SLAV 512, November 13, 2003
Last time &endash; distinctions between animal, magic tales and tales of everyday life
When it comes to legends and tales, the distinction is MUCH clearer
Recall &endash; tales are all ONE genre
The animal/magic/everyday are subdivisions within the genre
Legends and tales ARE separate genres
Legends are shorter than tales
Often quite short, though not necessarily so, esp. the historical ones
Main difference:
Legends purport to be fact, tales are once upon a time, three times nine kingdoms away, in a certain kingdom, in a certain land, once there was, etc.
They give me some of the typical Russian openings
They give me some Russian tales closings that mark return from fantasy world to reality
Legends are true
Difference legend, fabulate, memorate
Russian: predanie
Legenda
Bylichka
Byval'shchina
But things are still not all that simple
Vampire &endash; which is a legend (under what circumstances, how told?)
But can have tale 2nd half tacked on to it and become a tale
Another type of complication:
Also look at the everyday life tale/legend difference
Tale &endash; little attempt at authentication
Not in such and such (a specific) village
Rather &endash; a man and a woman
More general topics, though here things are far more ambiguous
One way to tell that a legend is a legend is that you recognize the topic TYPE
Before we start Legends &endash; how to do folklore research
Witchcraft article (or Sten'ka Razin)
Take lots and lots of texts on a particular topic and start looking for things that repeat.
For example, with the witchcraft stories, I could have looked at what animals witches supposedly turn self into
From that &endash; patterns
Which animal under what circumstances
Is there a pattern to the animals themselves
Are they all domestic animals
Are they all animals of masculine/feminine grammatical gender
Who do witches interact with
At what time of day/night
The purpose of this type of work is to extract an element of Russian folk belief
Other belief systems are articulate
Religious belief is stated in religious tracts
Political belief is stated in laws
Neither is unproblematic
There are inconsistencies
Between one law and another
Between law and the reality that you have to deal with
And new laws need to be drafted
In the case of religion
Your priest or minister interprets for you in the sermon
Pope issues papal bulls, epistles
In the case of folklore, there is no official tract
To extract belief from its expression
The expression is almost by definition some sort of art form
The songs, stories, rituals, objects of material culture
So, you can look at clothing and see importance of motherhood
Importance of nursing and milk beliefs
The importance of the border &endash; protection of clothing edges
And you can find the same beliefs elsewhere
Border &endash; material culture and houses
Epic and dealing with foreign things
Stories of house and other spirits
Back to oral lore and possible topics, ways of handling them
Sten'ka Razin
How is he like other bandit heroes
How is he different
Issue of vermin
Where else does vermin appear
How is Sten'ka Razin treated in prose as opposed to verse
Stories about devils
Size
Love of music
How are devils tricked
How do they trick people
Stories about treasure, about return of the dead
Epic heroes whose stories are told in tale form
What is the pattern of differences
What does this tell us
From epic you can extract elements of belief about the relationship between the foreign and the domestic
Who is the enemy
What makes a hero
Who does the hero fight for
For folktales &endash; animal tales
Which animals
Which issues &endash; body? Food?
Wild versus domestic
What happens when a wild animal enters the domestic sphere, reverse?
Magic tales &endash; which animals are helpers
Who has external, transposed soul
Where is this soul
Philippa's dissertation about doll stories
Dundes' case book series
Linda Ivanits' book on belief is exactly what I want them to do on a bigger scale
She uses both the work of other scholars and texts
But you get the idea
Before that:
M on urban legends and internet resources
Also determining what is a legend and what is fact
Interplay of fact and folklore
This is a big issue
People are going to tell legends about that which is relevant
Whether they are about current events or about past events with implications for the present
This could a past event the results of which continue into the present
Or a past event that parallels a current situation or dilemma
Or it could be something that is seen as eternal &endash; for Russians, the various spirits
The shaping of narrative is a big issue for me
To what extent does anything you narrate conform to some folklore pattern?