Sick of me writing about books you don’t have access to? Well, this week’s reading, “Sixty Folk-tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources”, is online and free! You lucky dog. There were many things that struck me about the selections I read from this book, but one of the most immediate was the complexity of the stories. Not only is there a quest, but the quest has three parts. And then there’s a secondary quest, and that one is usually even more challenging. I’m not sure why it is that the fairy tales we’re used to aren’t set up this way. Perhaps they’ve been simplified, or there may be a basic difference between the oral traditions of Eastern and Western Europe that affected the development of their folktales.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of thinking and reading about fairy tales and mythology lately, as part of my individual study this semester (and because I can’t stay away from them). As is often the case with fascinating reading, overwhelming and fascinating ideas have invaded and it’s been difficult to sort them into something that makes much sense. But–finally–I’m going to try. Even better, I’m going to try in a way that delineates my often strange mental connections between things that really shouldn’t be related. I hope.