Home » Yamato and Hansel and Gretel (and opera)

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Yamato and Hansel and Gretel (and opera) — 6 Comments

  1. So the moral of the story, as all fairy tales must have a moral, is– don’t eat more than you’re fair share or the wicked government will come after you.

  2. I somehow doubt medieval age of the story: fairy tales are the most ancient type of folklore, more ancient than Island sagas, Rigveda hymns or Greek mythology. They are also found in all peoples and tribes, with the same elements of the plot and even general outlay of the fabula. This inspired a famous Russian structuralist and folklorist Propp to write a book titled “The Morphology of Fairy Tale”, in which these common elements are listed, given special notation and traced in folklore of different peoples from Ireland to Australian native tribesmen. In Russian folklore a cannibalistic witch (Baba Yaga) is the most common personage of the dozen tales. My guess the timing of creation of these tales is about 20 000 years ago, with natural transformation and adaptation of the details in subsequent retelling in hundreds of generations.

  3. Orson Scott Card wrote a fine fantasy called “Enchantment”, about a lot of things including how the Tatar invasion changed the fairy tales of Central Europe.

    Baba Yaga was the witch who enchanted the (Russian) Bear God and was able to use the increased power to take over a little kingdom. [The book includes a modern Ukrainian Jew going back to that age thru the Enchantment, and writing the stories down to be found in the future…]

    My Slovak wife didn’t like the witch because in Slovakia, Baba Yaga is more like a wimpy ugly witch, and one of the funny characters in a famous Russian winter fairy tale/ great movie: Mrazik (Father Frost), part of the commie alternate-to-Christmas winter push. As well known here as Wizard of Oz in the USA.

    There is a famous Japanese Drum Beating performance coming in Nov.
    Yamoto

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