Category Archives: Tales /märchen

Stories which are not regarded as possibly true.

Tale – Shimchong: The Blind Man’s Daughter

Nationality: Korean
Age: 19
Occupation: Student

Text: 

This is the story about this kind daughter who lives with a blind dad then she hears this announcement that to whoever volunteers to be the live sacrifice to the ocean or the people who have to sail um they will 100 bags of rice to that family because they were too poor and the daughter wanted her dad to be able to survive have food to eat she volunteers to be the live sacrifice so they sail out and at the point where theres a tornado in the ocean the girl dives in to be the live sacrifice and the dad finds out later because suddenly he is gifted with 100 bags of rice but at that point she had already sailed off and jumped into the ocean but the girl jumped in and she sank down into the ocean kingdom the ocean king heard the story and he thought she was very nice for she was a very good daughter and her love for her dad like he thought it was big like he considered it big like he valued her doing so so he decided to send her back up so they put her into this giant lotus and sent her off to up to the surface where she was fund by other fisherman who brought her back to the land back to one of the nobles parties that day the dad was also at the party because in Korea when the nobles throw a party they often open up their front yard and all the food for the people in the village too so it was like a whole party like feast going on and her dad was invited to when the girl entered and when the dad heard her voice he recognized her and when he turned toward her voice he was suddenly able to see again so that’s a happy reunion and this girl falls in love with either the nobles son or something like that the point is they values her actions and sent her back up

Context: 

This was told by one of my friends who is from South Korea. She explained that this is a well-known fairy tale that everyone has known of from a young age. She liked this story when she was young because the book was “tiny [and] it was easy to carry around.” Looking back she says that it appears to be a “very brutal story for the girl” which she did not notice as a kid. 

Analysis: 

This story is a common fairy tale in Korea. It teaches kids from a young age the values of Korean culture. The overall message this story shows is that one should love their parents and make sacrifices for them. This is because even though it seems like a sacrifice at the time it will eventually work in favor of both parties. It also shows that people reward those who are considered good children. The ocean king rewarded the girl for her actions and allowed her to go back to her family.

Tale – Small Line

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student

Text: 

“The tale is one of the tales from Akbar and Birbal. Akbar was a mogul emperor; one of the biggest and most well-known mogul emperors of India. Birbal was a Hindu who was the minister in Akbar’s court and he was very well known for his wisdom and for being very wise. Akbar was often impressed by that and the other court ministers were often jealous of him, so one day, Akbar came into the court and he gave a puzzle to all his ministers by drawing a line. He said to make this line shorter without erasing any of it, and Birbal came forth when none of the other ministers could answer the riddle, and he drew another line, which was longer than the one Akbar drew. He was like, ‘now this line is shorter.’” 

Context: 

This story was told by my roommate. She is from India and she shared how this might seem like a “kind of silly tale” that presents “just a trick or just a puzzle” but a lot of messages that are conveyed within the culture can be seen in this tale.  This story is very well known in India and it kind of just celebrates the history of India and the wisdom that a lot of the ministers had. It overall shows how important being wise is in solving problems. She heard this tale when she used to go to elementary school in India. Her parents bought her this book of Akbar and Birbal tales and this was one of the tales in that book.

Analysis: 

In Indian culture wisdom and problem-solving is strongly valued. This story emphasizes thinking outside of the box and coming up with solutions that might not be obvious. This story shows that it is a very common fairy tale told to young children. This tale was more popular than ones like Cinderella as the lessons within this tale better represent the values of India. This tale also connects to one of the most powerful empires in India. It also consists of one of the most powerful kings and one of the smartest people. This story also gives people a touch of emotions.

Eglė, Queen of the Sea Serpents — Lithuanian Tale

Nationality: Lithuanian American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Lithuanian

Text

“The story starts with Eglė. Her name means Pine Tree. She has twelve brothers, and she’s the youngest of three sisters. She’s swimming in a frozen, cold lake with her sisters. They get out, and they’re like, ‘Ooh, I want to put on my clothes.’ Eglė gets out and goes to put on her shirt, and there’s a serpent in her shirt.

“The snake proposed something first, and she said no. Then he tells her, ‘I’m not getting out of your shirt unless you marry me.’ And she was like, ‘Yes, okay. Oh, I have to ask my family.’

