Die Söhnegeneration im Melusinenroman von Thüring von Ringoltingen (German Edition)

Nor is such an attempt made in the "Morin", except that the introduction of unicorns and elephants as well as a gen- eral Oriental atmosphere conveys the impression that the Venusberg is somewhere in the far East. It bears but little resemblance to the real Venusberg. The poet evidently knew the Tannhauserlegend, but his chief interest was not in that, but in the insipid allegory with its fantastic accessories.

The position of Venus is rather peculiar, for, while she is the real 60 Neilson pp. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 49 ruler, it is Danheuser, whom she has chosen as her spouse, who is expected to pass sentence on the accused poet. For the rest she is nothing more than the conventional Minne- queen familiar from the poems considered above. There is nothing about her to suggest the teufelinne of the Volkslied.

A true love-queen without a trace of allegorical attributes and dwelling in a mountain is met with in the poem of ' ' Fried- rich von Schwaben" which probably dates from the It is described as a typical underground paradise inhab- ited by dwarfs who indulge in knightly pastimes.

In spite of his pleadings the hero is detained and finally yields to the queen's blandishments. The fruit of their love is a child, which un- like its mother is of normal human stature ; wann sy was ain claines zwerg Ir frucht was gen ir ain berg. In the end the knight is allowed to depart. And here we are face to face with a significant feature of the legend that has been ignored by previous investigators, — the presence of dwarfs in the Venus-mountains.

Dwarfs in- variably figure in the German Love-mountains, and often also in purely allegorical love-realms. In the poem just men- tioned the queen herself as a dwarf. In the "Morin" it is a malicious dwarf who helps Eckart capture the poet and leads the way to the Venusberg In "Der Kittel" the poet's guide is invisible thru a tarn-cap, — a characteristic dwarfish attribute. In "Der Tugenden Schatz" a dwarf guards the entrance to the hollow mountain and acts as the poet's guide and instructor.

Dwarfs are mentioned in all the oldest Tannhauser-poems. In the Swabian dialogue Venus says: The oldest datable MS. And in the High German version of the Volkslied, when Venus gives her consent to her lover's departure, she bids him take "urlob von dem greisen". This passage has been a crux to commentators ; it has been suggested that the old Eckart is meant.

But the Low German version has the plural "van den grysen" and with this the Dutch version and that of Korne- mann agree. Most likely therefore the reference is to dwarfs. Dwarf- kings, like Laurin, Goldemar and Alberich, are familiar to all students of Middle High German literature ; and dwarf-queens like Virginal and Albiun are also well known.

But their kingdoms are not realms of love and these queens are not seductive temptresses. The Venusberg-myth cannot be traced back to such sources. The dictinctive feature of the amorous queen is lacking in them. Elves who entice mortals into their realm are familiar figures in German folklore, but they are not conceived as queens ruling a paradise in a hollow moun- tain. Comparisons between the Venusberg and the enchanted mountain-abodes occurring in legends of the Kyffhauser-type, so wide-spread in all Germanic lands, 56 are also inadequate as an explanation.

These realms were originally the habita- tions of departed spirits and, altho now peopled by emperors and kings with splendid retinues, they are not abodes of joy, least of all of love. No Minne-queen rules there. Nor can such a 65 The Bauttner-poem reads "von dem griinen reise" and Reuschel believes that this was the original reading.

But he takes it for granted that this is the oldest of the extent Tannhauser-poems, which is more than doubtful. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 51 one be found in the fabled mountain, where according to a tra- dition alluded to in the "Wartburgkrieg," 57 Arthur holds court with a goodly company of knights and ladies. Felicia, Sibillen kint, und Juno, die mit Artus in dem berge sint, die habent vleisch sam wir und ouch gebeine.

In strophe 86 the poet claims to have his information from no less a personage than St. Brandan, who is likewise in this mountain, from which, among other champions, Loherangrin is sent forth on his well known mission. But no- where in this poem is this mountain represented as anything like a Venusberg, as Barto would have us believe. Simrock Stuttgart and Augsburg , strophe As Barto's chief argument for deriving the Tannhauserlegend from that of Arthur and the Grail is based on his interpretation of strophes of the poem, a brief criticism may be in order.

Connection of our legend with Arthurian romance was al- ready suspected by Menzel according to Grasse p. Like Barto he considered them by themselves. But the place appears here as anything but a place of sin. The mere presence of women does not stamp it as such. The king himself is repeatedly characterized as "wandels vrl" Lohengrin, ed. As regards the women, the Sibyl, as we had occasion before to point out, was not necessarily an evil creature; and here she seems to fit in as a prophetess.

At any rate, her daughter Felicia appears in such a r61e in strophe Therefore the fact that the latter is still a maiden should not arouse suspicion; the gift of prophecy and virginity are associated bi derselben wirde hat si mir gesaget Moreover she is with St. Brandan whose saintliness is above suspicion. Furthermore, if she be identical with Vrou Saelde, her char- acter must be free from taint. In "Diu Crone" that lady is represented as the foster-mother and protectress of Arthur, who is repeatedly referred to as "der saelden sun" 1. That she is mentioned in one breath with minne is no argument against her; The medieval idea of minne warrants no such inference.

Besides we find "Got, Saelde und vrou Minne" occurring in one line 1. The relations of Vrou Saelde to the king are therefore eminently proper, and the sinister significance attributed to them by Barto is wholly unjustified. See 52 Remy dition, therefore, cannot be used to explain the origin of the myth, but it furnishes valuable testimony to show how prone the German fancy was to conceive of the Otherworld as a hollow-mountain paradise.

Some scholars profess to find the sources of the myth in the fairylore of Arthurian romance which found its way into every European literature. But the fays of these roman- ces, tho they often have a queenly character and in this respect resemble the German Venus, do not live in mountains. Fai- rie in medieval French romance assumes many different names and shapes. It may be located on a mountain, as Morgain's castle on Mt. And then the religious character of the place. First the king and priests pray before the Grail, then the ladies and, when all this does not avail, the innocent maidens are sent.

Felicia helps to array them in proper fashion Loh. In fact we have here a sacred Grail-realm. Only by the most one-sided interpretation can it be construed as a Venusberg. The contention that the degeneration of the Arthurian legend, noticeable in "Diu Crone", began in and was peculiar to Germany seems to me, entirely wrong. It is already evident in the "Lancelot" of Chres- tien about , and Ulrich von Zatzikhoven about See Vogt in Orundr, 2, pp. The incidents there related are quite sufficient to bring shame upon Arthur, even tho he himself be blame- less.

The passages from the mastersongs adduced by Barto p. As for the word gral, it is true that at a later period it came to mean, particularly in Northern Germany, a festival or carousal, and then even sinful pleasure. It could therefore very well become synonymous with Venusberg. But that proves nothing as to the origin of the myth.

Dietrich von Niem about , alluding to a tradition similar to the Venusberg, attached to a mountain near Pozzuoli, uses the word in its later sense, but does not connect it with Venus. Such connection is not attested before the end of the 15th century, and cannot be taken as the starting-point of the myth, which is much older. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 53 we meet with a fairy-realm in a hollow mountain corre- sponding to the Venusberg. Avalon, Morgain's special realm and the fairyland par excellence of the whole Matidre de Bretagne, is generally described as an island, "un isle qui mult est beals".

Only in German poems is it ever spoken of as a mountain, and there it is the abode of the fay Melusine, not of Morgain. If such transmission is assumed, it remains to be explained why the change was made in regard to the fairy paradise. It is certainly more reasona- ble to trace the myth to some land where the conception of the fairy-paradise in the hollow hill is at home. Now the most significant parallels, not only to the Venus- berg, but to the entire Tannhauserlegend, are not found in France or Italy excepting of course the Italian versions dis- cussed above , but in the British isles and the Scandinavian North.

The resemblance of the story of Thomas of Erceldoune, as told in a Middle English poem 83 and in a Scotch ballad, to that of Tannhauser has attracted attention before, 84 but a connection has not been proven. But it is undeniable that the parallelism is close, closer than between our legend and any other story of fairy-abduction. Like the German hero, Thomas "Lanval ed. See also Geoffrey of Monmouth Bk. For titles see Goedeke, Orundriss zur Oesch. Murray in Early Engl. Soc, 61 London and Brandl in Sammlung engl. Denkmaler 2 Berlin M Simrock believed the two stories to be identical Deutsche Mytho- logie , p.

Weston also is convinced that there is some connection Legends of the Wagner Drama London , p. But, even if the two names were etymologically identical, it would prove nothing for the identity of the legends, since the connection between the Hor- selberg and the Tannhauserlegend is late. The lady who entices him is a real queen ; her abode a real underground paradise beneath Eldon Hill. Unlike Tannhauser, Thomas enters the hill reluctantly: Alias he sayd wa es mee! I trowe my dedis wyll wirke me care. My saulle, Jesu, byteche i the, Whedirsome ever my banes shall fare Fytte I, But once in fairie he is quite happy and is loath to depart.

In the Scotch ballad he is summoned to return to the mountain by the apparition of a hart and a hind, — sure signs of a fairy- message. He follows against his will and is seen no more. But the religious element, which looms so large in the German legend, plays a very subordinate part. As a result of his ad- venture Thomas gets the gift of prophecy; in fact, the fairy- abduction serves only as a setting for the historical prophecies with which the Middle English poem is mainly concerned. Apart from the subject-matter the English romance shows some remarkable correspondences to the German Volkslied.

