This etiological story is about the length of life—surely the proper way to begin a section on death!
Woman Chooses Death: Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, American Indian Myths and Legends (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 469–70.
This story about the creation of death (motif A1335, “Origin of Death”) is from the Blackfoot tribe of American Indians. In a number of primitive stories about death’s beginning, it is woman who unwittingly brings death into the world, like Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Jump into My Sack: Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales (1980; New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), pp. 708–13.
This Italian version of “The table, the ass, and the stick” (tale type 563), crossed with “The magic providing purse” (type 564), is here provided with another idea—that of holding off death for a certain amount of time.
Youth Without Age and Life Without Death: F. H. Lee, Folk Tales of All Nations (New York: Coward McCann, 1930), pp. 935–42.
This Turkish wonder tale is reminiscent of the end of the Irish tale of the hero-singer Oisin, who was half mortal. He had outlived everyone he had known on earth during the years he spent in the fairy world, Tir-Nan-Og, and when he came out again and set his foot on the ground, he turned to dust.
Goha on the Deathbed: Hasan M. El-Shamy, Folktakes of Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 224–25.
This jocular tale from Egypt is part of the Goha cycle of trickster stories. According to Hasan El-Shamy, Goha is the most popular of the tricksters in the Arabic world, a variant of the Turkish Nasr-ed-Din Hodja. Stories about Goha were known before the eleventh century. This tale is a variation of motif T211.1, “Wife dies so that husband’s death may be postponed.”
Death of a Miser: Aleksandr Afanas’ev, Russian Fairy Tales (New York: Pantheon Books, 1945, 1973), p. 268.
This Russian story is one of the many miser tales told worldwide.
Godfather Death: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, pp. 209–12.
This is the German version of a story (tale type 332) that has been around at least since 1300. It has both a literary and an oral tradition throughout Europe and as far away as Iceland and Palestine.
The Hungry Peasant, God, and Death: Frances Toor, A Treasury of Mexican Folkways (New York: Crown Publishers, 1947), pp. 492–95.
This ironic little story is from Mexico, but it has its origins in Europe.
The Word the Devil Made Up: Roger D. Abrahams, Afro-American Folktales (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 48.
This jocular Afro-American story, with its irresistible line about the Devil getting reinforcements from Miami, is from Florida.
A Paddock in Heaven: Katharine Briggs and Ruth L. Tongue, Folktales of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 113.
According to Katharine Briggs, this English jest is part of “a large modern cycle of stories about St. Peter and exclusive sects and individuals in Heaven.” At Indiana University there is a collection of 31 comic stories on the same theme.
How a Man Found His Wife in the Land of the Dead: F. H. Lee, Folk Tales of All Nations (New York: Coward McCann, 1930), pp. 798–99.
In this Papuan Orpheus tale, the man is given no chance at all to save his wife.
The End of the World: Erdoes and Ortiz, American Indian Myths and Legends, pp. 485–86.
The White River Sioux tell this story, which has echoes of the Greek tale of Penelope who wove during the day and ripped out her weaving at night to keep her unwanted suitors at bay, as well as a suggestion of the Greek stories of the Fates. There is a children’s book related to this legend, Annie and the Old One, by Miska Miles, in which the Navajo grandmother tells her grandchild she will die when her weaving is finished. To keep her beloved grandmother alive, the child picks out each night what has been woven during the day.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint and adapt from previously published material. In the case of adaptation, the author may have retitled the tale.
“Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch” from Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 33, 1939. Reprinted by permission of the American Folklore Society.
“A Pretty Girl in the Road” from The Devil’s Pretty Daughter and Other Ozark Tales by Vance Randolph, 1955. Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press.
Excerpt (“Whenever misfortune threatened …”) from John Shea, “Theology and Autobiography: Relating Theology to Lived Experience,” Commonweal, June 16, 1978. Reprinted by permission of Commonweal.
“Talk” from The Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories by Harold Courlander and George Herzog. Copyright 1947 by Henry Holt & Co., © 1981 by Harold Courlander and George Herzog. Reprinted by permission of Harold Courlander.
“The Departure of the Giants” from The Crest and the Hide and Other African Stories by Harold Courlander. Copyright © 1982 by Harold Courlander. Reprinted by permission of Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.
“The Lad and the Devil,” “Peik,” “The Sausage,” “The Old Woman and the Tramp,” and “The Swan-Maiden” from Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales, edited by Claire Booss. Copyright © 1984 by Crown Publishers, Inc. Used by permission of Avenel Books, distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc.
“The Rabbi and the Inquisitor,” “Chelm Justice,” “It Could Always Be Worse” from A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, edited by Nathan Ausubel. Copyright 1948, © 1976 by Crown Publishers, Inc. “The Hungry Peasant, God and Death” from A Treasury of Mexican Folkways, edited by Frances Toor. Copyright 1947, © 1975 by Crown Publishers, Inc. Used by permission of Crown Publishers, Inc.