“She gets her shirt and goes back to her family and they’re like, ‘Okay, you’re not going with him, because he’s a serpent, first of all. And second of all, you’re not marrying someone who we don’t approve of.’

“The family hides her away. But the serpent gets a thousand snakes to bombard the farm, and they’re like, ‘If you don’t come with us right now, we won’t leave.’ And so then she’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll go because I don’t have any choice.’ And so she goes.

“He takes her to the bottom of the Baltic Sea, which is the body of water near Lithuania. And then he transforms into a beautiful, handsome prince. They live in this Amber Castle under the Baltic Sea, and she falls in love with him. They have three sons — Ąžuolas (Oak), Uosis (Ash-tree), Beržas (Birch) — and one daughter, Drebulė (Aspen). 

“Then Eglė is like, ‘I really want to go back home. I want to have my kids meet their grandparents and their whole family. But we live at the bottom of the Baltic Sea; we can’t just go.’ 

“And so the snake is like, ‘Ok, I’ll let you go, but you can’t tell them where I am. You can’t tell them how to find me.’ He sets up a way for them to summon him by saying a certain phrase at the Baltic Sea. Then if the sea foam is white on the waves, he’s alive, and he’ll come. If the sea foam is red, he’s dead. 

“I think she also has to do all these impossible tasks before he lets her go. Then she goes to her family, and all of the 12 brothers are like, ‘Tell us where he is.’ They’re literally torturing the children — that’s the more extreme version of the story; just interrogating the children is more polite — and they’re like, ‘Tell us how to find your dad. Tell us where he is so we can go kill him.’ They’re questioning, they’re questioning, and then the only one who gives out eventually is the daughter. 

“Then they go, they kill the dad, and then the mom is like, ‘Let’s go home.’ She yells into the sea, and the seafoam is red. She’s like, ‘Shit, they’re probably going to try to kill my family next.’ I think the implication is that now that the snake is dead, they would want to kill the children of the snake. 

“Now the wife has powers because of how much she loved the snake. So she turns herself into a pine tree, and then turns all of her children into different kinds of trees based on their names.  And that’s how those trees originated in Lithuania.”

Context

IZ is a 21 year-old college student from Lisle, Illinois, living in Los Angeles, California. Both her parents’ families immigrated to the United States during World War II and remain connected to their Lithuanian roots through strong immigrant communities in the US. 

IZ first encountered this story at Camp Dainava, a Lithuanian camp in Manchester, Michigan. For IZ, the camp provided a way to bond with other people of Lithuanian background, and share language, culture, and folklore.

“The first time I remember seeing this story depicted was in a mural at my Lithuanian camp. It was on the back wall of the dining hall.

“It’s a story that’s so ingrained in Lithuanian kids’ memories that I couldn’t even tell you when I first heard it. But I do know I was in a play depicting the daughter. I was literally a tree. It’s a very big thing. Everyone who’s Lithuanian, unless you really are not connected to the culture at all, you know this story.”

IZ said this story is told to preserve the culture and folklore of Lithuania and pass it down to the next generations. 

“I’ve never read it,” IZ said. “It’s always been told to me or I’ve seen it in a play. And every telling of the story is a little bit different. People include or don’t include certain parts.” 

Analysis

This story is an oikotype of ATU 425. It bears a lot of similarity to other tales, the most widely known being ATU 425C, the tale of Beauty and the Beast.

However, it is unique from some of the other forms of this tale in that it also contains a creation story accounting for the origins of birch, ash, oak, aspen, and pine trees in Lithuania.

This story also functions to promote certain views of marriage, specifically that it requires family approval, and that the absence of family approval is cause for violence.

Some common motifs in this tale, from the Thompson Motif Index include:

  • A2681.2. Origin of oak
  • A2681.4. Origin of birch trees
  • B268.7. Army of snakes
  • C421. Tabu: revealing secret of supernatural husband.
  • D391. Transformation: serpent (snake) to person.
  • D215. Transformation: man to tree.
  • D525.1. Despondent mother curses herself and children into trees.

Another motif in the tale that does not appear in the index is amber, which is a very culturally significant in Lithuania. Baltic amber can be found on the shores, or it can be mined. It is sometimes referred to as “the gold of the North.”

This tale can also be analyzed using Propp’s method of syntagmatic structuralism, which looks at specific plot elements and the order in which they appear. 