Thomas pledges his unconditional loyalty Fytte So Venus re- minds her lover: Can it be that ori- ginally he did give such an oath? Again in the German poem the hero abruptly turns and exclaims: No explanation is given why he suddenly thinks the goddess to be a fiend. In the English poem the lady loses her beauty after Thomas has enjoyed her love, and, according to an interpolated passage in one MS.

The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 55 and some of the Swiss variants also know of a hideous weekly transformation of the ladies, which brings to the cavalier a realization of the sinful nature of his surroundings. This feature would seem therefore to have belonged to the original form of the story. Again Tannhauser is enjoined by Venus to sing her praise wherever he goes ; similarly the elfin-queen says to Thomas: Whare ever bou fare by frythe or f elle, I praye the, speke none evyll of me. Fytte 2, strophe 3. Other resemblances that might be pointed out are too common- place in fairy-lore to carry weight.

Thus the length of Tann- hauser 's stay in the Venusberg is in most of the versions given as one year, but in the Dutch poem as seven. The same varia- tion is found in the English romance, a twelve month 1, 26 and seven years in the Cambridge MS. In a Swiss variant the hero falls asleep under a fig-tree and in a dream is bidden to repent; so Thomas sees the elfin-queen while he is repos- ing under a tree. Take leve Thomas at sonne and mon And also at lef e that grewes on tree reminds us of the touching lines in the Low German version, where the knight, before entering the mountain, gives a last glance at earth: Godt gesegen dy Suenne und Maen Darto myne leuen Freunde.

Another parallel to our legend, already noticed by Grasse, is the Scotch ballad of Young Tamlane, 87 where the hero, how ever, is rescued from, fairie thru the heroism of his sweet- heart.

The elfin-queen, furious at the loss of her lover, ex- claims: But had I kenned, Tamlane, she says A lady wad borrow 'd thee — I wad ta'en out thy twa grey een, Put in twa een o' tree. M The motive is a commonplace in fairy-lore. In Sir Orfeo the fairy- king likewise approaches the queen while she is asleep under an "impe- tree". Helgi Thorisson, who has been enticed by Ingiborg, daughter of the mythical king Gudmund of Glae- sisvellir, returns to earth blinded. The jealous fay, before re- leasing him, puts out his eyes so that the women of Norway shall take no joy in him.

The realm to which Helgi is enticed is not conceived as a hollow-hill para- dise. Such a paradise, however, is that of king Dofri in the Kjalnesinga-saga. These parallels from different lands so widely separated are unquestionably independent of each other; but they are rooted in a common soil, and that soil is Celtic folklore.

It is in Celtic literature that the amorous queen, the closest ana- logue to the German Venus, is most conspicuous, particularly in that kind of story represented by the Irish Echtra. But she is also the prototype of the elfin-queen that enticed Thomas the Rhymer into Eldon hill, for there can be no doubt that in this case we have Celtic material. The episode in question is found in chap. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 57 parallels adduced from Norse literature, they too seem to eon- tain Celtic material.

At least the story of Helgi belongs to a genre of late origin and admittedly subject to foreign in- fluence. Now the latter type, as was pointed out, is completely un- known to medieval French romance; nor does it play a role in any Romance literature.

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In Germanic lands, on the other hand, it is met with everywhere, in England and Scandinavia as well as in Germany, where kindred conceptions of dwarf- kingdoms and splendid courts in the interior of mountains were current from remotest times. In view of these facts it seems fatuous to seek the origin of the Venusb erg -myth in Italy or on Romance soil. Nothing but the clearest proofs of the priority and originality of the Italian legend of the Sibyl's paradise could make such an origin credible, and such proofs are entirely lacking. The Sibyl-paradise is a wholly isolated phenomenon in Italian literature, and its existence cannot be attested prior to the middle of the From the evidence thus far presented I infer that the legend of Venus and her fabled mountain arose in Germany thru a fusion of the Celtic conception of the amorous fairy-queen with the German traditions of dwarf-kingdoms and imperial courts in the interior of mountains.

In Germany faerie would most naturally assume the shape of a hollow-hill paradise. The fay was called Venus because the heathen goddess was thor- oughly familiar from the poetry of the Minnesingers and the Goliards. If the latter were responsible for the name, as some scholars maintain, 75 this would tend to confirm the "See Miiller Sagabibliothek Copenhagen 3, pp.

The pdttr in question is not older than the 14th century. That the Ice- landic sagas telling of expeditions to the Otherworld, especially Oddinsakr, show Celtic influence, is now generally conceded. See Olrik, Nordischet Oeistesleben tr. The evidence of the English and Scotch parallels seems to point in the latter direction. The question cannot be definitely settled until the literary relations between Eng- land and Germany during the Middle Ages are better known. At the basis of both myths is a conception rooted in Celtic folklore and with the matter of Britain this could come to Italy quite independently of Germany.

The author of the Guerino-romance, who is also the author of the Reali di Francia, was certainly conversant with French lite- rature and with the Celtic material that figures so prominently therein. Let it be noted in passing that he sends his hero to St. Celtic legends may also have come in thru the Normans to whom some scholars are inclined to attribute the localization of the Arthurian fay Morgana on Mt.

That the British tradition con- cerning Arthur and his court was connected with this moun- tain in the They were of no small import- ance and surely cannot have sprung up all at once. It is significant that we have in medieval German literature Celtic material that did not come in by way of France, e. Irish monasteries existed in Ratisbon since See Wagner, Visio Tnugdali Erlangen p. Furthermore, the Wartburgkrieg knows of a version of the St.

Brandan-legend which dif- fers materially from that attested by the extant Latin and French ver- sions as well as the English and Irish versions dependent on these. See Schroder, Sanct Brandon Erlangen p. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 59 resented as living in the mountain ; his place is situated in a plain on the slope. Nor is there any mention of love's de- lights.

Gervase simply describes the plain as "omnibusque deliciis plenam", but fails to indicate the presence of any feminine beings. The king reclining on a couch is evidently a reminiscence of the wounded Arthur in Avalon. There is no resemblance here to the Sibyl's paradise. Aetna as the entrance to hell are wholly beside the point in this connection. Nor are the love-realms we meet with in Italian literature available for this purpose.

Boccacio's "Labirinto d'Amore" or the Venus-park in his "Corbaccio", the Venus-realm in Frezzi's "Quadriregio" about and similar conceptions bear a purely conventional and allegorical stamp. The Sibyl's para- dise has a wholly different character, resembling in most of its essentials traits the faerie of Arthurian romance, in which, moreover, a Sebile I'enchanteresse plays a role. In the Italian legend this paradise is the main feature; the "Nyrop op. There we are told that Arthur and Morgain hold court in Mongibello.

But these two person- ages are not mentioned together as living in Mt. Morgain's palace is on the mountain, not within. On this point the testimony of the French Floriant et Florets is explicit. The attempt to identify Morgain with the Sibyl involves wholly erroneous assumptions. In the German Tannhauserlegend, on the other hand, the Venusberg receives but scant notice ; there the stress falls on the hero's sorrowful fate.

Thru the influence of the German legend the Italian tradition of the Sibil's paradise expanded into the story which the people of Montemonaco told to de la Sale. Possibly also thru this same influence the Sibyl's realm assumed the character of a hollow-hill paradise. The Name of the Hero op the Legend If it is improbable that the Venusberg came from Italy it is far more improbable that the other features came from there.

Yet such a provenience has been claimed for the hero of the legend, his German name notwithstanding. The old Flemish song has Daniel or Danielken, which seems to be a corruption of the real name, brought about in all probability by the identity of the first syllable with that in the Low German form, just as in modern Austrian var- iants the forms Antoni and Balthauser are due to consonance of some syllables with certain syllables in Tanhuser and Bal- thasar respectively. So distinctly by Hemmerlin and de la Sale. Nyrop makes light of this evidence and quotes de la Sale to the effect that the Germans were great travellers.

This, I submit, is no argument at all. But the adherents of the Italian theory deny the identity of the legendary Tannhauser with the historic Minnesinger of that name and claim that his name was in- troduced into the legend later on, possibly, as Paris suggests, 88 " By Paris, Ligendea, p. Vienna 3 p.

The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 61 because in the schools of the mastersingers it was associated with a certain rhythmical form or ton in which some of the earliest Tannhauser-poems were written and which was ascribed to the poet himself. But this conjecture fails to ex- plain why two Italian versions independent of each other concur in making the hero a German even if they do not name him. If he really was anonymous at the outset, it is very strange that all the versions agree on his German nationality and all the German versions, furthermore, agree as to his name.

The swan-knight appears in literature under a variety of names, Helyas, Lohengrin, Lorengel or simply as the knight of the swan. But the hero of our legend, if he is named at all, has only one name and that is unmistakably German. Now it must be admitted that a stringent proof of the identity of the legendary and historical Tannhauser has never been given. The Busslied, while expressing the poet's repen- tance for past sins, noes not specify their nature. The Tag- wise, which is similar in tone, tells us that woman is the cause of the poet's trouble, "wibe schon hat mich geschand".

Two of the songs in the Colmar MS. But not one of these poems attributed to the minnesinger is authentic, with the pos- sible exception of the Busslied, which is in doubt. The extant poems known to be authentic do not contain any allusion to an experience like that related in the folksong. Furthermore the name of Tannhauser as a family-name is attested for several places, especially for Switzerland and Aus- tria. As for the legendary Tannhauser, accounts differ in regard to his home. In the "Morin" he 80 Unless the identity of Danielken and Tannhauser be denied.

