Jeff—Saturday
In these days of worldwide Covid-19
depression, as Spring struggles to bring us on to hoped for relief in Summer
heat and humidity (at least for the northern hemisphere), I thought it might be
a good idea to come up with something light and cheery for today’s post.
Something to get Barbara’s mind off thoughts of a potential season or more of
shared bucolic isolation with her beloved (see photo above), ever mindful as I
am, that one man’s Walden Pond, may prove to be one woman’s Chaillot.
I skimmed the Internet in search
of inspiration for an upbeat topic, but quickly realized there’s little of that
sort of thing out there these days. So, I searched further, and lo and behold
found the perfect inspiration: A History of Greece and the Fairy Tale.
I expect that most who read Murder is Everywhere have at
least a passing familiarity with ancient Greek myths. Greeks think most of the world does because a
few years back they tied their national tourist campaign to the slogan, “Live
your Myth in Greece.” And it is hard to
imagine an educated soul in the western world who hasn’t at least heard of
Greece’s legends, if not the Iliad,
certainly the Odyssey.
So, what is a fairy tale anyway? Their written origins go back thousands of
years, and their oral roots thousands more.
Yet, it’s still hard to say what is precisely a fairy tale for, as with so
many other things in life, there is serious academic debate over that seemingly
simple question. To make things more complicated the actual name “fairy tale”
didn’t exist until the late 17th Century and at one time much of
Tolkien’s work and even Baum’s The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz would have been considered fairy tales but today are
called fantasy. God bless progress.
As I see it, the stories we grew up with, the ones we always
thought of as fairy tales, brought out gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarfs, giants,
and that sort of creature, featured magic and sometimes—but far from always—an
actual fairy. Yes, fairies are no more
required for fairy tales than reality is for certain economic tales. But I digress. Back now to Greece’s seminal
role in the fairy tale.
Although the Egyptians generally are credited with reducing
the first fairy tale to writing in 1300 B.C.E., it was Greece’s own Aesop who
brought fame to the genre with his collection of fables in the 6th
Century B.C.E. And the oral tradition of
such tales in Greece goes back thousands of years before then. That’s not to say other cultures didn’t have
similar rich oral traditions. Indeed
it’s striking how so many different societies shared similar stories passing
the same bit of wisdom or moral guidance across Europe, China, India, Egypt and
elsewhere in Asia and Africa.
Some say the similarities sprung from shared values. Others claim they spread through tellers and
listeners traveling and battling their way to far off places, but if so, for
those tales to survive must they still not have rung true to each culture that
absorbed them as its own?
So, what are examples of these similar tales? I don’t want to sound Grimm (pained looks
noted) but there are many. For example,
if you’re looking for something in the “Let’s rescue the maiden in the tower”
vein, you can have the Greek champion shouting “Anthousa, Xanthousa,
Chrisomalousa let down your hair,”—yes, that one young maiden had all those
names—or go with the snappier “Rapunzel” of the Brothers Grimm version.
Then there’s the one about how sometimes success in life is
nothing more than a matter of “being in the right place at the right
time.” The Greeks call their version
“Almondseed and Almondella,” but the Grimm Brothers’ went for “Doctor
Know-all.” Just in case neither title
seems particularly fetching, doesn’t the Grimm Brother’s moniker at least make
you wonder if their version didn’t tickle a homonymic chord in Ian Fleming’s
search for a title for perhaps his 007’s most celebrated escapade?
And then there is the most famous fairy tale of all, or at
least one of the top five. Its recorded
history goes back to the 1st Century B.C.E. as the story of the
Greco-Egyptian girl, Rhodopolis. Over
ensuing centuries she moved around quite a bit until finally finding a home in
Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose tales
as Cinderella.
Which reminds me.
I’ve got to start rounding up the mice and get my pumpkin moving, to
take my beloved Princess off to town for supplies.
Stay safe, everyone.
Jeff — Saturday
