Abstract
Of all the genres of folklore, European folktales have the best indexes. If you open a book of folktales and choose one at random, or take a tale from the drawer of an archive, or hear one from a narrator, you will probably be able to find analogues by looking in The Types of the Folktale and the Motif-Index of Folk Literature.1 These indexes have greatly facilitated the study of folktales. Ironically, however, with our improved understanding of folktales we can see that some of the premises on which the indexes were based are not entirely valid. Newly-discovered tale types and other natural groupings testify to the inadequacies of the indexing system. However disheartening this observation may be to those of us who depend on these indexes, it nevertheless represents an advance — a significant achievement — in our understanding of folktales, and it should be a cause for celebration.
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References
Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale (Helsinki: FFC 184). Stith Thompson, The Motif-Index of Folk Literature, 6 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955–1958).
R. M. Dawkins, Modern Greek Folktales ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953 ).
Aurelio M. Espinosa, Cuentos populares espanoles, 3 vols. (Madrid: S. Aguirre, 1946–1947). Thompson did incorporate Walter Anderson’s analysis of Eberhard and Boratav’s Turkish tales, “Der Türkische Märchenschatz,” Hessische Blätter für Volkskunde 44 (1953): 111–132. But he did not add the new tale types that Eberhard and Boratav identified.
Ulrich Marzolph, Typologie des Persischen Volksmärchens (Beirut: Orientinstitut der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft; Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1984 ).
Hasan El-Shamy, Folk Traditions of the Arab World (2 vols., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995 ).
Heda Jason, Folktales of the Jews of Iraq: Tale Types and Genres (Or Yehuda: Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, 1988). Idem, “Types of Jewish-Oriental Tales,” Fabula 7 (1964–65): 115–224.
He had referred to the necessity for “an adequate consideration of material from southern and eastern Europe, from the Moslem countries, and from India,” in The Folktale (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1946), 421.
References for the animal tales were augmented in a review of the tale type index by Haim Schwarzbaum, Fabula 6 (1963–1964): 182–194. In the tales numbered from 1000 up, where single episodes are the norm, the difficulty is rather, how to indicate traditional complex (multi-episodic) tales.
Jan Ojvind Swahn, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1955). Christine Goldberg, “The Forgotten Bride (AaTh 313C),” Fabula 33 (1992): 39–54.
Christine Goldberg, “The Knife of Death and the Stone of Patience,” Estudos de Literatura Oral 1 (Faro, 1995): 103–117.
Max Lüthi, “Rapunzel,” in Volksmärchen und Volkssage, zwei Grundformen erzählender Dichtung (Bern: Francke, 1961), pp. 62–96. Idem, Once Upon a Time (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), 109–119. Hasan EI-Shamy, Folktales of Egypt ( Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980 ), 251–254.
P. Arfert, Das Motiv von der unterschobenen Braut (Schwerin: Bärensprungschen Hofbuchdruckerei, 1897). Waldemar Liungman, Die Schwedische Volksmärchen, Herkunft und Geschichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961, orig. pub. 1952), under Type 533. See also Marzolph (note 3 above) Type 403; El-Shamy (1995, note 4 above) 1: XX f., Type 403D. Christine Goldberg, “The Blind Girl, a Misplaced Folktale.” In Western Folklore 55 (1996), 187–212.
Jan de Vries, Die Märchen von klugen Rätsellösern (FFC 73, 1928). Anna Birgitta Rooth, The Cinderella Cycle (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1951). Michael Meraklis, Das Basilikummädchen (diss. Göttingen, 1970). Linda Dégh, “The Ethnography of a Folktale.” In The Old Traditional Way of Life: Essays in Honor of Warren Roberts, ed. Robert E. Walls and George H. Schoemaker (Bloomington, Indiana: Trickster Press, 1989 ), 338–350.
Earlier lists of motifs were all considerable shorter than Thompson’s. References are to be found in Robert H. Lowie, “Additional Catch-Words,” Journal of American Folklore 22 (1909): 332f.
Heda Jason, “Fluctuation in Folk Literature, the How and the Why.” In Veronika GörögKarady, ed., D’un conte… à l’autre ( Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1990 ), 419–438.
Quino E. Martinez, Motif-Index of Portuguese Tales (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1955 ), introduced mot. D723. 3, Disenchantment by removing pins from head. Prince removes pins from dove and dove regains her human form.
It occupies the same position as the gifts from the fairies episode (above). It also can appear in AT 450, Little Brother and Little Sister: Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana, Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1989), no. 7.
Michael Belgrader, Das Märchen von dem Machandelboom (KHM 47); Der Marchentypus 720 (Frankfurt a. M., Bern, Cirencester: Verlag Peter D. Lang, 1980 ).
Antti Aarne, Die magische Flucht (Helsinki: FFC 92, 1930).
Warren E. Roberts, The Tale of the Kind and the Unkind Girls ( Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1958 ).
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Goldberg, C. (1998). Some Suggestions for Future Folktale Indexes. In: Heissig, W., Schott, R. (eds) Die heutige Bedeutung oraler Traditionen / The Present-Day Importance of Oral Traditions. Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenchaften, vol 102. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-83676-2_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-83676-2_19
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