Schweiz, 5, Frauenfeld p. Facsimile of the tomb of Chounrat Tannhawser ibid. Faber in his "Evagatorium" states that he came from Tanhusen near Diinkelsbuhl in Swabia. Some scholars regard the legendary hero as purely mythical 89 and the meaning of the name Tannhau- ser, which is equivalent to Waldhauser or forestdweller, lends support to this view.

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The question of Tannhauser 's identity was already de- bated in the Aventin emphatically protests against the representation of the hero as a lover and insists that he was a great warrior; in fact, he identifies him with an old Gothic king Thananses sic , whose warlike deeds had been perverted by "etliche alte Romer, vorauss Wolfram von Bschenbach" into gallant adventures in order to please the ladies. Incidentally we may note that already at the time when Aventin wrote, nothing was known of the authorship of the Volkslied.

In the following century Goldast 91 credits it to Tannhauser himself and explains the poem as a fling against the pope, the production of an imperial partisan. But if the arguments for the identity of the historical and legendary Tannhauser are not absolutely convincing, they are at least plausible. M The passage is cited by Grasse op, cit. Thananses stands for Tanausis, whose exploits are related by Jordanes in his History of the Goths, chap.

See Amersbach Zur Tannhausersage in Aleman- nia, 24 , pp. Cited by Grasse p. The Origin of the Tanrih'duser-legend 63 and adventures, including a shipwreck, his steadfast oppo- sition to the papacy and finally the hints of repentance for past sin and folly, — all this lends color to the theory. That Urban IV, the pope mentioned in the folksong, and the poet were actually contemporaries may not be a proof positive of the identity of the historical and legendary hero, but it surely is not, as Paris and Nyrop would have us believe, an argument against it.

That legends were readily attached to historical personages can be shown in numerous instances ; we need only recall Wirnt von Gravenberg, Heinrich von Morungen, Neid- hart von Reuenthal, "Wolfram von Erschenbach and Thomas of Erceldoune. The exponents of this theory in claiming the priority of the Italian version to the German one also claim that, therefore, the former is nearer to the primitive form of the legend.

Consequently all those features not found in the Italian version must be subsequent German additions. In Germany the name of the paradise was changed to Venusberg, that of the hero to Tannhauser, and the staff-miracle, as well as the figure of the trusty Eekhart, was introduced. I hope that for the Venusberg I have shown such an assumption to be very improbable. Still more so for the name Tannhauser. It is difficult to understand how this assumption could ever be made in view of the fact that even the supporters of the Italian theory concede the unoriginal character of the Guerino and de la Sale versions.

What could this story have been like? It surely resembled that of the Salade, for the two versions, while independent of each other, must have a common source. Now de la Sale's account is palpably a recension, and not a very skilfull one either. The pope in merely pretending to hesitate with the absolution is represented in a role that is as unworthy as it is undignified; in fact, he is a mere trifler. The cavalier is not so much a re- 93 See Golther op. The chief concern of the narrator is with the Sibyl's paradise; the story itself is flabby and without backbone.

That this older form of the story first took shape in Italy, as Paris, Diibi and Nyrop assume, is simply incredible. Where is there an example from Italian or any Romance literature of a pope in such an odious role, which is moreover entirely opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic church, which teaches and always has taught that no sin is too great to be forgiven provided there be true repentance?

The pope who pitilessly drives away the penitent sinner — and Tannhauser surely was such 96 — is a creation inspired by a sentiment of hostility that did not exist in medieval Italy, where, whatever may have been the feeling towards individual popes, the papacy as an institution was not an object of aversion. A typical legend of the penitent sinner in Romance literature is that of Robert the Devil and a comparison with the Tannhau- serlegend in regard to the pope 's attitude is highly instructive.

Robert is the devil's own child, tho born of a human mother, and he is guilty of every atrocious crime against God and his fellowmen. Yet, when he confesses himself to the pope, he is received with every kindness. The Holy Father, at a loss for the proper penance to impose, directs him to a holy hermit, who receives a message from heaven with instructions on this point.

His despair is the result of the pope's harsh refusal. Et il par Dieu et par sa grasse, The Origin of the Tanrihauser-legend 65 severe, but he cheerfully submits and in the end is forgiven. Here we behold the pope as the true representative of God, the dispenser of His mercy and His justice, and wholly differ- ent from the heartless, cruel priest of the German folksong. In the face of crime transcending human bounds he asks for a sign from heaven, not to find out whether to absolve the sin- ner, but to ascertain the nature of the penance to be imposed.

The Swiss rustic of Hemmerlin's version also receives absolu- tion, if not from the pope himself, at least from a specially de- signated confessor. Not one of the Italian versions, not even that of the Salade, knows of a pope whose action is at var- iance with one of the fundamental teachings of the very church of which he is the head.

This action loses nothing of its odiousness by calling attention to the sinner's awful crime. It is true that the sin in this case was not merely that of im- purity, but the far greater one of apostasy. To be sure, the guilt incurred was enormous, but that does not extenuate the pope's attitude. Tannhauser's guilt was no greater than that of other famous sinners of medieval legend; the church that could save Robert the Devil could also save him.

To assert that he could only be saved by a micacle 98 is to limit the power of the church in a way altogether opposed to Catholic conception, medieval as well as modern. Miracles are com- mon enough in Christian legends dealing with the problem of sin and its forgiveness thru God's mercy, but they are not introduced to confute and discredit the church and its su- preme representative, but to confirm, or at least to guide its judgement. Furthermore the power to absolve is not given to the priesthood to be exercised in arbitary fashion; no priest, not the pope himself, can withhold absolution from the truly penitent sinner who confesses his sins.

From whatever point of view we may regard the attitude ascribed to the pope in Savra mout tost a brief espasse, De tes pechies la penitanche, Or ne soies plus en doutanche. It is certain then that the figure of the unforgiving pope owes its existence to sentiment bitterly hostile to the papacy, and such sentiment is to be looked for on German, rather than on Italian soil. In fact, here again, a significant parallel can be adduced from the Netherlands, the story of Jan van Be- verly, the English knight, who, like Tannhauser was refused absolution, but whose forgiveness is proclaimed by a miracle.

Thru the mouth of an innocent babe God in this case makes his will known to the astonished people. There the anti-papal sentiment was strong and widespread ever since the days of the Hohenstaufens. And Tannhauser, be it remembered, was a staunch adherent of their cause, while Urban IV was strongly opposed to them.

So, if the historical and legendary Tannhauser are really iden- tical, — and we can see no reason for disputing this — then the current assumption that the legend took shape shortly after the poet's death about or so has every probability in its favor. Paris, however, — and Nyrop agrees, — disputed this on the ground that the motif is a commonplace and devoid of na- tional character.

True, but the way in which it is used in the Volkslied is not at all commonplace. There it is intro- duced with the specific purpose of administering a pointed reproof to the cruel pope. No doubt, this feature is of Ger- " The romance was first published at Antwerp in , but is much older. See te Winkel, Niederl. The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 67 man origin. The argumentum ex silentio drawn from de la Sale's account and the Bauttner-song is not valid because the versions given there are not old.

There is no reason for believing this mastersong to be the oldest known Tannhauser-poem, except that it does not mention the staff-miracle. This omission was, however, probably intentional. As for de la Sale or his tales- man, if he toned down the harsh attitude of the pope as rela- ted in the original story, he was bound also to suppress the staff-miracle, which may therefore very well have been known to him. Is it conceivable that a legend ending with the damnation of the penitent sinner would ever have found favor with a medieval audience?

Hardened and presumptuous sinners, who like Faust deliberately league with the devil and die impenitent, may be sent to everlasting hellfire as a solemn warning and horrible example. But the Faust-legend is not a characteristic medieval legend; it is the creation of a Protestant age and is permeated with the spirit of a stern Protestant orthodoxy which denies to the ancient church the means of saving sin- ners. In typical medieval legends the truly penitent sinner is never lost.

Theophilus of Adana, who sells his soul to the devil, St. Gregory, guilty of incest and parricide, and Robert, conceived in sin and stained with crime, are all saved thru true repentance. Is Tannhauser to be the only exception? I do not believe it. The pope refuses to save him, but God overrules His unworthy representative and proclaims His will by a miracle.

The feature of the staff bursting into blossom is surely as old as the figure of the harsh pope ; both belong to the Tannhauserlegend from its beginning. And this leads us again to inquire how did the legend begin? Did it start with the historical minnesinger, or was he fitted into an older legend already developed at his time? If we regard the legendary hero and the historical minnesin- ger as one and the same person, then we shall look for the origin of the legend in some event connected with the poet's life.

But of this life practically nothing is known. Prom the extant poems it appears that he was a gay and dissolute fel- low, fond of good living when fortune was on his side and always in quest of gallant adventure. After a life spent in dissipation remorse seems to have seized upon him; of his end nothing is known. In the struggle between empire and papacy he sided with the former. This is really all that we know about him. That his poetry lacks spirituality and is frankly sensual must be admitted, but there is no allusion to any experience suggesting the adventure of the Venusberg.

In fact, there is not a single tangible fact in the poet's life to take hold of in an attempt to construct the TJrform of the legend, which even in its barest outline can only be conjec- tured. According to Golther this outline was something like this: Tannhauser, after a dissipated life having fallen into dire distress, repents and makes a pilgrimage to Rome to seek absolution from pope Urban IV. This is refused to him, whereupon he leaves in despair and perishes miserably. Of the Venusberg and the staff-miracle this TJrform knew nothing.

