Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in FairylandBunce, John Thackray
History
Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland
Bunce, John Thackray
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
meal, he went into the meadow, and lay down and slept. Just at this time
the old Goat came home, and began crying for her children; but the only
one who answered was the youngest, who said, "Here I am, dear mother,
in the clock-case;" and then he came out and told her all about it.
Presently the Goat went out into the meadow, and there lay the Wolf,
snoring quite loud; and she thought she saw something stirring in his
body. So she ran back, and fetched a pair of scissors and a needle and
thread, and then she cut open the monster's hairy coat, and out jumped
first one little kid, and then another, until all the six stood round
her, for the greedy Wolf was in such a hurry that he had swallowed them
whole. Then the Goat and the little Kids brought a number of stones, and
put them into the Wolf's stomach, and sewed up the place again. When the
Wolf woke up, he felt very thirsty, and ran off to the brook to drink,
and the heavy stones overbalanced him, so that he fell into the brook,
and was drowned. And then the seven little Kids danced round their
mother, singing joyfully, "The wolf is dead! the wolf is dead!" Now this
story is nothing but another version of an old Greek legend which tells
how Kronos (Time), an ancient god, devoured his children while they were
quite young; and Kronos was the son of Ouranos, which means the heavens;
and Ouranos is a name which comes from that of Varuna, a god of the sky
in the old sacred books, or Vedas, of the Hindus; and the meaning of the
legend is that Night swallows up or devours the days of the week, all
but the youngest, which still exists, because, like the little kid in
the German tale, it is in the clock-case.
Again, in the Vedas we have many accounts of the fights of Indra, the
sun-god, with dragons and monsters, which mean the dark-clouds, the
tempest thunder-bearing clouds, which were supposed to have stolen the
heavenly cows, or the light, pleasant, rain-bearing clouds, and to have
shut them up in gloomy caverns. From this source we have an infinite
number of Greek and Teutonic, and Scandinavian, and other legends.
One of these is the story of Polyphemos, the great one-eyed giant,
or Kyklops, whom Odysseus blinded. Polyphemos is the storm-cloud, and
Odysseus stands for the sun. The storm-cloud threatens the mariners; the
lightnings dart from the spot which seems like an eye in the darkness;
he hides the blue heavens and the soft white clouds--the cows of the
sky, or the white-fleeced flocks of heaven. Then comes Odysseus, the
sun-god, the hero, and smites him blind, and chases him away, and
disperses the threatening and the danger, and brings light, and peace,
and calm again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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