrault’s is older. Nor is the Disney film sanitized. It’s based on Perrault.

[opera-ghosts]

OTD in Music History: Historically important composer Leos Janacek (1854 - 1928) -- one of the greatest musical nationalists of all time as well as one of the true musical trailblazers of the early 20th Century -- is born in what is now the Czech Republic. Up until the 1890's, Janacek devoted himself almost entirely to researching Czech folk music and teaching. His early compositions were strongly influenced by Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904), but today he is remembered for the highly original music that he only really began producing *after* turning 60. Janacek's mature operas -- “Jenufa” (1904), “Katya Kabanova” (1921), “The Cunning Little Vixen” (1924), “The Makropulos Affair” (1926), and “From The House Of The Dead” (posthumously premiered in 1930) -- rank among the very greatest operas written in the modern era. Other masterpieces from this incredibly fertile late period include the symphonic rhapsody “Taras Bulba” (1918), a song cycle entitled “Diary Of One Who Disappeared” (1919), the “Sinfonietta” (1926), the “Glagolitic Mass” (1926), and two quartets: “The Kreutzer Sonata” (based on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy) and “Intimate Letters” (inspired by an obsessive passion that Janacek developed for a much-younger married woman named Kamila Stosslova…. much to his wife’s displeasure, Stosslova served as Janacek’s “muse” throughout the last decade of his life, although this affair seems to have been entirely one-sided…). PICTURED: A rare example of a signed portrait photograph of Janacek. This example can be dated to the final three years of his life, because Janacek proudly signed it as "Dr. ph. Leos Janacek" -- a title he began using after he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in 1925.