These features were introduced into the legend later on. The TJrform postulated by Elster differs only in that it connects the Venusberg with the story from the very begin- ning. It would be nothing more than a dull and pointless story of perdition, more apt to repel than to attract. Of this version we read: The very opposite is true. A version containing the figure of the harsh pope may be ascetic, but "pfaffisch" never!

The Origin of the Tannhauser-legend 69 more such a story would satisfy neither party. That a loyal adherent of the papacy would invent a legend discrediting the pope is a preposterous supposition. The Tannhauserlegend in the form that we meet with in the Volkslied is certainly not an ecclesiastical product.

It bears the stamp of a purely literary origin and arose probably in the circles of the mas- tersingers of the Most likely he also brought in the motif of the staff-miracle. For, while he was no doubt eager to have a fling at the pope, it seems hardly likely that he should wish to gratify his animosity at the expense of Tannhauser, who was not only a fellow-poet but also a fellow-partisan. By means of the staff-miracle he could save his hero and at the same time read a lesson to pope and clergy.

Of course this is only a supposition, but it has at least plausibility. At any rate it is safe to assume that the Tannhauserlegend did not come to assume the form known from the folksong by the development of a single motive; it is the result of the fusion of several motives, which can still be clearly distin- guished. The Venusberg, the penitent sinner and the staff- miracle were each originally the theme of an independent legend. Which one of these motives served as a starting- point for the story cannot possibly be determined with cer- tainty from the material at hand.

If the legend really started with the historical minne- singer, then in all probability it was originally a legend of the penitent-sinner-type akin to that of Robert the Devil. They are encouraged to be so, and if they do not take advantage of the opportunity that will benefit them in their relations with others, they are either stupid or mean-spirited. Only the 'good' opportunistic protagonist succeeds because he or she is open to and wants a change.

In fact, most heroes need some kind of wondrous transformation to survive, and they indicate how to take advantage of the unexpected opportunities that come their way. The tales seek to awaken our regard for the marvellous changing condition of life and to evoke in a religious sense profound feelings of awe and respect for life as a miraculous process which can be altered and changed to compensate for the lack of power, wealth, and pleasure that most people experience.

Lack, deprivation, prohibition, and interdiction motivate people to look for signs of fulfilment and emancipation. In the wonder tales, those who are nave and simple are able to succeed because they are untainted and can recognize the wondrous signs. They have retained their belief in the miraculous condition of nature and revere nature in all its aspects. They have not been spoiled by conventionalism, power, or rationalism. They have no respect or consideration for nature and other human beings, and they actually seek to abuse magic by preventing change and causing everything to be transfixed according to their interests.

The wondrous protagonist wants to keep the process of natural change flowing and indicates possibilities for overcoming the obstacles that prevent other characters or creatures from liv ing in a peaceful and pleasurable way. The focus on wonder in the oral folk tale does not mean that all wonder tales, and later the literary fairy tales, served and serve a liberating purpose, though they tend to conserve a Utopian spirit.

Nor were they subversive, though there are strong hints that the narrators favoured the oppressed prot agonists. The nature and meaning of folk tales have depended on the stage of development of a tribe, community, or society. Oral tales have served to stabilize, conserve, or challenge the common beliefs, laws, values, and norms of a group. The ideology expressed in wonder tales always stemmed from the position that the narrator assumed with regard to the developments in his or her community, and the narrative plot and changes made in it depended on the sense of wonder or awe that the narrator wanted to evoke.

In other words, the sense of wonder in the tale and the intended emotion sought by the narrator is ideological. The oral tales have always played some role in the socialization and acculturation of listeners. Certainly, the narratives were in tended to acquaint people with learning experiences so that they would know how to comport themselves or take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

The knowledge imparted by the oral wonder tales involves a learning process through which protagonist and listener are enriched by encounters with extraordinary characters and situations. In the last analysis, however, even if we cannot establish whether a wonder tale is ideologically conserva tive, sexist, progressive, liberating, etc.

In addition, these tales nurture the imagination with alternative possibilities to life at 'home', from which the protagonist is often banished to find his or her 'true' home. In fairy tales home is always a transformed home opening the way to a different future or destiny than the hero or heroine had anticipated. The first stage for the literary fairy tale involved a kind of class and perhaps even gender appropriation. The voices of the nonliterate tellers were submerged. Since women in most cases were not allowed to be scribes, the tales were scripted according to male dictates or fantasies, even though many were told by women.

Put crudely, one could say that the literary appropriation of the oral wonder tales served the hegemonic interests of males within the upper classes of particular communities and societies, and to a great extent this is true. However, such a crude statement must be quali fied, for the writing down of the tales also preserved a great deal of the value system of those deprived of power. And the more the literary fairy tale was cultivated and developed, the more it became individualized and varied by intellectuals and artists, who often sympathized with the marginalized in soci ety or were marginalized themselves.

The literary fairy tale allowed for new possibilities of subversion in the written word and in print, and therefore it was always looked upon with misgivings by the governing authorities in the civilization process. The literary fairy tale is a relatively young and modern genre. Though there is a great deal of historical evidence that oral wonder tales were written down in India and Egypt thousands of years ago, and all kinds of folk motifs of magical transformation became part and parcel of national epics and myths throughout the world, the literary fairy tale did not really establish itself as a genre in Europe and later in North America until some new material and socio-cultural conditions provided fruitful ground for its formation.

The most significant developments from to include: Literary fairy tales were not at first called fairy tales, nor can one with certainty say that they were simple appropriations of oral folk tales that were popular among the common people. Indeed, the intersection of the oral trad ition of storytelling with the writing and publishing of narratives is definitely crucial for understanding the formation of the fairy tale, but the oral sources were not the only ones that provided the motifs, characters, plot devices, and topoi of the genre.

The early authors of fairy tales were generally extremely well educated and well read and drew upon both oral and literary materials when they created their fairy tales. Beginning with Apuleius' fairy tale 'Cupid and Psyche', part of The Golden Ass, which appeared in the 2nd century A D , we can see that the fairy tale distinguished itself from the oral traditionas it did throughout the early medieval periodthrough carefully constructed plots, sophisticated references to religion, literature, and customs, embel lished language that signified the high civilized status of the writer, and lin guistic codes that were informed by a particular civilizing process and carried information about it.

For the most part, these early fairy tales were not intended for children. In fact, they were not intended for most people since most people could not read. The fairy tale was thus marked by the social class of the writers and readers, and since the clerics dominated literary production in Latin up through the late Middle Ages, the 'secular' if not hedonistic fairy tale was not fully acceptable in European courts and cities, and it was certainly not an autonomous literary genre.

Although they did not write 'pure' fairy tales per se, many of their storiesand these were not the only writers who influenced the de velopment of the fairy talehave fairy-tale motifs and structures and borrow from oral wonder tales. In many ways the tales of Straparola and Basile can be considered crucial for understanding the rise of the genre. Straparola wrote in succinct Tuscan or standard Italian, and Basile wrote in a Neapolitan dialect marked by an elaborate baroque style with striking metaphors and peculiar idioms and ref erences that are difficult to decipher today. Though all their fairy tales have moral or didactic points, they have very little to do with official Christian doctrine.

On the contrary, their tales are often bawdy, irreverent, erotic, cruel, frank, and unpredictable. The endings are not always happy. Some are even tragic; many are hilarious. Some tales are very short, but most are some what lengthy, and they are all clearly intended to represent and reflect upon the mores and customs of their time, to shed light on the emerging civilizing process of Italian society.

From the beginning, fairy tales were symbolic com mentaries on the mores and customs of a particular society and the classes and groups within these societies and how their actions and relations could lead to success and happiness. The oral trad ition and the 'realistic' novellas and stories remained dominant in Italy. This was also the case in Great Britain. Although there was a strong interest in fairylore in the s, as indicated by The Faerie Queene written by Sir Edmund Spenser, who was influenced by Italian epic poetry, and although Shakespeare introduced fairies and magical events in some of his best plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, the trend in English society was to ban the fairies and to make way for utilitarianism and puritanism.

There were, of course, some interesting attempts in poetry by Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and Robert Herrick to incorporate folklore and fairy-tale motifs in their works. But the waning interest in fairy tales and the obstacles created by censorship undermined these literary attempts.

Fortu nately, oral storytelling provided the refuge for fairy beliefs. It was not until the s in France that the fairy tale could establish itself as a 'legitimate' genre for educated classes. It was during this time that nu merous gifted female writers such as Mme d'Aulnoy, Mme d'Auneuil, Mme de Murt, Mlle Lhritier, Mme de La Force, Mlle Bernard, and others intro duced fairy tales into their literary salons and published their works, and their tales, along with those of Charles Perrault and Jean de Mailly, initiated a mode or craze that prepared the ground for the institution of the literary fairy tale as a genre.

First of all, the French female writers 'baptized' their tales contes de fes or fairy tales, and they were the first to designate the tales as such. The designation is not simply based on the fact that there are fairies in all their tales but also on the fact that the seat of power in their talesand also in those of Perrault and other male writers of the timelies with om nipotent women.

Similar to the tales of Straparola and Basile, whose works were somewhat known by the French, the contes de fes are secular and form discourses about courtly manners and power. The narratives vary in length from 10 to 60 pages, and they were not at all addressed to children.

