myths, folklore, & classics

world mythology, fairy tales, & classic literature until the early 1900s

[onceuponablogfairytalenews]

At the ball by Ink-Yami An illustration for the Beastbook — Russian collaborate artbook project. The story is “Changelings” — Swedisn fairy-tale about two girls — a human princess and the troll’s daughter — who got swapped and grew up in each other’s families. While the tender princess is low-key terrified of trolls (though the parents are loving), the troll-girl terrorizes the royal court out of boredom. At the end they both run away from unfitting engagements and end up each at her own place)

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Edgar Allen Poe’s manuscript for “Annabel Lee,” published in 1849, the year of his death. It was the last work he ever completed.

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Rapunzel’s story has striking similarities to the 10th century AD Persian tale of Rudāba.  x The Shahnama describes Rudaba with these words:

About her silvern shoulders two musky black tresses curl,encircling them with their ends as though they were links in a chair.

(Shahnama 1:21-3)

It was this description and Rudaba’s physical beauty that initially attracted Zal. Rudaba also consulted her ladies-in-waiting about Zal. Zal came to the walls of Rudaba’s palace where Rudaba let down her tresses to Zal as a rope and he immediately climbed from base to summit. Rudaba seated Zal on the roof and they both talked to each other which was unacceptable according to Persian tradition. x

Talking about that, by the way: one of my favorite tales to tell is the Persian legend of Zal and Rudaba, which is generally seen as the earliest known version of the Rapunzel tale (also known as AaTh 310 for those folklorically inclined). The whole story is utterly fascinating (trying not to go off on a fangirlish tangent here), but my favorite part is the classical image: when the lady, Rudaba, lets down her long (black!) braid from her balcony, the hero just kisses the braid and says: “I wouldn’t hurt you, I brought a rope.” Hell yeah. x

[bookshavepores]

Jane Austen’s handwritten manuscript of Persuasion

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Visit Original Link

Lil’ Red Riding Hood- Laura Gibson

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FIGURES OF LORE | ma gu, chinese mythology     ↳ requested by anon

Ma Gu (Chinese: 麻姑; pinyin: Mágū; Wade–Giles: Ma Ku; literally “Hemp Maid”) is a legendary Taoist xian (仙 “immortal; transcendent”) associated with the elixir of life, and she is a symbolic protector of females, in Chinese mythology. Stories in Chinese literature describe Ma Gu as a beautiful young woman with long birdlike fingernails, while early myths associate her with caves. Ma Gu xian shou (麻姑獻壽 “Ma Gu gives her birthday greetings”) is a popular motif in Chinese art.

Ma Gu’s name compounds two common Chinese words: ma “cannabis; hemp” and gu “aunt; maid”.

Ma (the modern Chinese character 麻, which derives from a Zhou Dynasty bronze script ideograph, shows 林 “plants” drying in a 广 “shed; shack”) originally meant “hemp, Cannabis sativa”. Cannabis has been continuously cultivated in China since Neolithic times (Li 1974:437); for example, hemp cords were used to create the characteristic line designs on Yangshao culture pottery and the fibres were used to produce cloth prior to the introduction of cotton. Ma has extended meanings of “numbed; tingling” (e.g., mazui 麻醉 “anesthetic; narcotic”), “pockmarked; pitted” (mazi 麻子 “hemp seed; pockmark”), “sesame” (zhima 芝麻), and an uncommon Chinese surname.

Translating Ma Gu into English is problematic, depending upon whether her name is interpreted as a “maid”, “priestess”, or “goddess” of “hemp”, “marijuana”, or something else. Victor H. Mair (1990) proposed that Chinese wu (巫 “shaman”), pronounced *myag in Old Chinese, was a loanword from Old Persian *maguš “magician; magi”, which is hypothetically comparable with Ma Gu.

[theabhorsen]

Fairy Tale Meme:

8 Heroes - [Urashima Taro]

“Have you ever seen Rin Gin, the Palace of the Dragon King of the Sea, Urashima?”

The fisherman shook his head and replied; “No; year after year the sea has been my home, but though I have often heard of the Dragon King’s realm under the sea I have never yet set eyes on that wonderful place. It must be very far away, if it exists at all!”

“Is that really so? You have never seen the Sea King’s Palace? Then you have missed seeing one of the most wonderful sights in the whole universe. It is far away at the bottom of the sea, but if I take you there we shall soon reach the place. If you would like to see the Sea King’s land I will be your guide.”

[kumaliza]

Amazing Indo-Persian manuscript illumination on a page of a 15th century Qur’an. Because illuminated manuscripts are the highest form of human accomplishment.

[rebeccaschinsky-blog]

Considering yourself a serious reader doesn’t mean you can’t read light books. Loving to read means you sometimes like to turn your head off. Reading is not about being able to recite passages from Camus by memory. Loving young adult novels well past adolescence isn’t a sign of stunted maturity or intelligence. The most important thing about reading is not the level of sophistication of the books on your shelf. There is no prerequisite reading regimen for being a bookworm.

Lauren Leto, Judging a Book by Its Lover

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Rama and Sita, surrounded by roses on their wedding day. 

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invisiblebullets

“The Nightingale” by Renáta Fučíková

The poor emperor, finding he could scarcely breathe with a strange weight on his chest, opened his eyes, and saw Death sitting there. He had put on the emperor’s golden crown, and held in one hand his sword of state, and in the other his beautiful banner.

[loverofbeauty]

[thebrownqueen]

George Orwell: 1984:Original corrected manuscript - completed December 1948

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Lindisfarne Gospels 

This is one of the very few pages on which Eadfrith’s original 7th century script can be admired almost entirely free of the gloss added by Aldred in the 10th century. Clear and black, very assured and regular in form, this script, designed for formal use, is known technically as insular majuscule. The page gives details of particular passages in St John which are to be read on specific feast days.

[electronicsquid]

Children don’t read ‘genres’; they read stories. Below a certain age, they don’t distinguish between ‘true’ and ‘not true,’ because they see no reason that a white rabbit shouldn’t possess a pocket watch, that whales shouldn’t talk, or that sentient beings shouldn’t live on other planets and travel in spaceships. Science-fiction tropes aren’t read as ‘science fiction’; they’re read as fiction. And fiction is read as reality. And sometimes reality lives under the bed and has very large teeth, and it’s no use pretending otherwise.

Margaret Atwood, The New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012

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FAIRYTALE MEME: two countries of origin - [2/2] West and South Asia   One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature.

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Fairy Tale Meme | 2/4 (br)otps | Scheherzade and Shahryar 

The story goes that every day Shahryar would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday’s wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was unfaithful to him. He had killed one thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter. ◀more▶

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Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales (1895)