fun draconian fact!

[marycatelli]

I have mentioned that dragons in Eastern European fairy tales tend to be smaller than those further west.

However, I didn't mention How the Dragon Was Tricked.  In which the hero (disguised as a beggar) argues with the dragon about whether a box is big enough to hold the hero.  The hero tells the dragon that he and the dragon are the same size, so if it hold him, it will hold the hero.  And the dragon falls for it; he tests the box and the hero traps him.

Dragons in Eastern Europe lore are smaller than those further west.

Comments

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Eastern European dragons seem very easily tricked, as well. Maybe they're baby dragons, and move West as they grow older. ;>

[marycatelli]

:)

I've read several variants of this tale. In Western or Central Europe, it's an ogre, or a troll, that gets tricked like this -- in fact, the whole story is the same except for some local color and the character of the villain.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes. I keep thinking of The Little Tailor and similar tales.

[marycatelli]

Hop O' My Thumb and others like it might get you more tales, even more similar.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is a much closer match. I was thinking far too narrowly of only the idea of tricking an ogre or giant, rather than of the story as a whole.

[marycatelli]

I happened to know they were of the same Aarne-Thompson type. With all its flaws, those types do help sort out fairy tales.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

They do, indeed. I used to use them whenever I could squeeze something folktale related into a paper I was writing for school, but these days I rarely have reason to reference them. *g*

[marycatelli]

One of these days I am going to get my hands on an actual index instead of depending on what I pick up here and there. . . .

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

This conversation got me looking for an online resource last night. While this isn't the first time I've looked, it's been a few years and this time I found a Wikipedia article, Aarne-Thompson classification system that provides a link to AT Types of Folktales. I haven't had a chance to dig extensively, but it provides an explanation of a couple of different ways of classifying folktales and also lists a large number of tales. The navigation's a bit awkward, but clicking the Set link will take you to the Fables, Fairy Tales, Folklore page, which lists folktales by category; the system used to identify the tales there seems to be the The Types of International Folktales, apparently published in 2004, which I've never encountered before.

[marycatelli]

cool