Depend ing on the author, they are ornate, didactic, ironic, and mocking. In the period between and , the tales reflected many of the changes that were occurring at King Louis X I V ' s court, and Perrault wrote his tales con sciously to demonstrate the validity of this 'modern' genre as opposed to the classical Greek and Roman myths. Many of the tale types can be traced to the oral folk tradition, and they also borrow from the Italian literary fairy tale and numerous other literary and art works of this period.

Not only did Galland introduce the tradition and customs of the Middle East to West ern readers, but he also imitated the oriental tales and created his own something hundreds of authors would do in the centuries that followed. By , at the very latest, the fairy tale was being institutionalized as genre, and the paradigmatic form and motifs were becoming known through out Europe.

This dissemination of the tales was due in large part to the dom inance of French as the cultural language in Europe. It was during this time that chapbooks or 'cheap' books were being produced in series such as the Bibliothque bleue, and the books were carried by pedlars from village to village to be sold with other goods. The 'sophisticated' tales of the upper-class writers were abbreviated and changed a great deal to address other audiences. These tales were often read aloud and made their way into or back into the oral tradition.

Interestingly, the tales were retold innumerable times and circulated throughout diverse regions of Europe, often leading to some other literary appropriation and publication. In addition, there were numerous translations into English, German, Spanish, and Italian. Another important development was the rise of the literary fairy tale for children. Already during the s, Fnelon, the important theologian and Archbishop of Cambrai, who had been in charge of the Dauphin's education at King Louis X I V ' s court, had written several didactic fairy tales to make the Dauphin's lessons more enjoyable.

But they were kept for private use and were printed only in after Fnelon's death. More important than Fnelon was Mme Leprince de Beaumont, who published Le Magasin des enfants , which included 'Beauty and the Beast' and ten or so overtly moralistic fairy tales for children. Like many of her predecessors, she used a frame story in which a governess engaged several young girls between 6 and 10 in discussions about morals, manners, ethics, and gender roles that lead her to tell stories to illustrate her points. Mme Leprince de Beaumont's utilization of such a frame was based on her work as a governess in England, and the frame was set up to be copied by other adults to cultivate a type of storytelling and reading in homes of the upper classes that would reinforce acceptable notions of propriety, especially proper sex roles.

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It was only as part of the civilizing process that storytelling developed within the aristocratic and bourgeois homes in the 17th and 18th centuries, first through governesses and nannies, and later in the 18th and 19th centuries through mothers, tutors, and governesses who told stories in separate rooms designated for children and called nurseries.

Towards the end of the 18th century numerous publishers in France, England, and Germany began serious production of books for children, and the genre of the fairy tale assumed a new dimension which now included concerns about how to socialize children and indoctrinate them through literary products that were appropriate for their age, mentality, and morals. There were numerous debates about the value of the fantastic and the marvellous in literary form and their possible detrimental effects on the souls of readers in many European countries.

They were significant and interesting, but they did not have any real impact on the publication of fairy tales. Certainly, not in France. From this point on, most writers in the West, whether they wrote for adults or children, consciously held a dialogue with a fairy-tale discourse that had become firmly established in Europe and embraced inter course with the oral storytelling tradition and all other kinds of folklore that existed throughout the world.

For instance, the French fairy tale, which now included The Arabian Nights, had a profound influence on German writers of the Enlightenment and romanticism, and the development in Germany pro vided the continuity for the institution of the genre in the West as a whole. Like the French authors, the German middle-class writers like Johann Musus in his collection Volksmdrchen der Deutschen and Benedikte Naubert in her work Neue Volksmdhrchen der Deutschen employed the fairy tale to celebrate German history and customs. Musus and Naubert both combined elements of German myth, folklore, legend, and the French fairy tale to address educated Germans.

At the same time, Christoph Martin Wieland translated and adapted numerous fairy tales from the Cabinet des fes in Dschinnistan , and he also wrote a novel and some poems that revealed his familiarity with Basile and the Italian fairy-tale tradition. Aside from these collections for upper-class readers, numerous French fairy tales became known in Germany by the turn of the century through the popular series of the Blaue Bibliothek and other translations from the French, and children's books began to carry more and more fairy tales.

Most important at the turn of the century was the contribution of the Ger man romantic writers. Hoffmann, and others wrote extraor dinary and highly complex metaphorical tales that revealed a major shift in the function of the genre: This viewpoint was clearly expressed in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's classical narrative bluntly entitled 'The Fairy Tale' , as though it were the fairy tale to end all fairy tales.

Goethe optimistically envis ioned a successful rebirth of a rejuvenated monarchy that would enjoy the support of all social classes in his answer to the violence and destruction of the French Revolution. In response, Novalis wrote a long, elaborate fairy tale in Heinrich von Ofterdingen called 'Klingsohr's Mrchen', that cele brates the erotic and artistic impulses of revolution and emphasizes magical transformation and flexibility.

Though hopeful, many of the romantics were sceptical about prospects for individual autonomy and the reform of decadent institutions in a Germany divided by the selfish interests of petty tyrants and the Napoleonic Wars. Characteristically many of the early romantic tales do not end on a happy note. The protagonists either go insane or die.

The romantics did not intend their fairy tales to amuse audiences in the trad itional sense of divertissement. Instead, they sought to engage the reader in a serious discourse about art, philosophy, education, and love. The focus was on the creative individual or artist, who envisioned a life without inhibitions and social constraints.

It was a theme that became popular in the romantic fairy tales throughout Europe and in North America. In contrast to most folk tales or fairy tales that have strong roots in folklore and propose the possibil ity of the integration of the hero into society, the fairy tales of the 19th and 20th centuries tend to pit the individual against society or to use the protago nist in a way to mirror the foibles and contradictions of society. This conflict between the 'heroic' individual, often identified with Nature or natural forces, and society, understood as one-dimensional rationality and bureaucracy, became a major theme in British romanticism.

At the same time the romantics also sought to rediscover their English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish heritage by exploring folklore and the history of the fairies, elves, lepre chauns, and other 'little people'. In addition, the fairy paintings of William Blake and Henry Fuseli had an enormous impact on the later fantastic paint ings of Daniel Maclise, Joseph Noel Paton, Richard Dadd, John Anster Fitz gerald, Arthur Hughes, Richard Doyle, and many others, and numerous plays and operas were also influenced by the fairy-tale vogue, as can be seen in the work of James Planch.

While the function of the fairy tale for adults underwent a major shift in the 19th century that made it an appropriate means to maintain a dialogue about social and political issues within the bourgeois public sphereand this was clear in all nations in Europe and North Americathe fairy tale for children was carefully monitored and censored until the s. Although there were various collections published for upper-class children in the latter part of the 18th century and at the turn of the century along with numerous chapbooks containing classical fairy tales, they were not regarded as prime and 'proper' reading material for children.

They were not considered to be 'healthy' for the development of young people's minds. For the most part, publishers, church leaders, and educators favoured other genres of stories, more realistic, sentimental, and didactic. However, the fantastic and miraculous elements were kept so that they were not at first fully accepted by the middle-class reading audience, which only began to change its attitude towards the fairy tale dur ing the course of the s and s throughout Europe.

More than the collections of the French writers of the s, the Grimms' work was consciously designed to address two audiences at the same time, and they carefully cultivated the form of their tales so that they could be easily grasped by children and adults. From until , the Grimms published seven editions of what they called the Large Edition Grosse Ausgabe , which ultim ately contained tales, for the household in general and for scholars as well. The Grimms thought of their book as an Eriiehungsbuch an educational manual , and thus they also wanted to attract children and appeal to the morals and virtues of middle-class readers.

Thus they also published a socalled Small Edition Kleine Ausgabe , a selection of 50 tales, in to popu larize the larger work and create a more manageable best-seller. Since they all underlined morals in keeping with the Protestant ethic and a patriarchal notion of sex roles, the book was bound to be a success. When we think of the form and typical fairy tale today, we tend to think of a paradigmatic Grimms' fairy tale quite often modified by the Disney industry.

Their tales are all about three to five pages long and are constructed rationally to demonstrate the virtues of an opportunistic protagonist who learns to take advantage of gifts and magic power to succeed in life, which means marriage to a rich person and wealth. Most of the male heroes are dashing, adventurous, and courageous. Most of the female protagonists are beautiful, passive, and industrious. Their com mon feature is cunning: Very few of the Grimms' fairy tales end on an unhappy note, and they all comply with the phallocratie impulses and forces of the emerging middle-class societies of Western culture.

Aside from the gradual success that the Grimms' tales had as a 'children's book', the publication of Wilhelm Hauff s Mrchen Almanack , contain ing oriental-flavoured tales for young people, Edward Taylor's translation of the Grimms' tales as German Popular Stories , with illustrations by the famous George Cruikshank, and Pierre-Jules Hetzel's Livre des enfants , which contained 40 tales from the Cabinet des fes edited for children, indicated that the fairy tale had become acceptable for young readers. This acceptance was largely due to the fact that adults themselves became more tolerant of fantasy literature and realized that it would not pervert the minds of their children.

Indeed, the middle-class attitudes towards amusement began to change, and people understood that children needed the time and space for recreation without having morals and ethics imposed on them and without the feeling that their reading or listening had to involve indoctrin ation. It is not by chance, then, that the fairy tale for children came into its own from to Andersen combined humour, Christian senti ments, folklore, and original plots to form tales which amused and instructed old and young readers at the same time.

More than any writer of the 19th century, he fulfilled what Perrault had begun: Of course, Andersen wrote many tales that were clearly intended for adults alone, and they are filled with self-hate, paranoia, and dreams of vengeance. More and more the fairy tale of the 19th century became marked by the very individual desires and needs of the authors who felt that industrialization and rationalization of labour made their lives compartmentalized.

