Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 10 Nov 19 - 06:24 PM

I've just had an uncomfortable thought - I hope no one reading this thread thinks that when I talk about "travel" I'm talking about leisure, sight-seeing, touristy travel? The travel I'm talking about is necessary, work-related, practical stuff, and I'd never thought before this discussion started that anyone would have questioned the fact that it took place for a wide variety of people.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Nov 19 - 06:29 PM

When we think of the millions who migrated to America and all of their melting pot of languages and that is just one aspect......

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 10 Nov 19 - 07:19 PM

Steve - Mike Rust still owes me a sweatshirt that he lost. Shonaleigh, I got partnered with her on a storyteller course at The Edge. Which ought to have been totally terrifying, but was actually great fun. Especially when I messed up the story we'd been working on so we had to quickly improvise! ;-) Under Hugh Lupton's tutelage, for whatever that's worth. And he later admitted that he'd given us a horror of a story that he didn't think could be reduced to the time constraints we were supposed to work within ("The Three Deck Ship").

Anne - "I just wanted to knock the old chestnut of "people didn't travel much" on the head." Knock away, you'll still be wrong. I am not in the right frame of mind to argue this in detail right now; I've held off replying to your 7/11 6:30PM for that very reason. You seem to me to be a much more studious storyteller than I ever was & I will happily ask questions, rather than challenge, if I am at odds with whatever you care to declare.

But not on history. Most people, most anywhere, most of the time, did not go anywhere. Occasional migrations, either mass (the presumed waves of tribal migrations out of central Asia / Eastern Europe, which were decades & centuries long in any case) or "personal" such as Huguenots fleeing persecution, are rare & exceptional. I think perhaps you've misunderstood what I was getting at with that. Your own market town comment emphasises my point, not yours. Most people most of the time didn't move around much. They weren't able to (slaves, thralls, peasants tied to their master's needs), or they had no reason to (10 miles is far enough). Until you get to the 17thC as a start (religious upheavals & the beginnings of the industrial revolution), & the mid 19thC especially (mass-migration to urban settings fuelled by the easy medium of railways), most people did NOT move very far from their base point. That's more than ehough time for stories to have percolated without people having had to have move - that's what red blood cells do. If you see what I mean.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 01:28 PM

I think (having quickly looked at Wiki) that it might be a 19th century idea that a certain medieval time in England could reasonably be called 'the dark ages'. But certainly, as a child, the kids history books I had and loved, tended to call the some medieval times that, with a view that the Renaissance ended it. I don't think now this is right, but it does seem that at some point in the past some historians did think this way. Have not read Pryor so cannot comment on how fair he was to other historians.

The Silk Roads book is full of migrations of one sort or another. And cross-cultural knowledge and scholarship. The trade routes themselves, the author argues where places where ideas and religion travelled, so presumably stories too.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 04:03 PM

Okay RW so most of the people didn't move far but it only takes a relative few to actually transmit lore like stories. Looking at the past century alone one doesn't have to think very hard to come up with large numbers being thrown into contact with other cultures. Windrush, Prisoners of war, emigration, French gites owned by foreigners, Brits moving to Spain, European workers moving to Britain, Oriental students in our universities, seamen in foreign ports, mixed crews, Sri Lankans working in Greek hotels, foreign au-pairs. One could come up with similar lists from previous centuries.

