The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk StoryGerould, Gordon Hall
General
The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story
Gerould, Gordon Hall
Dead -- Folklore; Folk literature -- Themes, motives; Grateful dead (Tale)
Oliver has certain elements not to be accounted for by the combination
of The Two Friends with The Grateful Dead. Such are the motive of
the hero's journey, for example, which allies it with the tales of
incestuous step-mothers; and the tourney in which the hero wins
his bride. Yet the burial of the dead man (here a knight and a
friend of the hero's) [130] corresponds to the normal form of the
episode in that Oliver pays the creditors and the sum necessary
for the man's interment. So, too, the demand made by the ghost for
half of all that has been won runs true to the original form. The
distinctive trait of Amis and Amiloun, at the same time, comes out
more clearly than in the case of such folk-tales as Gaelic--the
hero actually kills his little children to save the life of his old
friend and foster-brother. One factor leads me to think that the
romance and the two romantic plays are to be regarded as forms of
the general type treated in this chapter, with additions from other
stories. The ghost rescues the hero from imprisonment A rescue of
the sort--normally after the hero has been cast into the sea or left
behind by his rival--is characteristic of The Grateful Dead + The
Ransomed Woman. In Oliver this rescue takes place, to be sure, after
the marriage instead of before, which is the normal order, yet it is
a factor of considerable importance. The romance takes a position
somewhat apart; and even though this is partly due to the literary
handling which it has undergone, it must remain doubtfully classed
with the immediate circle of variants belonging to the compound type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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