A s daily life became more structured and institutions more bureaucratic, there was little space left for leisure, hobbies, daydreaming, and the imagination. It was the fairy tale that provided room for amusement, nonsense, and recreation. This does not mean that it abandoned its more traditional role in the civilizing process as agent of socialization. For instance, up until the s the majority of fairy-tale writers for children, including Catherine Sinclair, George Cruikshank, and Alfred Crowquill in Britain, Collodi in Italy, comtesse Sophie de Sgur in France, and Ludwig Bechstein in Germany, emphasized the lessons to be learned in keeping with the principles of the Protestant ethicindustriousness, honesty, cleanliness, diligence, virtuousnessand male supremacy.

However, just as the 'conventional' fairy tale for adults had become subverted at the end of the 18th century, there was a major move ment to write parodies of fairy tales, which were intended both for children and adults. In other words, the classical tales were turned upside down and inside out to question the value system upheld by the dominant socialization process and to keep wonder, curiosity, and creativity alive. By the s numerous writers continued the 'romantic' project of subvert ing the formal structure of the canonized tales Perrault, Grimm, Bechstein, Andersen and to experiment with the repertoire of motifs, characters, and topoi to defend the free imagination of the individual and to extend the dis cursive social commentary of the fairy tale.

The best example of the type of subversion attempted during the latter part of the 19th century is Lewis Car roll's Alice in Wonderland , which engendered numerous imitations and original works in Europe and America. Even today, unusual versions of Alice have been created for the theatre, television, the cinema, comic books, and other kinds of literature, demonstrating the exceptional way that the fairy-tale genre has evolved to address changing social issues and aesthetic modes.

Of course, Victorian England was an unusual time for fairylore because many people from all social classes seriously believed in the existence of fair ies, elves, goblins, selfies, and dwarfs otherwise known as the little people, and their beliefs were manifested in the prodigious amount of fairy stories, paintings, operas, plays, music, and ballets from the s to the turn of the century.

But it was also linked to a scientific quest to explain the historical origins of the little people, and folklorists, anthropologists, and ethnologists contributed to the flowering of the fairy tale and folk tale. The work of the Scottish scholar Andrew Lang, who published 13 coloured books of fairy tales from to , still in print today, is a good example of how important the fairies and their lore had become in Britain.

Influenced greatly by the anthropological school of folklore, Lang sought to further historical investigation into the origins of myths and rituals and their connection to folk tales while at the same time he collapsed distinctions between folk and fairy tales and sought to address young and adult audiences with international collections of tales and his own literary fairy tales. By the beginning of the 20th century, the fairy tale had become fully insti tutionalized in Europe and North America, as indicated by the great success and popularity of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wii representative o f w o r k s b y the g r o u p.

V o n A r n i m ' s protagonist seeks intellectual rather than material riches. T h e Kaffeterkreis b r o k e the ban o f silence imposed on G r i m m girls as the virtuous path to adulthood. T h e last meet ing took place in W h e r e a s fairy-tale characters are at home in the magical landscapes they inhabit, K a f k a ' s blend o f the irrational and the realistic disorientates his confused characters and alien ates them from the v e r y society they are trying to join.

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B y inverting the classical fairy tale and playing with its motifs, Kafka created what has been called the anti-fairy tale, which questions the certainties and optimism o f the classical genre. F o r example, the protagonist of his novel Das Schloss The Castle, does not pro gress like the conventional fairy-tale hero from the peasant village to the castle, but remains dislocated between these fairy-tale extremes without achieving a happy end.

In ' D i e V e r w a n d l u n g ' ' T h e Metamorphosis', , Kafka adapted the fairy-tale motif of transformation by depicting a travelling salesman w h o has been transformed into a giant insect-like crea ture. In contrast to the traditional enchanted prince, h o w e v e r , K a f k a ' s middle-class antihero experiences no conventional disenchant ment. Instead, his o n e - w a y transformation from human to 'beast' ironically frees him from life in modern society and liberates his family to achieve happiness without him. Kafka ex perimented with a variety o f related short forms in his writings, including parable and animal fable, and these too explore the ambigu ities of life in the early 20th century.

T h e first literary version of some 12, verses w a s compiled and edited in u n r h y m e d alliterative trochaic metre b y the Finnish philologist and district health officer Elias Lnrott , w h o w o v e the indi vidual songs that he recorded in Karelia, a large region on both sides of the Russo-Finnish border, into a continuous narrative. T h e se cond edition o f the Kalevala, published in , was composed of 22, verses and based on additional research b y Lnrott.

T h e focus throughout the epic is on the heroic feats of Vainaminen and other legendary charac ters such as his brother Imarinen, the great smith and craftsman, and, Lemminkainen, the wanton ladies' man. Lnrott changed manyReception of Grimms ' Fairy Tales: Essays on Responses, Reactions, and Revisions K a f k a ' s life and w o r k s epitomize the alienated individual in the modern w o r l d.

H o w ever, she refuses to m a r r y such an old man, commits suicide in the sea, and b e c o m e s a w o n d r o u s salmon that tantalizes V i n a m o i n e n , w h o catches and then loses her, causing him to seek another bride and to e n g a g e in conflict with his brother. In Lnrott's adaptation and transformation o f the oral songs he m i x e d Christian elements with apparent Scandinavian and G e r m a n i c pagan beliefs and m y t h o l o g y to justify the arrival o f Christianity in Finland.

T h o u g h m a n y o f his changes w e r e inconsistent and jarring, it is this strange mixture o f super stition, paganism, Christianity, and literature that makes the Kalevala such a fascinating na tional epic. Artist and Picture-Book Maker Engel, Dean and Freedman, Florence B. A Biography with Illustrations A u t h o r of the important Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts , K e n n e d y is thought o f as one o f the fathers o f the Irish folklore r e v i v a l and is thus associated w i t h the Celtic literary renais sance.

F e a r i n g that the tales he had heard as a child w e r e in the process o f b e i n g lost, he p r o duced not o n l y Legendary Fictions but The Banks of the Bow , The Fireside Stories of Ireland , and The Bardic Stories of Ireland K e n n e d y did not attempt to capture the flavour o f the original Irish stories o r the tone o f their tellers, n o r does he cite specific sources o r informants.

H e did, h o w e v e r , offer to the public a w i d e range o f traditional narratives including Mdr chen, ghost stories, local legends, and Ossianic heroic adventures. E s p e c i a l l y interested in the witches and fairies o f Ireland, he effectively r e tells m a n y tales o f changelings and fairy a b d u c tions. T h o u g h she e n d o w e d her w o r k s with strong didactic messages, K e a r y was a fine stylist and offset her moralism with fanciful inventions in her stories.

H e r major fairy-tale w o r k is Little Wanderlin and Other Fairy Tales , w h i c h combine her interest in natural history and religion and reveal h o w the imagination can be used for moral improvement. L a r g e l y a self-taught painter with experience as a muralist W P A , c o m i c - b o o k illustrator, and camouflage designer, K e a t s is hailed not o n l y for his artistic originality and innovation, prin cipally his use o f collage, but also for featuring children o f colour as central characters.

His most acclaimed text, The Snowy Day, C a l decott Medallist, w h i c h tells the story o f a y o u n g child's experience with s n o w , is the first full-colour picture b o o k to feature a black child; the b o o k has met with s o m e c o n t r o v e r s y , for Keats w a s Caucasian. T h e illustrations h a v e been regarded as some o f Keats's finest, particularly for their v i b r a n c y , size, and consequent force. In evidence as well is his collage insignia, particularly here, the marbling o f cut or torn paper.

T h o u g h primarily k n o w n for his sentimental lyrics and folk ballads, K e r n e r also wrote fairy tales and stories that reflected his interest in magnetism, mysticism, and clairvoyance. Sixteen o f K e n n e d y ' s bitter-sweet tales and novellas are collected in Richard Kennedy: His mythopoeic andapocalyptic Amy's Eyes , a n o v e l market ed for children, w a s a w a r d e d the G e r m a n R a t tenfanger R a t Catcher, i. A f t e r freelancing as a commercial artist and cartoonist, k n o w n for the c o m i c strip ' K i n g A r o o ' , he began to write and illustrate children's b o o k s in H e uses a similar technique in his b o o k s , with h e a v y outline and flat colour.

K e n t ' s Fables of Aesopoften uses dialect and traditional folklore to re late stories about changelings, dragons, g o b lins, and wizards.

H e is most adept at crossing the boundaries of different genres such as the fairy tale, m y s t e r y , and science fiction, as can be seen in his collections for adults, Songbirdsof Pain and In the Hollow of the DeepSea Wave O n e o f his most innovative novels for y o u n g readers is The Phantom Piper, a revision of ' T h e P i e d P i p e r ' , in which the adults o f a Scottish village answer the call of a mysterious piper and leave their children be hind to run their o w n lives and eventually to confront t w o evil travellers. T h e hilari ous consecutive scenes describe the cat b e c o m ing increasingly obese as he eats w h a t comes into sight.

K e n t ' s cartoon-like art makes the classic folk-tale texts, frequently reduced in length and depth, accessible to the y o u n g. W h i l e K e n t retold some stories, he illustrated the w o r k o f other authors, too. Translated into scores of languages, Children's and Household Tales has enriched children's literature w o r l d wide. N e a r l y all o f the tales of v o l u m e I of the first edition came from y o u n g acquaintances in the G r i m m s ' bourgeois circle in Cassel and nearby towns.

