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Folklore Table of Contents
Scratch a myth and you may uncover a hidden truth. Truth derived from myth comes in many guises. Some myths portray the world as we would have it. Cinderella fits nicely into this category. Myth can also be used as an explanation as to why the world is the way it is, a technique resorted to by political parties. He who creates the best myth wins. I believe that very thing happened just recently. Or it can be a tale that provides insight into why the world was the way it was long ago. The Chinese stories of the eight suns that were shot down by the archer was perhaps used to exemplify global warming several millenia ago. Or myths can be used to expound upon the foibles of humans, present company excepted. And some myths titillate or otherwise entertain us but have little redeeming social value. That being said, myths cannot and should not survive if they do not harbour a grain of truth. However it is amazing how long myths will remain in fashion, at least by some of us, the Flat Earth Society being but one example, a kinder and gentler nation being another. Myths provide hope for the unfortunate, the downtrodden, and the ill-fated dreamer. Myths give an entre to a smattering of wisdom to those who would be enlightened, a sense of the true meaning of character for the rest of us. No one does character better than Oscar Wilde did, maybe it is because he was one. In the Happy Prince, Wilde sums up the progenitor of happiness as never dreaming of crying for anything, a prescription for having a satisfactory if not altogether happy life being content with one's reward in the hereafter. Myths are necessary for children's mental and psycholigcal development, which is all to the good, for they take to fairytales as ducks do to water. I imagine that myths are vital for adults too, the world being with us too much and too soon. Unfotunately, most adults have lost the ability to imagine at will and are no longer able to wilfully create a willing suspension of disbelief, as illustrated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, who certainly mastered the art of suspending disbelief in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner but that's another story. Myths were used by William Shakespeare to bring witches to life on the stage because they were fundamental beings in his time. Twelve years after Shakespeare's death, Charles Perrault was born. It was he, who legitimized folklore as literature. He peopled his stories with all sorts of creatures magical and fanciful. His publication of Mother Goose stories, taken from oral renditions, are still among the most popular of folktales, perhaps because they carry stern moral admonitions, and are at the same time wonderfully imaginative, speaking to the hearts and minds of children and to the child in all of us. He is credited with penning, from tales told around the hearth and from the heart, the following fairytales: Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, and Cinderella, all of which are fairly popular and well known by many children today. It was Perrault who created a new literary genre, the fairytale. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Scratch A Myth in Folklore is owned by Larry Low. Permission to republish Scratch A Myth in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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