In the initial scene, there is a violation, as Eglė attempts to avoid marrying the serpent. Then there is complicity as she goes with him, marries him, and has his children. Then there is her departure and the struggle of her children to protect their father’s location. There is the return to the sea, and the transfiguration into trees. 

However, this tale somewhat disproves Propp’s structural ordering. For example, Eglė receives her magical powers at the end of the tale, despite this being listed fairly early in Propp’s list of 31 functions. Also, the wedding in this story does not occur at the end of the story, as Propp says it should. 

Lastly, IZ’s retelling of this tale exhibits multiplicity and variation present in different performances of the story. For example, she acknowledges that some may describe the interrogation of the children as torture, or chose a tamer word, depending on their audience. She concludes her own retelling with an acknowledgement that everyone tells the story a little differently.

Juan and the Otter

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Electrician
Residence: Palmdale, CA
Performance Date: 4/4/23
Primary Language: English

Context

My father is an avid storyteller with a number of “dad jokes” in his back pocket. An electrician by trade in Southern California, his stories often come from the blue-collar line of work that he finds himself in. This joke story is a memorate whose origins my dad can’t remember. I first heard this joke as a kid while we were swimming in my aunt’s backyard pool. I remember him drawing out the story for as long as possible, maintaining the seriousness until the final punchline at the end, hinged on a play on words that harkens to the phrase “you can’t have one or the other.” He told me this story over dinner at my family home in this particular iteration.

Text

TS: You want to tell the Juan or the otter one?

SS: Yeah. Well, there was once was a man. And he lived on a Caribbean island. And he used to go diving for pearls.

SS: And his name was Juan. And Juan and his wife lived a very simple life. They just lived in their little house and, and he’d get enough pearls to, for them to survive, and they were happy. And one day he was on his boat when he’s eating his lunch. And this otter jumped up on the boat, swam up and came up on the boat and it shocked him. And the otter looked at him and looked at a his food, and so he gave the otter some food. The otter ate his food, and he gave it a little more food, and uh, the otter looked at him and dove off the side of the boat and went away. And pretty soon the otter comes back with big arms full of oysters in his in his flippers, and he dumps them up on the boat.

SS: So Juan opened up the oysters and found many pearls. And he realized that the otter could dive down way farther than all the other pearl divers. So he befriended the otter, and they made a partnership. So they would go out and they would they would get the pearls together, the oysters. So pretty soon it became a thriving business. And they work dad started to have, you know, bigger house and, and lots of nice things because they got so many pearls and so many oysters. And so they started charging a lot of money for the services of this otter because they’ve you know, had enough, right? So one day the, this-this stranger came and he talked to the, to the wife and he wanted to know about hiring the hiring Juan for the day, and the otter and she–and she gave him the price. She said well, it’s $2,000 a day. And he was shocked. He was freaked out. And he said, “Well, that’s crazy.” She says “What?” “Well, how much for just–just Juan?”

SS: She said, “[imitating an accent] Oh no, señor, they are a pair. They only work together, you cannot have Juan without the otter.”

Analysis

This joke falls into the category of a tale that has a final punchline to deliver the pun that it hinges upon. Having heard the story before, I know it follows the oral-formulaic method of storytelling, as he will lengthen or shorten the story depending on how invested the audience is. There are certain key motifs to remember in the story: of course, the phrase “Juan or the otter” is one, Juan as a pearl diver, his wife as his manager, and the stranger who asks for their services. When I first heard the story, I was around 10, and my dad told it with a conviction that made me believe the story is true until the very end. As such, he drew the story out to be much longer than this iteration, but this has every part of the story necessary for it to function. Given that I already know the punchline, I think he was less detailed in his oration.

While my father doesn’t remember where he first heard the joke, I imagine it can be traced back two his Mexican American coworkers, as it is set in the Caribbean and involves using a general Latin American accent to deliver the final punchline. The joke falls into a blanket category of “dad joke,” often garnering groans of disappointment from his audience when the final punchline is delivered.