V o l u m e I I had a radically different character, its stories stamped b y the plots and diction of D o r o t h e a Viehmann, a tailor's w i d o w from the neighbouring village of Zwehrn. Emperor's New Clothes , simplifying it fory o u n g e r children. KNHChildren's and Household Tales appeared inseven L a r g e 1 8 1 2 - 1 5 , , , , , , and ten story Small Editions , , , , , , , ,, Within G e r m a n y Children's and Household Tales w a s also published as popular postersized Bilderbogen broadsides.

I n addition, other tale collectors fre quently incorporated the G r i m m s ' tales into their o w n w o r k s. F r o m the early 19th century, Children's and Household Tales attracted the interest o f the w o r l d ' s principal illustrators o f children's literature. T h e publishing history o f Children's and Household Tales falls into t w o clearly demar cated segments. T h e family marketed the Tales conser v a t i v e l y , in complete editions, whether L a r g e o r S m a l l , and apparently without offering cheaply printed editions for mass consumption.

W h e n copyright lapsed in , 30 y e a r s after J a c o b ' s death, an explosive increase in the number and kinds o f editions followed. T h i s w a v e o f printings, in addition to the tales' his torical inclusion in school readers in the preceding decades, brought Children's and Household Tales into the 20th century on a crest that remained high till a generation ago.

T h e history o f publishing and reading in G e r m a n y reveals that a flood o f fairy-tale b o o k s Marchenbiicher had inundated G e r m a ny's w o m e n readers from the late s o n w a r d , and, in fact, most o f the tales the G r i m m s collected in the early y e a r s h a v e been identified in published sources. In all probability, there fore, the G r i m m s ' early informants' tales d e rived not from the folk but either directly o r indirectly from printed b o o k s.

In the 19th and 20th century, h o w e v e r , widespread belief in unbroken chains o f oral transmission, reaching from the present to antiquity, made critics ascribe the tales' simple and simplified plots to the 'childhood o f m a n ' and v i e w them as the folk equivalent o f ancient G r e e k m y t h. N a t i o n alists o f the 19th century exploited this a p proach to posit a continuous link between the fragmented 19th-century G e r m a n nation and its medieval past. Much o f the influence exerted by Children's and Household Tales in the 20th century stemmed from a related conviction a m o n g psychologists and educators that thetales metaphorically represented universal stages o f children's psychological maturation.

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Hennig, Dieter, and Lauer, Bernhard eds. Dokumente ihres Lebens und Wirkens A History of Criticism on a Popular Classic S u b titled 'a fairy tale for a land-baby', it is a curious but v i v a c i o u s jumble o f moral instruc tion, scientific fact, pronouncements on the na ture o f scientific thought and D a r w i n ' s theory of evolution, references to forgotten m i d - V i c torian controversies, and choleric outbursts o f prejudice on topics ranging from 'frowzy m o n k s ' to the absurd n e w fashion o f dining at eight.

Brian A l d e r s o n has pointed out h o w much the b o o k o w e s to Rabelais, greatly ad mired b y K i n g s l e y , not just with the famous w o r d lists, but also with the deliberate digres sions and the satiric fantasy. A striking e x ample o f the latter is the fable o f the D o a s y o u l i k e s which puts evolution into re verse. It has a l w a y s been a perplexing story. W h i l e his enthusiasm for the w o n d e r s o f nature is one o f the most attractive features o f the b o o k , the most coher ent section and the best-remembered n o w is the first, w h e r e T o m , a little chimney sweep, g o e s with his master to sweep the chimneys of H a r t h o v e r Place.

H e loses his w a y in the maze of flues, and comes d o w n into the bedroom o f a little girl named Ellie. Here for the first time he sees himself in a l o o k i n g - g l a s s ' a little black ape', and is horrified at the contrast between himself and the white purity o f Ellie. Pursued o v e r the moors, he finally scrambles d o w n a cliff face and seems to d r o w n in the stream b e l o w.

But the reader k n o w s that he has b e come a water-baby. It might seem that T o m ' s trials and travels are a spiritual p i l g r i m a g e , and that the t w o fairies Mrs B e d o n e b y a s y o u d i d and Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby representing L a w and L o v e? N o r does K i n g s l e y help b y telling his readers to remember 'that this is all a fairy tale, and all fun and pretence; and, therefore, y o u are not to believe a w o r d o f it, e v e n if it is true'. K i n g s l e y ' s retellings o f G r e e k myths, The Heroes , subtitled ' G r e e k fairy tales for my children', is far m o r e straightforward.

It was written as a corrective to Nathaniel "'Haw thorne's Tanglewood Tales , w h i c h he found 'distressingly v u l g a r ' , and w h i c h un doubtedly falsified the originals. Chitty, Susan, The Beast and the Monk Cunningham, Valentine, 'Soiled Fairy: H e w a s the director o f an orphanage in the W a r s a w ghetto and voluntarily f o l l o w e d the children into the g a s chambers o f the c o n centration camp at T r e b l i n k a. T w o children, D a n and U n a , are acting scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream in a fairy ring on M i d s u m m e r ' s E v e , w h e n they find they h a v e conjured up ' a small, b r o w n , broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person'.

H e is the last o f the O l d T h i n g s w h o once w e r e pagan g o d s and then became the People of the Hills; he is contemptuous o f the w o r d ' f a i r y ' ' l i t t l e buzz-flies with butterfly wings and gauze petticoats'. In the succeeding stories he produces for the children people w h o have lived in their part o f Sussex, and in ' D y m church Flit' tells them h o w the Reformation frightened the last fairies 'Pharisees' out o f England.

He tries to be a just and generous ruler and to provide for the children of his country. However, his re forms fail, mostly owing to his inexperience and idealism, and the betrayal of adults. After a long series of adventures and trials, Matt is de feated in a war, captured by the neighbouring king, and exiled to a desert island. Korczak's fairy tale is based on his firm be lief in children's rights as well as his profound knowledge of their psychological needs.

How ever, the pessimistic ending of the novel leaves no illusions as to the possibility of the fulfil ment of his ideals. There are no magical or supernatural elements in the novel, but most episodes are built up as a typical fairy-tale quest, and the heroic character of the young king is emphasized. Lypp, Maria, 'Kindheit als Thema des Kinderbuchs. Through detailed ink drawings and bright aquarelles they produced lovable folk characters and cosy scenes that have a quaint quality, and their il lustrated books have remained popular up to the present.

Attacked and left for dead one night in Central Park, she is found by 'the Beast'Vincent, a man with a lion's face Ron Perlman who carries her to his home in the hidden tunnels beneath the city and nurses her back to health. The series was given little chance of success, but achieved a surprising degree of 'cult' popularity, particu larly among women viewers, who fell in love with Vincent, fangs and all.

Kotzwinkle also wrote the novels on which the films E. His fairy tales for children have been collected in The Oldest Man and Other Timeless Stories and introduce conventional char acters into mysterious situations. Thus in 'Hearts of Wood' a troll uses magic to make a carousel come alive, and in ' T h e Dream of Chuang' a butterfly catcher dreams he becomes a butterfly but also comes to think he may be a butterfly who dreams he is a man. Nothing is ever certain in Kotzwinkle's tales, as he dem onstrates in 'The Fairy K i n g ' , who leaves his throne empty for anyone to become king. He attended the Real Gymna sium, entered the military, was apprenticed to a pharmacist, and cared for horses in Pomerania before his family finally permitted him to enter art school.

Koch encouraged him to become a woodcutter, and the left-handed Kredel taught himself to cut 'on the plank' by using discards from the neighbouring Klingspor Typefoundry. Their first collaboration was a compendium of liturgical and craft sym bols called Das Zeichenhuch A Book of Signs, , for which Kredel cut Koch's illustra tions. By the time they had finished the incom parable Das Bliimenbuch The Book of Flowers, , Kredel was an acknowledged master at cutting smooth, delicate lines. A huge wall map of Germany, printed from joined woodblocks, lithographed and then hand-coloured, was an other collaborationbut the Hitler regime had the prints recalled for undisclosed reasons.

At that time, violence was erupting between the Nazis and the Communists at the studios of the Offenbacher Werkstatt. After the death of Koch, who had long acted as a buffer between the opposing groups, politics forced Kredel to flee to Austria, and then to the United States. Quite different are his linear w o o d c u t s for the Decameron and Aucassin and Nicolette , w h o s e medieval fla v o u r reflect the Florentine chapbooks that he deemed the height o f the decorated b o o k.

K r e d e l also il lustrated a Christmas tale b y First L a d y E l e a n o r R o o s e v e l t , and for President K e n n e d y designed the w o o d c u t o f the presidential eagle for the print o f his inaugural address. Foster, Joanna, Illustrators of Children's Books: Other important w o r k s include: H e r three fan tasy n o v e l s , The Prince of Morning Bells , The Golden Grove , and The White Pipes , deal with gender issues, magical trans formation and the p o w e r o f story to change people's lives, often in disturbing w a y s.

JZ KRLiss, JAMES , G e r m a n author o f children's and picture b o o k s , illustrator, poet, dramatist, scriptwriter, translator, and collector of children's poems and folk songs. First and foremost, Kriiss is a storyteller, w h o s e fantastic and whimsical tales are deeply rooted in folk tale and oral storytelling tradition.

