![]() ![]() ![]() In The European Folktale the Swiss scholar Max Luthi gives one of the best descriptions of the essential qualities of the tale as opposed to the myth, or the legend, or the authored fantasy for children or adults. We - or at least I - don't like people messing around with them. We like to believe that "our" version is definitive, and know it is not. We recognise that these tales are endless shape-shifters, within definite bounds. Remembering them is like remembering our first taste of sugar crystals, or avocado, or vanilla. They are part of the furniture of our mental attics and cellars. But we tend to remember the old tales of magic (not necessarily fairies) in a special way. Unless we are unlucky we get hooked on stories before we are old enough to ask ourselves why, or to distinguish one kind of story from another. Philip Sidney wrote enticingly of the excitement of "a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner". ![]()
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