Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die Wissenschaft der Märchen
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About 8 h 40 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
For lovers of folklore, fairy lore and Celtic or Germanic legend, and for anyone who enjoys asking where an old story came from and what its odd details once meant.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Why must a midwife taken to a hidden hall refuse every bite of food? Why does a changeling cry out when beer brews in an eggshell? Edwin Sidney Hartland answers with comparison. He sets fairy tales of Wales, Germany and Scandinavia beside stories from the South Seas, Asia and Africa. You get a method for reading old tales, and the first idea is simple: these tales are traditions, not literature.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1Fairy tales are traditions, not literatureFree
- 2Early ideas about spirits explain strange plots
- 3Never eat the food of the other world
- 4Fairy gifts come with conditions
- 5Fairies punish anyone who pries
- 6Changelings come from fear for the helpless child
- 7Stolen cups and lost time in Fairyland
- 8Sleeping heroes and enchanted princesses are old gods
- 9Swan maidens and the taboo
Punkt 1 von 9
Fairy tales are traditions, not literature
Hartland studies tales kept alive by generations of tellers. He asks what they preserve of beliefs and customs from the distant past. Works shaped by authors like Hans Andersen belong to literary criticism instead, unless they offer evidence of an older tradition.
He shows how carefully people keep stories. In the Scottish Highlands, travelling tailors and shoemakers carried tales from house to house on winter nights. A Sicilian woman named Agatuzza Messia told tales her grandmother had told her, with her eyes, arms and voice. In Greenland, listeners corrected any slip in the old words.
So a collector must record an uneducated teller's words exactly, keeping every rough edge. Smoothing a coarse or silly detail may destroy the very clue a student needs. The odd parts of a tale are the valuable parts.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Die Wissenschaft der Märchen
About 8 h 40 min to read.Questions about Die Wissenschaft der Märchen
What is The Science of Fairy Tales about?
Hartland compares them with stories from around the world to show what early beliefs lie behind them.
What does Hartland mean by the science of fairy tales?
He means the study of traditional stories passed on by mouth, treated as evidence of old customs and beliefs. It differs from literary criticism, which looks at an author's art. Collected tales must be recorded exactly.
What is a changeling in this book?
A changeling is a fairy child or enchanted block of wood left in place of a stolen human baby. Hartland describes the protective charms, the eggshell test that makes the child give itself away, and the cures people tried.
Is it a true account of fairies or of folk belief?
It reports folk belief and legend, often with sources and places named. Hartland, writing in 1890, argues the stories reflect early thought about spirits, transformation and magic rather than real events.
Is The Science of Fairy Tales easy to follow?
Many chapters follow a group of tales, with vivid stories to carry the argument, such as the midwife with the apron of coals or the dancer in the fairy ring. Chapter headings preview each topic.