Traditions and Transitions folk narrative in the contemporary world
16-20
July 2001 The University of Melbourne, Australia
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Traditions and Transitions folk narrative in the contemporary world |
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The first fairy tale type (AT 300) in the Aarne-Thompson
type index, the fight of a hero with the mythical dragon, has provided material
for both the sacred and the profane kind of fabulous stories, for myth as well
as fairy tale. It is this plot, containing the episode of slaying the dragon,
which Vladimir Propp in his work Morphology of the Folktale considers to
be closest to the prototype of the entire fairy tale tradition. Although such
an idea of all-inclusiveness seems to be a bit far-fetched in its attempts to
generalise, even those scholars who divide fairy tales into more numerous plot
groups see The Dragon Slayer as representative of several types of fairy
tale.
The presentation will concentrate on the character roles of the Estonian
versions of The Dragon Slayer and on the realisation in fairy tales of
the plot that belongs to several genres. In comparison with the original
mythical initiation rites or with the fight of the Christian legend, the fairy
tale The Dragon Slayer could be viewed as a series of attempts to woo
the king's daughter. Firstly, the king promises to give his daughter in
marriage to a fabulous dragon (in the Estonian versions a (flying) serpent / an
evil spirit / the old bad one (the devil) / a sea monster; an old goblin from
the sea etc.). The dragon as a suitor is certainly an abstract figure; the
promise to marry the heroine to the dragon obviously means her not getting
married at all. Secondly, that a realistic character, the false-hero is
considered. He resembles the hero and in a sense is even more important than
the latter. However, he is not suitable either. In the fairy tale his
unsuitability finds expression in unfair behaviour - with a lie, the false hero
attempts to outmanoeuvre the real hero who has come from afar and is worthy of
the king's daughter. Thirdly, the heroine chooses the 'right' suitor - the
character, who hitherto has seemed to be the least important, yet has proved
his skills.
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