SLFK 211, Thursday, September 12, 2002
Last lecture &endash; genre survey
I was looking at this to give you some idea of the various forms of folklore
But think of it this way &endash; this was all verbal lore; I did not do material culture or social culture (the various actions)
Even with just verbal lore, there is an enormous amount and an enormous variety
And the thing is, if you are looking at your own culture, this seems so natural and so normal that it all goes unnoticed
Its just there
You take advantage of the various functions and pleasures that folklore provides
But you do not think about it
Collecting folklore, as many have said
Occurs when a particular form is dying out
Or when a foreigner looks at the folklore and it catches his eye because it appears different from his own, thus peculiar
It loses the naturalness that is normally characteristic of folklore
So, what the Grimms did was, in a way, remarkable
As in they noticed something that had not been noticed
But it was the Romantic period
With special attention to the natural man and the child
Also, they were educated and urban and, to them, the "natural" verbal products were alien in a way, did seem to be dying out
Before I continue with Grimms
Talk about their exercise and looking for traditional material
The rushnyk program on the course page
How to get a sense of tradition from the Village Project page
Whatever they may have done to it that I don't want you to do, like doctor the tales, they did collect a wealth of them and publish
Aside on Afanas'ev and the degree to which he doctored his tales: probably less than the Grimms
Perhaps the possibility of orality was less remote; illiterate folk performers of high quality more common in Russia and the idea that someone who cannot write can nonetheless produce great verbal art does not seem as alien
So, between the fact that Afanas'ev comes about 60 years after the Grimms and doctoring oral texts was less in vogue
And his being Russian and more willing to admit oral composition
His texts are less doctored and closer to oral texts than most Western folktales you will read
Work of the Brothers Grimm has an effect far beyond recording something oral, and therefore ephemeral, for posterity; it does more than make available a set of good stories
It draws attention to folklore, that which normally exists on the unconscious level and is ignored
When this happens, all sort of people recognize its merits and begin to collect
The discovery of the Indo-European relationship
This applies to languages
But starts with tales
Of course tales are told in language and the assumption is that similar languages have similar tales
The same tales exist across ALL of Germany
What is more, they are similar to tales in France, Spain, England, Holland, Poland, Russia, Iran and even India.
This is a tremendous shock and a revelation back then &endash; that places so seemingly dissimilar are actually related
Leads to the discovery of the relationship between the Indo-European languages
If the stories are related, then the languages in which they are told must be also. Jacob so intrigued by all of this that he gives up the study of narrative for the study of language
It is from this that we get the understanding of the Indo-European language family
Sanskrit and Hindi
Farsi and Persian
Slavic Languages:
East Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian
West Slavic: Polish, Czech, Slovak
South Slavic: Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Slovenian
Romance Languages: French, Spanish, Italian
Germanic Languages: English, German, Dutch
Tales are related, just as the languages are
And, as the Slavic languages are more closely related to one another than to the languages in another group, say Romance, so the tales are also.
This permits use of Slavic myth, say, in the search for the mythic basis of tales
At that point, the Slavic nations as we know them now did not exist.
One more thing &endash; you will frequently, when dealing with folktales, run into an AT number
This is a number from the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index
Anti Aarne was a Finnish scholar
Stith Thompson was an American scholar
Again, to deal with a huge amount of material and to be able to compare it across nations and languages, they developed a kind of short-hand
An AT number designates a certain tale plot
With the idea that they are sub-types or sub plots, as in plots that are similar, closely related
Tales with a certain plot might have been recorded in Germany, France, and Russia
And, if you have the Index, you can know this
You run into a new type of story that you have not heard before
With the Index, you can know whether it is a traditional story, or something unique, a new creation
If it is traditional, you can know in which areas it is told
Stories about grieving for a person who dies young
Seems so Slavic
Yet, with the AT Index I know that it is not so
Furthermore, I can look up variants and compare
Original use of the AT Index had a great deal to do with the discovery of the Indo-European relationship
Assumption, which we now accept, of human migration
As people migrate and lose contact one with the other, their languages become progressively more dissimilar
And their tales become progressively more dissimilar
Idea to trace the MIGRATION of tales (along with the migration of peoples)
And to discover the original tale, the one from which all of the others came
Idea of an original tale again comes from the supposition that the first tale was written by someone and then passed down orally
With bits being forgotten, etc.
Aarne and Thompson and the members of the Finnish school
The people who used the so- called historico-geographic method
Were trying to find out what the original story was, the one from which others developed
They wanted to know where it originated
They wanted to know how it might have traveled from the point of origin to the places where it is attested today and when; when was it attested in various places.
