Conversation started Jul 19, 2020 at 18:51.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Jul 19, 2020 18:51
What's the difference between fairy-tales and folk-tales?
Is a fairy tale just a fantasy folk tale?
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Historically, folk tales were passed on orally, until someone (e.g. the brothers Grimm) came along and started recording them. From that point on they became gradually undistinguishable from fairy tales that had been made up by authors such as Charles Perrault. Some fairy tales that were written by authors we know have been around so long that we distinction has blurred even more. That's just off the top of my head, without doing research, though.
The tales recorded by the brothers Grimm were also modified from edition to edition, so those from the first edition were closer to the originals than those in later editions. However, the last edition of their folk tales / fairy tales is the one that gets reprinted most.
The current description of fairy-tales is not exactly helpful :-(
German literary studies use terms such as "Volksmärchen" (~ folk tale) and "Kunstmärchen"; the latter category has a known author.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Some very quick research, without checking the reliability of sources, tells me that the difference has long been the subject of debate, but ...
... fairy tales are a subgenre of folk tales tending to include more magical and unrealistic events and be written folktales credited to an author.
@Tsundoku Without looking, let me guess: a short description added in the early private beta days.
I wonder if the fairy-tales tag should be synonymised as a subset of folk-tales then.
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Jul 19, 2020 19:08
@Randal'Thor The definition "written folktales credited to an author" makes my skin crawl. "written folktale-like stories credited to an author" would be more accurate.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
When a folk tale is written down, does it cease to be a folk tale?
"written ex-folktales credited to an author" :-)
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
The person who records a folk tale does not count as its author.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Formally no, but a lot of people who don't know so much about oral traditions probably think the Brothers Grimm were the authors of all those stories.
Hmm, and I didn't even add the folk-tales tag to this question ...
I suppose it makes sense to have a separate oral-tradition tag, since not all oral traditions are folk tales?
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Myths and legends are (or were at some point) also oral literature and are distinct from folk tales.
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Jul 19, 2020 19:24
@Randal'Thor Does that mean you'd rather synonymise them than making the distinction clearer? I mean a distinction along the line of Volksmärchen (folk tale) and Kunstmärchen (having a known author).
I have just rechecked the distinction between the two German concepts in Märchen by Max Lüthi, a German researcher who specialised in the genre.
The Wikipedia entry for folktale correctly points out its oral nature, but the entry for fairy tale appears to mess the whole thing up.
 
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Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Jul 19, 2020 22:44
Just saw this in the HNQ list: Should I ground my body when working with 200V+? Somebody has been learning things the hard way; it caused ... quite a shock.
Bookworm
Bookworm
Jul 19, 2020 23:10
0
Q: Origin of the phrase “back when the animals could still speak” in Dutch fables or fairy tales

TsundokuIn Dutch, some fables or fairy tales (or both) begin with the words "[lang geleden] toen de dieren nog spraken / konden spreken", i.e. "[a long time ago] back when the animals still spoke / could still speak". While it is not clear how common this type of introduction is in fable or fairy tales, ...

history-of-literature dutch-literature folk-tales fairy-tales
Bookworm
Bookworm
Jul 19, 2020 23:58
0
Q: Story about a European captain marrying a tribal woman?

RakeshI am trying to find the name of a story. The plot is set in the age when Europeans were sailing to the Americas and contacting the local tribes. My memory is vague but here are some of the points I can remember and hopefully in the order they happened: This is probably not how the story begins b...

story-identification
 
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Knight
Knight
Jul 20, 2020 04:41
@Brahadeesh Sorry to ping you again, did you get something for that Kabir Das verse?
 
3 hours later…
user185131
Jul 20, 2020 07:43
@Knight No, not yet, sorry!
Knight
Knight
Jul 20, 2020 08:01
@Brahadeesh No problem!
 
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Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
Jul 20, 2020 09:25
@Tsundoku I'm in favour of synonymising simply because, even if there is a clear unambiguous distinction to be made (and apparently there's debate around that), many casual non-expert users won't know the difference and will use the tags interchangeably.
May 1 at 15:42, by Gareth Rees
I recommend against trying to make fine distinctions in the tag system because it will be difficult for people (especially newcomers) to apply them. We discussed something similar about the canon tag a while back, and based on the difficulty people had in understanding the distinction, the best thing seemed to be to put everything in one tag
 
Conversation ended Jul 20, 2020 at 9:25.