Marvels & Tales articles from October 2003

Marvels & Tales archives from October 2003

The Rubezahl legend in Benedikte Naubert and Johann Karl August Musaus.
October 1, 2003... Introduction Marina Warner, in her monumental study From the Beast to the Blond, tells of a long, long tradition, perhaps one that has been around as long as human beings, of women as the bearers of popular tales. She traces this history...

Sadeian tragedy: the politics of content revision in Angela Carter's "Snow Child".(Critical Essay)
October 1, 2003... After considering archetypal representations of women in her study The Feminine in Fairy Tales, M. L. von Franz concludes: "With women it is important to go into things in detail, to see, for instance, how and where a misunderstanding began,...

Laura Gonzenbach and her forgotten treasure of Sicilian Fairy Tales.
October 1, 2003... Perhaps the most important collection of fairy tales in the nineteenth century is not the Kinder- und Hausmarchen (Children and Household Tales, 1857) assembled and edited by the Brothers Grimm, but Sicilianische Marchen (Sicilian Fairy Tales,...

The golden necklace.(story from Afghanistan)
October 1, 2003... Translator's Introduction This story comes from Jhanara Amin, nicknamed Bibi Shirin (Sweet Mother), who was born on 2 March 1921 in Baghlan, Afghanistan. During her youth, Bibi Shirin traveled extensively in the provinces of Baghlan,...

The souls in purgatory.
October 1, 2003... Translator's Introduction Cecilia Bohl de Faber (1796-1877), who used the pen name Fernan Caballero, was one of the great women writers of nineteenth-century Spain. Two of her fairy tales--"The Devil's Mother-in Law" and "The Bird of...

The Queen Mother.(Spanish tale)
October 1, 2003... Translator's Introduction Juan Valera (1824-1905), one of nineteenth-century Spain's most respected authors, wrote novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and literary criticism. (For biographical data and information on his work, see my...

The Big Book of Urban Legends by Jan Harold Brunvand.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Adapted by Robert Loren Fleming and Robert F. Boyd, Jr. New York: Paradox Press/DC Comics, 1994. 223 pp. In the introduction and commentary to The Big Book of Urban Legends (BBUL), Jan Harold Brunvand wonders "is this the climax of my...

The Big Book of Grimm by the Grimm Brothers as Channeled by Jonathan Vankin & over 50 Top Comic Artists.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Paradox Press/DC Comics. New York, 1999. 191 pp. As we grow up with fairy tales, we simultaneously grow up with pictures, I suppose. If they aren't pictures in comic books and on the screen, then they are the illustrations in books read to...

Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktales in Oral Tradition.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... By Stuart Blackburn. FF Communications CXXVIII, No. 278. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2001. 338 pp. The author of Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktales in Oral Tradition, Stuart Blackburn, is familiar to Tamil...

Ariadne's Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... By William Hansen. Myth and Poetics edited by Gregory Nagy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. xv, 548 pp. Ariadne's Thread may prove an invaluable sourcebook not only for classicists but, perhaps more importantly, for folklorists. The...

Tales, Then and Now: More Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Anna E. Altmann and Gail de Vos. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2001. xxiii + 296. Tales, Then and Now: More Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults is the much-anticipated sequel to New Tales for Old: Folktales as Literary...

SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages.(Product/Service Evaluation)
October 1, 2003... Heidi Anne Heiner. 11 April 2003. . In 1998 then-graduate student Heidi Anne Heiner launched SurLaLune. In the subsequent five years, SurLaLune has developed into a valuable and fascinating resource/clearinghouse for scholars, students,...

Imagined States: Nationalism, Utopia, and Longing in Oral Cultures.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... Edited by Luisa Del Giudice and Gerald Porter. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2001.217 pp. Twenty years have passed since Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983)...

Scottish Traveller Tales: Lives Shaped Through Stories.(Book Review)
October 1, 2003... By Donald Braid. Jackson, Miss.: University of Mississippi Press, 2002. xiii + 313 pp. The translation of a PhD thesis into a book is a precarious, and not always successful, undertaking. What may have satisfied a dissertation director, an...