Clouston's classic study of international folktales, their common origins, and their cultural variations is updated with new research.This classic study of popular tales and fictions is a global map of human imagination reaching back to a time that the author calls'the childhood of the world.'First published in two volumes more than a century ago, the book traces familiar themes from strikingly different times, places, and cultures: invisible caps and cloaks, shoes of swiftness, inexhaustible purses, gold-producing animals, life tokens, bird maidens, forbidden rooms, fairy hinds, magic barks, thankful beasts, and magical transformations. The author investigates their origins, examines their variations, and follows their migration from one culture to another. Editor Christine Goldberg brings this classic up to date with an introduction that evaluates and expands the original work in the light of current scholarship.

Clouston, W. A. (William Alexander), 1843-1896; Goldberg, Christine; ABC-Clio Information Services

United States, Christine Goldberg

Christine Goldberg; Clouston, W.A

William Alexander Clouston

Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO

ABC-CLIO; Bloomsbury

Christine Goldberg

MyiLibrary

ABC-CLIO classic folk and fairy tales, Santa Barbara, Calif, ©2002

ABC-CLIO classic folk and fairy tales, Santa Barbara, Calif, c2002

United States, United States of America

March 2003

obscured text

1 online resource (xlix, 588 pages)
First published in 1887, after it became apparent that many of the same folktales were told in different countries and even on different continents, this volume attempts to uncover the origins, similarities and variations of works of early literature and collections of folktales
Originally published: Edinburgh : W. Blackwood & Sons, 1887
Includes bibliographical references (pages xxiii-xxxi) and index
Print version record
2 v. in 1]: v. 1. Invisible caps and cloaks : shoes of swiftness : the inexhaustible purse, etc. ; Gold-producing animals ; Adventures with giants, trolls, ghúls, etc. ; Dragons and monstrous birds ; Petrifying victims : life-tokens : tests of chastity ; Bird-maidens ; Subaqueous fairy halls : forbidden rooms : Cupid and Psyche legends ; Fairy hands : magic barks ; The thankful beasts : secrets learned from birds ; The good man and the bad man ; The ungrateful serpent ; The hare and the tortoise ; Note: The origin of fables ; The four clever brothers ; Cumulative stories ; Aladdin's wonderful lamp ; Note: Life depending on some extraneous object ; The hunchback and the fairies ; The enchanted horse ; The demon enclosed in a bottle : contracts with the evil one, etc. ; "The ring and the fish" legends : men living inside monstrous fish ; Note: Luminous jewels ; Magical transformations -- v. 2. The three graziers and the alewife ; Note: Precocious children ; The silent couple ; Note: The book of the forty vazírs ; The sharpers and the simpleton ; The cobbler and the calf ; "The heir of Linne" ; Note: Story of King Shah Bakht and his vizír ; Whiitington and his cat ; The tailor's dream ; The three travellers and the loaf ; Note: Sending one to an older and the oldest person ; The merchant and the folk of Falsetown ; The robbery of the king's treasury ; Note: Marking a culprit ; Llewellyn and his dog Gellert, of Killhart ; The lover's heart ; The merchant, his wife, and his parrot ; The elopement ; Note: Falling in love through a dream ; Little Fairly ; The lady and her suitors ; How a king's life was saved by a maxim ; Irrational excess of sorrow ; The intended divorce ; The three knights and the lady : the three hunchbacks, etc. ; Note: Women betraying their husbands ; The advantages of speaking to a king ; The lost purse ; An ungrateful son ; Chaucer's "Pardoner's tale" ; Note: On resuscitation in folk-lore ; The lucky imposter ; "Don't count your chickens until they are hatched!" ; The favourite who was envied ; The miller's son; or, Destiny ; "Luckily, theyre not peaches."
Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
digitized 2010

First published in 1887, after it became apparent that many of the same folktales were told in different countries and even on different continents, this volume attempts to uncover the origins, similarities and variations of works of early literature and collections of folktales from Egyptian, Chinese Budhist, Indian, Arabic, Persian and European cultures. I t retells classic tales, then invites the reader to judge "of their common origin, and the transformations they have undergone in passing from one country to another." While some of the tales are familiar to modern readers, many are not. This edition includes: original folktales collected from all over Europe, Asia and North Africa; an introduction including literary appreciation for Clouston's work and an overview of modern comparative folktale research; and reference directing the reader to recent scholarship devoted to the tales in question

A FAVOURITE ornament of popular fictions, remarks Price, in his edition of Warton's 'History of English Poetry,' "is the highly gifted object which is to supply the fortunate owner with the gratification of some particular wish, or to furnish him with the golden means of gratifying every want."

2023-06-28