Of course print over the last 500 years has had an enormous impact. One has only to mention the Grimms to know that. When I had a large library of folklore books a significant number of them were translations of tales from other languages and cultures.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 04:25 PM

Raedwulf, and I still hold that you're wrong on the question of travel. A lot of people didn't travel much, but a surprising number of people, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries, did. Which was my point, and has been, all the way through this discussion. Please, if this is confusing, go back and re-read my sentence, particularly the first part of it. I've already listed the reasons for that - trade, work, pilgrimages, crusades, being part of the household of a noble family who moved around, cattle (and other animal) droving. I'm not talking of migrations or fleeing persecution. No amount of telling me that "the vast majority" or "most people" didn't go anywhere, however bold your font, will contradict the evidence from primary medieval source texts (as well as DNA evidence and genetics) that a surprising number of people did. And as we were discussing how stories and songs might travel, that's exactly how. Returning to my friend Gervase of Tilbury, who started in Essex and then worked in Italy, Sicily, France and Germany ...he wrote stories down, when he was living in France, for the man he worked for in Germany. And (while in France) he entertained the king of Aragon. You can, as I have said before, with equal justice say "the vast majority" of people today don't travel, and the big difference is that today we have methods of communication which don't depend on that - unfortunately it doesn't stop a similar level of misunderstandings and misinterpretations from taking place, as witness some of the posts on this thread and many discussions here on MudCat. What I've been trying (and, it seems failing) to do is set right some of the many misconceptions about the medieval period, and one of these is the notion that information and culture didn't travel. Both did, because people did. The manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts of the story I've been working on have turned up in a number of different locations (with linguistic variations suiting each location) across southern Europe. The story itself turns up in the Philippines, in Tagalog, presumably taken there by the Spanish. Storytellers and singers and writers travelled.

As to "the dark ages" - that term hasn't been used for a very long time now among historians or literature scholars. Those old history books contained some quaint notions. Yes, Pseudonymous, the trade routes are indeed full of interest and were indeed important crossroads, which is why I also mentioned Malta, Sicily and Iberia. The extended family of Henry II of England and Alienor of Aquitaine were spread across most of Europe, and then also travelled, taking their households with them.

To gain a full picture of where medieval scholarship is now, I recommend looking at the list of sessions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, or the even bigger Kalamazoo event.

I'm always happy to follow up actual references to scholarship or primary sources which will give me a different picture. I've had to revise my own preconceptions several times over the past five years. But I'm not prepared to change my point of view on the basis of bald statements in bold print on MudCat when I have no idea at all who is behind the MudCat pseudonym and what their academic credentials are, or any background at all. I post under my own name, and have said what the basis is for my statements.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 04:44 PM

Professional entertainers have never let language barriers stop their eye for where the money was. The great clown Joe Grimaldi massive pop star from c1800 to 1830 came from an Italian family via the French court. He was born in England but his father and grandfather were Italian entertainers and impresarios.

The enclosures
The clearing of the Highlands
Seasonal labourers
The navvies
Uprisings
Marching regiments & followers
Romanies
carters
drovers
pedlars
tinkers
press gangs
the list goes on....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 06:09 PM

Ann, it is amazing just how inter-related the royalty/aristocracy of Europe was/is. John of Gaunt, for example, as portrayed in Shakespeare, but Gaunt is Gwent, and his descendants ruled Spain and if I am right played a part in the 1492 expulsions. And one supposes they might have taken a certain number of court entertainers with them from place to place?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Nov 19 - 06:14 PM

I am entranced by the very notion of ancient ledgends and folklore.
But not just of Europe or Roman times but of Egypt and her ancestors the Zep Tepi or of pre deluvian times if you will. Its my dirty little secret. To satisfy this thirst I wrote fictional accounts of the rediscovery of scrolls stored in deep underground chambers that had caved in after the burning of the Alexandrian library. Even settings from Malta to Cyprus and Turkey were wonderful backdrops for this kind of science fiction in reverse. Even cats , mice and monkeys have dialog when needed.
I have yet to write about traveling to South America from Egypt but it is stewing. Movies like 10 ,000BC give me a barely adequate fix. If I can't have the real stories I have to make my own. (but I hate the word fantasy)
Forever conflicted Donuel.