M a n y o f his b o o k s are actually collections o f tales held to gether b y a frame story. Storytelling and language itself not only keep the protagonists in these b o o k s enter tained, but p r o v i d e them with n e w insights and at times the means to s u r v i v e.

Stories flatten the differences and shrink the distances be tween children and adults. B y w a y o f stories Kriiss can and does address his y o u n g readers as equals. W i t h Timm Thaler oder das verkaufte Lachen Timm Thaler or the Sold Laughter, , a modern version o f the pact with the devil, Kriiss prepared the g r o u n d for social criticism in childen's literature. W i t h T i m m , w h o sells his laughter to the devil, Kriiss crit icizes the g r o w i n g materialism and consumer ism o f G e r m a n y ' s economic miracle years.

Kriiss received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his b o d y o f w o r k in Literatur der Jugend Standard, Paul, 'Fritz Kredel: Artist, Woodcutter, Illustrator', Motif 4 i 9 6 0. K r e i d o l f produced o v e r 25 illustrated b o o k s for children during his life time and g e n e r a l l y w r o t e the text, c o n c e i v e d the total design, and prepared the script, type, and binding.

H i s v e r y first b o o k , Blumen-Mdrchen Flower Fairy Tales, , w a s representative o f all the w o r k that he w a s to produce throughout his career. H e w a s fascinated b y dreams and the subconscious in both his verbal and his visual art, detailed in Die andere Seite The Other Side, Visions from the Other Side c. Raabe, Paul, Alfred Kubin 1 9 7 7. Kunert also d e v e l o p e d a unique tal ent as a prose writer w h o uses concrete and striking images in succinct, terse narratives. H e has often experimented with fairy tales in his w o r k and e n d o w e d them with subtle social and political meanings.

W i t h her second n o v e l , Thomas the Rhymer , K u s h n e r turns directly to folk lore themes in an impressive retelling o f this Scottish B o r d e r ballad and fairy tale. T h e n o v e l closely follows the plot o f the traditional tale: O n e is her prose, as exquisitely m u s i c al as a harper's s o n g.

T h i r d l y , she invests the story w i t h a delicious sensuality in the lush d e scriptions o f the faery court, and the c o m p l e x , enigmatic relationship between T h o m a s and his Q u e e n. K Sharper 'into the w o o d s ' b u t K u s h n e r is also exploring a theme relevant to all creative art ists: H e w a s deeply influ enced b y R u d o l f Steiner, and anthroposophic ideas are evident in all his w o r k but especially in his extremely popular fairy tales, w h i c h he saw as the reality o f another w o r l d.

H i sIn-and-outsideTales and follow-upNaughty Tales are collections o f fractured fairy tales p a r o d y i n g famous C z e c h folktales. Purrkin the Talking Cat is an original fairy-tale story featuring an intelligent pet. L a d a illustrated all his books himself.

His illustrations are inspired b y the style o f caricature, as he w a s a gifted cartoonist. H e also illustrated m a n y collections o f traditional folk tales. In he w a s a w a r d e d the title o f 'National Artist'. Premiered in N e w Y o r k in , the show is not generally counted a m o n g the c o m poser's great successes. Nevertheless, a c o m bination o f his talent and a sumptuous production b y Charles D i l l i n g h a m ensured a run o f performances.

T h i s period o f exile w a s particularly p r o d u c t i v e , for during it she w r o t e several historical n o v e l s and a v o l u m e o f fairy tales, Les Contes des contes The Tales ofthe Tales, L a F o r c e ' s fairy tales are w i t t y commentaries on conventions o f n o v e l s and contes de fes of late 17th-century F r a n c e. S u c h playfulness a l l o w s L a F o r c e to defy the period's almost e x c l u s i v e l y p s y c h o l o g i c a l representations o f l o v e with physical and, sometimes, erotic descriptions.

Among her contemporary writers, perhaps o n l y d ' A u l n o y w r o t e a greater variety o f fairy tales. In L a F o r c e ' s 'Persinette' the heroine's secret marriage is revealed not b y her navet as in ' R a p u n z e l ' but b y her pregnant state, and at the end o f their punishment it is the fairy'ssical b y S y d n e y Rosenfeld libretto , J u l i u s J. Captain Sanjar and the emperor's d a u g h ter are in l o v e and, their romance discovered, he must choose between t w o doors, one c o n cealing a beautiful maiden to w e d and the other a h u n g r y tiger.

T h e original tale ended before the hero made his choice, but this musical v e r sion revealed that the princess replaced the maiden with an old hag. She converted to Catholicism in , w h i c h allowed her to nurture numerous connections important for her subsequent career as a writer: Overall, L a Force's fairy tales stand out among those of her fellow fairy-tale writers for their diversity, wit, and sensuality, as well as their relative brevity. Vellenga, Carolyn, 'Rapunzel's Desire: Dvdrgen The Dwarf, and Barabbas are parables of the modern human being's moral and religious dilemmas.

In Onda sagor , included in The Mar riage Feast , Lagerkvist uses the form of the parable and tends to give the folk tale a nasty intertextual twist. One text is tellingly called 'Prinsessan och hela riket' 'The Princess and All the Kingdom' , and makes the point that life continues in all its complexity and ambigu ity after the formulaically happy, but shallow, ending of the magic tale. In other texts, Lagerkvist tends to revise le gends by giving them surprise endings, such as in 'Den onda anglen' 'The E v i l Angel' , in which an angel of darkness, who hatefully an nounces that human beings will perish, is sim ply met with the laconic response that they are perfectly aware of their mortality.

In 'Krleken och dden' 'Love and Death' , a young couple walk down the street when suddenly Cupid appearsa brutish, hairy fellow who shoots an arrow into the young man's chest. As the man's blood runs in the gutter, until none is left, his sweetheart walks on unaware of what has happened to him. Lagerkvist's texts play with metaphysics and religion, but without a belief in anything beyond the present reality.

His texts are funny, bleak, and artistically well-wrought. Lagerkvist and the Long Search', Scandinavica, She was born and lived most of her life in the Swedish province of Varmland, famous for its storytelling traditions. In all her novels and short stories Lagerlf makes use of folktales and legends, weaving them into everyday sur roundings. Her most internationally wellknown book, Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ; The Wonderful Adven tures of Nils, , The Further Adventures of Nils, , originally a geography schoolbook, has several layers of fairy-tale matter.

The frame of the book is a traditional fairy-tale plot in which a lazy boy is punished by being trans formed into a midget and must improve in order to become human again. Like a folk-tale hero, Nils is able to understand ani mal language when he is enchanted, and he ac quires both friends and enemies in the animal realm. He also has a typical fairy-tale guide and mentor, the old wise goose Akka. Places which Nils visits are described in terms of etiological folk tales, explaining the origin of geographical features of the landscape, and of uncanny local legends.

Finally, some well-known plots are involved, such as 'Pied Piper of Hamelin' and the sinking of Atlantis, here both connected with concrete settings in Sweden. Sale, Roger, Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. Over the course of his lifetime, Lamb cared for his sister Mary who, in a moment of insanity, killed their mother in He also collaborated with his sister on Mrs Leicester's School , another work aimed at young girls in which several 'young ladies' relate their personal histories.

A Rough Outside with a Gentle Heart. It is not until he o v e r c o m e s the flattery o f others and realizes the true nature o f his nose that the spell is b r o k e n , and he is granted a beautiful nose. Beast turns out to be a Persian prince and takes B e a u t y back to Persia at the end o f the tale. T h i s w o r k ' s fairy-tale plot is used to satirize w i t h considerable viciousness society life, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie o f 18th-century P a r i s.

Its critique o f the period's barriers to s o cial mobility are distinctly p r e - R e v o l u t i o n a r y in tone. His ten v o l u m e s o f tales and novellas reveal his remarkable talent, whether it is bent to achieve stylistic preciousness, o r to blend together fantastic, sardonic, and surreal elements to create a sense of anguish and o f l o o m i n g nightmares, as Landolfi does in Nel mar dette blatte The Sea of Cockroaches, , La spada The Sword, , and Racconto d'autunno An Autumn Story, In this last tale the author recalls the atmospheres o f the gothic narrative o f such writers as E.

Moralistic and metaphysical concerns permeate instead the science-fiction tale Cancroregina Cancerqueen and Other Stories, , w h i l e a certain didactical tendency prevails in his allegoric fables for y o u n g readers such as La ragnatela doro The Cobweb of Gold, and II principe felice The Happy Prince, Ironically for someone of his vast output, he is n o w remembered mainly for his fairy tales, and for his F a i r y B o o k series. B o r n in Selkirk in the Scottish B o r d e r s , he w a s steeped in the ballads and legends of those parts. H e studied classics at St A n d r e w s University, and one of his earliest b o o k s w a s a translation of the Odyssey with S.

Butcher , published in L a t e r he w a s to collaborate with H e n r y R i d e r H a g g a r d in The World's Desire , a r o mance chronicling the wanderings of Odysseus in search o f Helen, and the evil magic o f Meriamun, queen o f E g y p t , w h o tries to foil him. H e had been a comparative mythologist since his y o u t h with a strong interest in anthrop o l o g y , and his earliest statement of his anthropological theory w a s in an essay, ' M y t h o l o g y and F a i r y T a l e s ' , in the Fortnightly Review May , described b y Reinach as 'the first full statement of the anthropological method applied to the comparative study of myths'.

H e had o v e r c o m e his early distaste for literary tales, and though the series w a s mostly to contain only traditional folk tales, this first v o l u m e oddly included an abridged version of G u l l i v e r ' s v o y a g e to Lilliput.