Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany

annis · Post by **annis** » Tue March 6th, 2012, 1:12 am

A treasure-trove of fairytales gathered by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth had been locked away in an archive in Regensburg for over 150 years

Full story here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/ma ... ed-germany

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Tue March 6th, 2012, 3:41 pm

Fascinating. Loved the Turnip Princess story as an exampled of unvarnished folk tale. I've been collecting folk tales from around the world for years. Will have to see if I can get my hands on some of these!

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Tue March 6th, 2012, 7:00 pm

Cool. So Disney isn't actually going to run out of stories to animate. I was a bit concerned about that a few years back.

Alisha Marie Klapheke · Post by **Alisha Marie Klapheke** » Sat March 10th, 2012, 4:17 am

Ooo! Thanks, Annis. I love folk tales!

And LoveHistory--ha ha!

annis · Post by **annis** » Sun March 11th, 2012, 2:23 am

Posted by fljustice

Loved the Turnip Princess story as an exampled of unvarnished folk tale.

I'd like to read an actual English version of the tale- I had hysterics reading the garbled computerized translation.

As one guy aptly commented:
"After reading the Turnip Princess, all I can say is that its original author had evidently been consuming some vegetable product of a more pharmaceutical nature than mere turnips".

In actual fact, it's interesting to speculate just how many myths and fairytales may have had their origins in vegetable products of the mind-altering sort

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Tue March 13th, 2012, 4:00 am

I found "The Turnip Princess" especially interesting, because it resembles a Celtic tale in which a young man has to kiss an old hag, who then turns into a beautiful princess. I've heard this alludes to an ancient tradition of sovereignty by which a man becomes king by wedding the queen.