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The Wise Little Girl
''The Wise Little Girl'' (russian: Мудрая дева) is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in ''Narodnye russkie skazki''. This type of tale is the most common European tales to deal with witty exchanges.Stith Thompson, ''The Folktale'', p 158-9, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977 Synopsis Two brothers rode together, a poor one on a mare, a rich one on a stallion. The mare gave birth in the night, and the foal went under the rich brother's cart, so he claimed the cart had given birth to it. The emperor heard of their dispute at law and summoned them to ask them riddle A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requir ...s: what were the swiftest, fattest, softest, and loveliest things in the world? The rich man went to his god ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairy Tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy-tale romance (love), romance". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk tales, one of the largest collections of folklore in the world. The first edition of his collection was published in eight volumes from 1855 to 1867, earning him the reputation as being the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. Life Alexander Afanasyev was born in the town of Boguchar in the Voronezh Governorate of the Russian Empire (modern-day Voronezh Oblast of Russia) into a family of modest means. His mother Varvara Mikhailovna Afanasyeva came from common people. Alexander was her seventh child; she became very ill after giving birth and died by the end of the year. The children were raised by their father Nikolai Ivanovich Afanasyev, a Titular councillor who served as a prosecutor's assistant on probable causes and whom Alexand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddle
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Fairy Tales
''Russian Fairy Tales'' (russian: Народные русские сказки, variously translated; English titles include also ''Russian Folk Tales'') is a collection of nearly 600 fairy and folktales, collected and published by Alexander Afanasyev between 1855 and 1863.Alexander Afanasyev. Russian Fairy Tale — K. Soldatenkov and N. Shchepkin, 1855—1863. — Vol. 1—8 His literary work was explicitly modeled after ''Grimm's Fairy Tales''. Vladimir Propp drew heavily on this collection for his analyses in his '' Morphology of the Folktale''. Fairy tales Some of the tales included in these volumes: * The Death of Koschei the Immortal * Vasilisa the Beautiful * Vasilisa the Priest's Daughter * Father Frost * Sister Alenushka, Brother Ivanushka * The Frog Princess * Vasilii the Unlucky * The White Duck * The Princess Who Never Smiled * The Wicked Sisters * The Twelve Dancing Princesses * The Magic Swan Geese * The Feather of Finist the Falcon * Tsarevitch Ivan, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairy Tales Collected By Alexander Afanasyev
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. Myths and stories about fairies do not have a single origin, but are rather a collection of folk beliefs from disparate sources. Various folk theories about the origins of fairies include casting them as either demoted angels or demons in a Christian tradition, as deities in Pagan belief systems, as spirits of the dead, as prehistoric precursors to humans, or as spirits of nature. The label of ''fairy'' has at times applied only to specific magical creatures with human appearance, magical powers, and a penchant for trickery. At other times it has been used to describe any magical creature, such as goblins and gnomes. ''Fairy'' has at times been used as an adjective, with a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