Tale: 狼 (wolf) by Songling Pu

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Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20

Text:

S: “ The original text is :

一屠晚归，担中肉尽，止有剩骨。途中两狼，缀行甚远。

　　屠惧，投以骨。一狼得骨止，一狼仍从。复投之，后狼止而前狼又至。骨已尽矣，而两狼之并驱如故。

　　屠大窘，恐前后受其敌。顾野有麦场，场主积薪其中，苫蔽成丘。屠乃奔倚其下，弛担持刀。狼不敢前，眈眈相向。

　　少时，一狼径去，其一犬坐于前。久之，目似瞑，意暇甚。屠暴起，以刀劈狼首，又数刀毙之。方欲行，转视积薪后，一狼洞其中，意将隧入以攻其后也。身已半入，止露尻尾。屠自后断其股，亦毙之。乃悟前狼假寐，盖以诱敌。

　　狼亦黠矣，而顷刻两毙，禽兽之变诈几何哉？止增笑耳。

So, what this means is that there is a butcher who is going home after he had sold all the meat that he brought with him. On his way home, two wolves start to follow him. The butcher gets scared and throws a bone to one of the wolves. But the other wolf is still following. So he throws another bone to the other wolf. Now he has no more bones, but the two wolves continue following him. He is very scared of being attacked from the front and rear. He sees a large wheat stack nearby and leans on it while drawing his butcher knife. The wolves see the knife and stop approaching. After a while, one wolf leaves, and the other wolf sits in front of the butcher. The sitting wolf appears to be sleeping. The butcher quickly jumps up and kills the wolf with his knife. Right before the butcher leaves, he discovers that the other wolf is digging a hole behind the wheat stack! Thus, he kills this wolf as well.

Wolves are cunning, but they can die in an instant. How many tricks do these beasts have? It only adds to the laughter.”

here is the pingyin version of the original text:

Yī tú wǎn guī, dān zhōng ròu jìn, zhǐ yǒu shèng gǔ. Tú zhōng liǎng láng, zhuì xíng shén yuǎn.

Tú jù, tóu yǐ gǔ. Yī láng dé gǔ zhǐ, yī láng réng cóng. Fù tóu zhī, hòu láng zhǐ ér qián láng yòu zhì. Gǔ yǐ jìn yǐ, ér liǎng láng zhī bìng qū rú gù.

Tú dà jiǒng, kǒng qián hòu shòu qí dí. Gù yě yǒu mài chǎng, chǎng zhǔ jī xīn qí zhōng, shān bì chéng qiū. Tú nǎi bēn yǐ qí xià, chī dān chí dāo. Láng bù gǎn qián, dān dān xiāng xiàng.

Shǎo shí, yī láng jìng qù, qí yī quǎn zuò yú qián. Jiǔ zhī, mù sì míng, yì xiá shén. Tú bào qǐ, yǐ dāo pī láng shǒu, yòu shù dāo bì zhī. Fāng yù xíng, zhuǎn shì jī xīn hòu, yī láng dòng qí zhōng, yì jiāng suì rù yǐ gōng qí hòu yě. Shēn yǐ bàn rù, zhǐ lù kāo wěi. Tú zì hòu duàn qí gǔ, yì bì zhī. Nǎi wù qián láng jiǎ mèi, gài yǐ yòu dí.

Láng yì xiá yǐ, ér qǐng kè liǎng bì, qín shòu zhī biàn zhà jǐ hé zāi? Zhǐ zēng xiào ěr.

Context:

S: “This is a short story written by Songling Pu, so I think this fits your description of tale.This is the story that I have studied for my language art in my elementary school in China. The original text is Classic Chinese. If I haven’t studied during class I wouldn’t be able to understand what the words mean as well.”

Analysis:

Wolves, as a symbol of cunning and deception, serve as a foil to the human protagonist. The story’s vivid imagery and Classical Chinese language contribute to its appeal as a piece of folklore passed down through generations, often as part of an oral tradition or in this case, as a written work by Songling Pu. This story is included in Songling Pu’s work of 聊斋志异, or Liao zhao zhi yi, which means strange stories from a Chinese studio. It’s a tale collection about faires, ghosts and monsters.

This tale is also a padagogy that teaches a moral lesson that animals can be cunning, but eventually they are only animals and the human wisdom also oppress the animals. It also teaches the kids in the elementary school that when they meet bad and cunning people like the two wolves, they need to fight like the butcher, and in smart ways. I am not sure if this is the best lesson to elementary school students.

The structure of the tale follows a classic format, with a protagonist facing a challenge or a series of obstacles, in this case, the two cunning wolves. The butcher’s fears and actions are relatable to the reader, as they convey the human instinct to survive and adapt when facing danger.