Arab Folktales
Jul. 9th, 2014 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliArab Folktales by Inea Bushnaq
Some tales about simpletons or clever scoundrels, some animal tales, some Bedouin tales, some fairy tales. . . .
I was, of course, chiefly in the tales. Not only do they pick up more local colors, you pretty much have to be familiar with many European tales. (Greek and Italian ones in particular. I wonder why. 0:) Of the Top Twenty(ish), the only one in recognizable form is "The Little Red Fish and the Lost Clog", and that's one of the farther stretches of "Cinderella" . ("The Princess in a Suit of Leather" is OTOH the other variant of the persecuted heroine, "All Kinds of Fur.")
But in a setting filled with Ghouls and Djinn, we have a bird with a golden feather instead of a golden bird, a bride having her place usurped by the a slave escorting her, a youngest daughter rejected by her father -- not for saying her love was like salt but that his wealth came from God -- and not going to three balls to win a prince, but marrying a mule driver on the grounds his poverty and her homelessness show that "the pot has found its lid" and bearing a marvelous daughter who spoke jasmines and lilies and when washed, dripped gold and is the main heroine, a prince cursed to love only the Full-Moon-Of-Night, and many more tales, some without parallel in Europe, most heavily local tales.
Some tales about simpletons or clever scoundrels, some animal tales, some Bedouin tales, some fairy tales. . . .
I was, of course, chiefly in the tales. Not only do they pick up more local colors, you pretty much have to be familiar with many European tales. (Greek and Italian ones in particular. I wonder why. 0:) Of the Top Twenty(ish), the only one in recognizable form is "The Little Red Fish and the Lost Clog", and that's one of the farther stretches of "Cinderella" . ("The Princess in a Suit of Leather" is OTOH the other variant of the persecuted heroine, "All Kinds of Fur.")
But in a setting filled with Ghouls and Djinn, we have a bird with a golden feather instead of a golden bird, a bride having her place usurped by the a slave escorting her, a youngest daughter rejected by her father -- not for saying her love was like salt but that his wealth came from God -- and not going to three balls to win a prince, but marrying a mule driver on the grounds his poverty and her homelessness show that "the pot has found its lid" and bearing a marvelous daughter who spoke jasmines and lilies and when washed, dripped gold and is the main heroine, a prince cursed to love only the Full-Moon-Of-Night, and many more tales, some without parallel in Europe, most heavily local tales.