Carry on Ann.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 07:50 AM

Steve - yes, precisely my point & precisely my metaphor. The vast majority of cells in the body are static, but red blood cells get everywhere & transmit stuff... ;-)

Anne - Perhaps you should read what I've written more carefully. I know what you're saying. I've also said we are talking at cross-purposes; congratulations on proving my point. I never said people didn't travel; I said that the majority never did. More than once. My "special few" was an unfortunate choice of words & perhaps that's stuck in your head. There is no "especially in the 12th & 13thC"; you're focused on that perhaps because it's what you're currently looking at. There have always been a proportion of people who move around for whatever reason, some very few over remarkable distances. But for most of human history, the primary employment of most folk has been the acquisition / production of food, or some craft connected with that, and that, for the most part, ties you to a place. Most people (percentage wise in their time obviously, given that population has exploded, more than quadrupled, in the last century, when folk certainly have been very mobile) have not had one or both of the opportunity or the need to travel.

Oh, and one other thing. Don't get snotty & rude about academic qualifications, etc. I'm sure you didn't mean to be, but read back what you wrote to me & imagine how you'd feel if I'd written that to you. I don't think you'd be very happy with it, would you? I've already said, I think, that I'm nothing more than a knowledgeable amateur. But I am a very knowledgeable amateur and yes, the no-longer-so Dark & Middle Ages is my particular area of interest, along with the lead up to & happening of WWI. I have read widely, I am well-informed & I'm also not stupid enough to declare that I am "just as well" or "better" informed than you are! I don't know what you know, after all. ;-)

Steve seems to have understood the point I've been trying to make. Not that no-one ever travelled, but that relatively few ever did until relatively recently (Homo Sap has been around for about 200,000 years, so it is reckoned). You seem to have decided that You Are Right And Therefore I Must Be wrong. But we're not making the same point. If I haven't managed to get this across by now, I think I'd best give up! ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 09:18 AM

Anne, the last paragraph of your most recent post is an example of the kind of elitism often displayed by newly minted "academics". I must say, I was surprised by it. I seem to be being attacked for being a Guest, for putting my thought into print and for, God forbid, disagreeing with you
I started my correspondence by asking a perfectly reasonable question in what I thought was a respectful fashion.
So, allow me to state a few things, Yes, I have read Chaucer, yes, I do know a fair amount about the crusades, yes I have academic credentials, not that it should matter, yes, I know a fair amount of medieval history!
I do not think, as you seem to, that posting under your own name , affords you the right to dismiss the opinions of those who do not.
I will leave this now, as I think I understand the tenor of your response..too bad, it could have been an interesting discussion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 09:43 AM

I interested to know how many Ann & Raedwulf would use the term 'most' for. 51.9%, 95%, somewhere in between?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 05:36 AM

Ah but that's a different story -
It was the will of (51.9% of) the people that Sisyphus should roll a boulder up a hill. Then everyone (??%) wanted him to get it done.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 03:28 PM

I went a little bit deeper into the link
provided in the OP of this thread.

Click enough times, and you will eventually link to
Royal Society Publishing, and the study referenced in the article at the link.


One of the tables in that study shows that
fifty specific tales were singled out
for "phylogenetic" consideration.
I still don't know what "phylogenetic" means.

The table takes these fifty examples, listed by title and
by assigned numbers for convenience,
and shows a tree of language-types rather than languages as I know them.
There are nine language types in this tree.
Some are connected laterally, like siblings;
some are descended from others.

I looked with interest at the handful of stories
that appear in the language-type
at the very top of the tree, which is to say,
the oldest language-type,
titled "Proto-Indo-European."

These stories, by title, are:

Boy Steals Ogre's Treasure

The Smith and the Devil

The Animal Bride

The Grateful Animals

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 03:31 PM

And regarding that same table / tree from the published study,

conspicuous by its absence is the name Rumpelstiltskin.