“How El Bizarrón Fooled the Devil” from Greedy Mariani and Other Folktales of the Antilles by Dorothy Sharp Carter. Copyright © 1974 by Dorothy Sharp Carter. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
“The Sedna Legend” from The Day Tuk Became a Hunter by Ronald Melzack. Copyright © 1967 by Ronald Melzack. Reprinted by permission of Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc.
“The Tall Tales” from Floating Clouds, Floating Dreams by I. K. Junne. Copyright © 1974 by I. K. Junne. “The White Cat” from The Fairy Ring by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. Copyright 1906 by McClure & Phillips. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc.
“The Split Dog” and “Wicked John and the Devil” from American Folk Tales and Songs, edited by Richard Chase. Copyright © 1971 by Dover Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permissison of Dover Publications, Inc.
“The Snake’s Lover” by José María Arguela, translated by Clayton Eshleman and Halma Christina Perry. Reprinted by permission of Clayton Eshleman and Halma Christina Perry.
“The Man Who Had No Story” (“An Fear Nach Raibh Scéal Ar Bith Aige”) by S. Ó Catháin, Béaloideas. The Journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society, vols. 37–8 (1969–70,). Reprinted by permission of the Folklore of Ireland Society, Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Dublin.
“Catherine, Sly Country Lass,” “Crack and Crook,” “The Happy Man’s Shirt,” “Jump into My Sack,” “The Story of Campriano,” “Those Stubborn Souls, the Biellese,” “The Two Hunchbacks,” and “One Night in Paradise” from Italian Folktales, selected and retold by Italo Calvino, translated by George Martin. Copyright © 1956 by Giulio Einaudi editore, s.p.a., English translation copyright © 1980 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
“The Cat-Woman” from Lovers, Mates, and Strange Bedfellows: Old-World Folktales by James R. Foster. Copyright © 1960 by James R. Foster. “The Magic Mirror of Rabbi Adam” from Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales, selected and retold by Howard Schwartz. Text copyright © 1983 by Howard Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
Poem no. 1129 from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1951, © 1955, 1979, 1983 by The President an
d Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College.
“The Best Coon and Possum Dog” from The Yazoo River by Frank E. Smith. Copyright 1954, © 1982 by Frank E. Smith. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt & Company.
“The Two Old Women’s Bet,” and “Old Dry Frye” from Grandfather Tales by Richard Chase. Copyright 1948 by Richard Chase, copyright renewed 1976 by Richard Chase. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Slight adaptation of “How the Devil Coined a Word” from Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (J. B. Lippincott). Copyright 1935 by Zora Neale Hurston, renewed 1963 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston.
“Bye-Bye” from The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales by Diane Wolkstein. Copyright © 1978 by Diane Wolkstein. “The Doctor and His Pupil” from French Fairy Tales, edited by Paul Delarue, translated by Austin E. Fife. Copyright 1956, © 1968 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
“Why We Tell Stories” from The Need to Hold Still by Lisel Mueller. Copyright © 1980 by Lisel Mueller. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
“The Tinker and the Ghost” from Three Golden Oranges and Other Spanish Folktales by Ralph Steele Boggs and Mary Gould Davis. Published by David McKay Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
“Eden in Winter” from Collected Poems of Vachel Lindsay. Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Publishing Company.
“Half a Blanket” and “The Lawyer and the Devil” from Now You’re Talking … Folk Tales from the North of Ireland by Michael J. Murphy. Reprinted by permission of Michael J. Murphy.
“Rich Man, Poor Man” from Akamba Stories by John S. Mbiti, 1966; “How Spider Obtained the Sky-God’s Stories” from Akan-Ashanti Folktales, collected and translated by R. S. Rattray, 1930; and “Taken” from The Western Island by Robin Flower, 1944. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
“The Monkey and the Crocodile” from Jataka Tales: Animal Stories by Ellen C. Babbitt. Copyright 1912, renewed 1940. Reprinted by permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc.