They would take the tale that they were interested in, look up its AT number
Then you can see where else this tale was recorded
You could check and see when it was collected
You could reconstruct the original tale and the path by which it traveled
There are problems with this method
The biggest being simply that it gives you the history of the COLLECTING of the tale, not of the tale itself
Just because a tale was not attested in a particular place does not mean that it did not exist there; simply means that no one ever got around to writing it down
So, historico-geographic method has gone out of use, but the Tale Type Index has not
Right now, I will tell you that the Tale Type Index continues to be used
Is available on CD ROM
The full list of tale categories:
I. animal tales
a. wild animals
b. wild animals and domestic animals
c. man and wild animals
d. domestic animals
e. birds
f. fish
g. other
II. ordinary folktales
a. tales of magic
1. supernatural adversaries
2. supernatural or enchanted spouse
3. superhuman tasks
4. supernatural helpers
5. magic objects
6. supernatural power or knowledge
7. other
b. religious stories
c. romantic stories
d. stupid ogre tales
III. jokes and anecdotes
a. numbskull stories
b. stories about married couples
c. stories about a woman (girl)
d. stories about a man (boy)
e. tales of lying - tall tales
f. formula tales or cumulative tales
g. other - unclassified
On to Haney
There are several points on which I disagree with Haney, but
I am obliged to present view points other than my own and let them decide
This is a MAJOR approach to the tale, as I said on the syllabus
Second, I DO think there is a mythic stratum to the tales
Where I disagree is that the peasants consider these tales to be true
I have done collecting and Haney hasn't
About the difficulties of collecting in Russia and the former USSR
Inaccessibility of anything outside the city to foreigners for strategic reasons
For reasons of national pride
Soviet scorn of the peasant; industrial society is the way of the future and the peasant has no part in that future, except as he adapts to the industrial model, the collective farm
Soviet elite looks down on the peasant because of their insecurity about their own social status
But nowadays they too can go and collect in Russia as Yvette and Alexis did last summer
It is physically difficult
Lack of transportation
Lack of amenities, though I don't think this is much of a problem
Except when it comes to power supply and my equipment
But, indeed, there is NO plumbing of any sorts
Assumption that folklore and especially tale-telling are dead
In short, I am one of the very few Americans who goes into the countryside
I may be the only one who really likes it and looks forward to it every year
Even to me and to Lesia, what we keep finding is a surprise
Like the woman with her TV and her soap operas and her ability to tell traditional tales
Small children tell traditional tales when in the village, even though they go to school in the city in the winter
Points of disagreement is that the peasants consider the tales to be true
No, when they say it is 3X9 kingdoms away, that means it is not true = once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away
There are certain markers that tell you a story is not true
Traditional opening and closing
Some of them remarked on these in section
Drinking beer and it all running down the mustache, not into the mouth
The formula: ne skoro delo delaetsia, a skoro skazka kazhetsia.
Internal formula that reminds you this is not reality, but a story
It is like cartoons &endash; you know they are not real, but that does not mean you can't get lots of enjoyment out of them
And plenty of MEANING, too, including things that apply to real life
Tell the story of the snake husband
Also, LOTS of things go from the very serious to the not so serious
They were once believed to be true or effective; that does not mean it is so now
Classic example of Ring Around the Rosie as a plague charm
Very serious once
Now it is a kids' game, usually for children who are just learning to stand
Similarly, Farmer in the Dell as a agrarian prosperity charm
In this connection, skomorokhi
Yes, indeed, they were minstrels at the time that we hear about them
Yes, indeed, they were probably tied to a pagan priesthood and that is why they were so severely persecuted in the tsarist period, from which we have historical records
If you look at them as performers of narrative, probably mythic narrative and see mythic narrative as a substratum of SOME of folktale, this is all okay
Minstrels are very important
I wrote book about and it won several prizes
But when Haney uses this to claim they were the source of ALL tales
Or of the male point of view in tales, this is going too far
What I believe Haney is up to is getting rid of old stereotypes and convincing you that you (and maybe also himself) that you should take folktales seriously
Stereotypes: these are stories told by old women to little children for entertainment only
Have no literary, moral, educational or other value
Haney's later points
Ditheism &endash; usually called dvoeverie or dual belief
The pagan substratum is perhaps more apparent in the Russian and Ukrainian setting than elsewhere
Neglect of villages and peasants and they are assumed to be backwards and allowed to do their own thing
The elite, including the clergy and the landed gentry leave them alone
Orthodoxy, the religion of this part of the world, is particularly tolerant and willing to adapt to the pagan substratum
As an Orthodox person, pagan elements in my religion to do not bother me
Belief is that all peoples strive toward the sacred
They may not know what we know, so that their strivings are different
Because all beings strive toward God, it is okay to acknowledge their strivings, to modify your religion to what they do, so that they can better understand what you are up to
Now, not all Orthodox quite so tolerant, but there is this element to Orthodoxy
Allowed services in the native tongue
Created the Cyrillic alphabet so that the Slavs could have a service and religious books in their own language
Cyrillic alphabet was a way to put the various Slavic languages into writing
Monasteries and churches welcome all and do not ask too many questions
It is a place to stay on pilgrimages &endash; the trapeza
My shock when the Lavra in Kiev was not welcoming
The monastery as a place to go for those who have nowhere else to go, like beggars
Anyway, this part of the world is perhaps more tolerant of pagan religious elements than other parts of the world
Does not mean that they do not exist elsewhere and get quiet merrily mixed with faith
Note Santa Claus
Easter bunny
Also, there are certain forms of expression which just keep reappearing, pagan or no
As in son who becomes leader castrates the father
This is true in both Zeus and Kronos and Greek myth
And George Washington and his father's cherry tree
In short, there are PLENTY of pagan elements in Russian tales, and not in Russian only
Next Haney item:
Creation myths &endash; some of these I told them
Earth diver
There is also the banishment of the unclean force; fight among angels
These, by the way, are as wide spread as tales; exist in other cultural areas
Haney gives you some others
These are NOT folktales; they ARE MYTHS
They are narratives, but not tales
They are probably related to tales and are certainly to legends, which, like myths, are thought to be true
Elements FROM myth find their way into tales in great numbers
Sacrifice &endash; Haney mentions sacrifice of animals as a substitute for human sacrifice
Sacrifice of a rooster or a chicken which is then buried under the door jam
Well, there is plenty of evidence of human sacrifice
In legends &endash; how they stopped killing old people
In the theme of burial and rebirth
MANY subterranean journeys in the tales
After that, Haney gives an overview of Russian ritual and this overview is remarkably good for being so succinct.
Birth and rebirth, esp. of a sick infant
In bath house
Baking in the oven
Babina kasha practiced now
So many oven stories
The bread that behaves as a little boy &endash; kolobok