“Leopard, Goat and Yam” and “Why the Hare Runs Away” from African Folktales, edited by Roger D. Abrahams. Copyright © 1983 by Roger D. Abrahams. “Being Greedy Chokes Anansi” and “The Race Between Toad and Donkey” from Afro-American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World, edited by Roger D. Abrahams. Copyright © 1985 by Roger D. Abrahams. “The Beduin’s Gazelle,” “Djuha’s Sleeve,” and “When One Man Has Two Wives” from Arab Folktales by Inea Bushnaq. Copyright © 1986 by Inea Bushnaq. “Deer Hunter and White Corn Maiden,” “The End of the World,” “The Flying Head,” “How Men and Women Got Together,” “How Mosquitoes Came to Be,” “Glooscap and the Baby,” “The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dog,” “The Well-Baked Man,” and “Woman Chooses Death” from American Indian Myths and Legends, edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz. Copyright © 1984 by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz. “Bridget and the Lurikeen,” “Coals on the Devil’s Hearth,” “John Brodison and the Policeman,” and “The Birth of Finn MacCumhail” from Irish Folktales, edited by Henry Glassie. Copyright © 1985 by Henry Glassie. “Drinking Companions,” “The King’s Favorite,” “Li Chi Slays the Serpent,” “The Lost Horse,” “The Magic Pear Tree,” “The Missing Axe,” “Wagging My Tail in the Mud,” and “The Waiting Maid’s Parrot” from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies, edited and translated by Moss Roberts. Copyright © 1979 by Moss Roberts. “The Ugly Son” and “Urashima the Fisherman” from Japanese Tales by Royall Tyler. “The Old Man and Woman Who Switched Jobs” and “His Just Reward” from Swedish Folk Tales by Lone Thygesen Blecher and George Blecher. “The Bad Wife,” “Clever Answers,” “Death of a Miser,” “Dividing the Goose,” “The Merchant’s Daughter and the Slanderer,” “Sister Alionushka, Brother Ivanushka,” “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” and “The Wise Little Girl” from Russian Fairy Tales, collected by Aleksandr Afanas’ev, translated by Robert Guterman. Copyright 1945 by Pantheon Books, Inc., renewed 1973 by Random House, Inc. “The Ash Lad Who Made the Princess Say, ‘You’re a Liar,’ ” “The Ash Lad Who Had An Eating Match with the Troll.” “Dividing the Goose,” “The Parson and the Sexton,” and “The Seventh Father of the House” from Norwegian Folk Tales by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, translated by Pat Shaw Iverson and Carl Norman. “Bearskin,” “The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs,” “The Duration of Life,” “Faithful John,” “Godfather Death,” “The Goose Girl,” “The Master Thief,” “The Old Man and His Grandson,” “The Peasant and the Devil,” and “The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was” from The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, translated by Margaret Hunt and James Stern. Copyright 1944 by Pantheon Books, Inc., copyright renewed 1972 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
“The Serpent-Woman,” “The Devil’s Hide,” “Youth Without Age and Life Without Death,” and “How a Man Found His Wife in the Land of the Dead” from Folktales of All Nations by Frank Harold Lee. Copyright 1930 by Frank Harold Lee, copyright renewed. Reprinted by permission of The Putnam Publishing Group.
“The Brewery of Eggshells” from Irish Fairy and Folk Tales by William Butler Yeats. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.
“The King of Ireland’s Son” from Brendan Behan’s Island by Brendan Behan, illustrated by Paul Hogarth. Copyright © 1962 by Brandan Behan and Paul Hogarth. Reprinted by permission of Tessa Sayle Literary & Dramatic Agency.
“The Maryland Dog” from Maryland Folklore and Folklife by George C. Carey. Copyright © 1970 by Tidewater Publishers. Reprinted by permission of Tidewater Publishers.
“The Barn Is Burning” from Worser Days and Better Times by Mason J. Brewer. Copyright © 1965 by Mason J. Brewer. Reprinted by permission of Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
“Hare and Hound” by Michael J. Murphy, first published in Ulster Folklife, vol. 2 (1965). Reprinted by permission of the Trustees of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and Michael J. Murphy.
“Father of Eighteen Elves,” “The Girl at the Shieling,” “The Seal’s Skin,” and “Then the Merman Laughed” from Icelandic Folktales and Legends by Jacqueline Simpson. Copyright © 1972 by Jacqueline Simpson. Reprinted by permission of the University of California Press.
“It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” and “A Paddock in Heaven” from Folktales of England by Katharine Briggs and Ruth L. Tongue, 1965. “The Finn Messenger” from Folktales of Norway by Reidar Christiansen, 1964. “A Stroke of Luck” and “King Mátyás and His Scholars” from Folktales of Hungary by Linda Degh, 1965. “The Promises of the Three Sisters” and “Goha on the Deathbed” from Folktales of Egypt by Hasan M. El-Shamy, 1980. “Truth and Falsehood” from Folktales of Greece by Georgios A. Megas, 1970. “A Dispute in Sign Language,” and “What Melody Is the Sweetest?” from Folktales of Israel by Dov Noy, 1963. “Helping to Lie” from Folktales of Germany by Kurt Ranke, 1966. “An Endless Story” from Folktales of Japan by Keigi Seki, translated by Robert J. Adams, 1963. “Quevedo and the King” and “The Drovers Who Lost Their Feet” from Folktales of Mexico by Américo Paredes, 1970. “The Toad-Bridegroom” from Folk Tales from Korea by Zong InSob. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
“Work, Wit, and Merry Game Bring Money, Joy, and Pleasant Fame” from Tyll Ulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks by M. A. Jagendorf. Copyright 1938 by The Vanguard Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Vanguard Press, Inc.
Jane Yolen, Favorite Folktales From Around the World
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