But on the list of titles, I do see:
Beauty and the Beast
Cinderella
The Grateful Dead      (!?)
Three Old Spinning Women
Peau d'Âne
Spirit in the Bottle

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 04:55 PM

One reason why you wouldn't find the name Rumplestiltskin is that it is only one version amongst thousands. Just a guess but R is probably a German version published by the Grimms. I don't know enough about the story histories to pronounce, but it might well turn out to be a version of The Smith and the Devil. I would need to look at Stith's Motifs but it might have a title something like 'spiteful creature and guessing name'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 17 Nov 19 - 01:31 PM

Steve - again, precisely. Rehashing my earlier remarks about the Ash Lad, one element names (not one syllable!) are relatively uncommon. Expanding with a couple of examples, Helen (Gk) is generally translated as either 'white' or 'shining', whereas the one syllable John translates to 'Yahweh is gracious'; despite being one syllable in English, it is (apparently) from Hebrew 'yo' + 'chanan' (hence, I presume, the Germanic variants on Johan).

Extending the discussion, my own name is a real name. It's the name you all know me by (let's be honest, no disrespect to Anne, but it's only a bunch of pixels, her birth certificate might equally declare him to be John Doe, if you see what I mean! ;-) ). It's the Germanic original of my given middle name, which is why I adopted it when I began Dark Age (ooops! ;-) ) re-enactment. But it's a name that many people know me by either exclusively or preferentially, online & in real life. So is it not real?

As with most names, it's a multi-element name ræd + wulf. Ræd is the word that become rede - 'counsel'. 'Wolf counsel' - I can actually say "Cunning is my middle name" & it's the truth! ;-) Anne, I am quite sure, is a more scholarly student than I am, so could better comment on this point, but names morph very easily. I am dredging my memory here, but I remember querying Hugh Lupton (sorry, name dropping again!) over this. Apart from the Ash Lad & the Troll, there is another Ash Lad story I know which involves... well, essentially, it's a re-telling of Thor fishing for Jormungandr. and it's that pair of tales that, 20-odd (some of them very odd!) years ago put the thought into my head (there's a lot of room... ;-) ) that 'The Ash Lad' sounded like a deduced & handed down description of someone whose name originally was "Aesc-something"...

So no, as a very complex & extended name, I doubt that Rumpelstiltskin is in any way the 'original', and for that reason alone, never mind many others, I am quite sure there are many other versions. As for motifs, as I said back in my first post, I think it was Bob Silverberg who said there were only 7 stories & any you want can be reduced to one (or more) of those. I've never heard of Stith's Motifs, but thank 'ee. Oi shall naow go orf an' look 'em up! ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Nov 19 - 02:15 PM

Sorry RW,
The name Stith stuck in my head. Just checked and it's his first name.
Stith Thompson is what you want.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 17 Nov 19 - 10:30 PM

I have just gotten around to this thread and find it interesting that two things are not mentioned: Bobbameissen and actual events. For a few years, I wrote a column in a boating magazine of tall tales. I quit because too many of the tales turned out to have a significant base in reality, usually after the stories were published.

Bobbameissen [grandmother's tales] are still a feature of cultures where the family has not dispersed and where generations still live in proximity. Even when they haven't stayed near, the oldies are a repository of the old materials, including material that came from the Old Country. As a Jew, I am aware that my relatives have traveled, often involuntarily, all over the world, carrying their tales with them. Travelers of all sorts carried their culture with them, both formally/professionally and also as part of their personal traditions.

When I do a story set in a home, I often end up listening to the residents more than I talk. Usually, the staff come to me as I get ready to leave and say "I didn't know that about X."

The stories are out there; they always were. Someone just has to listen.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Nov 19 - 06:06 PM

As a teacher of English for nearly 40 years I often had the pleasure of sitting with those pupils who had for various reasons become alienated towards the establishment (Actually I was at one with them over this and some of them picked this up). The one thing that could be guaranteed to get their attention was telling them stories and encouraging them to tell theirs, not from a book, from our experiences and imagination. You don't need to be a professional to tell stories and hold an audience. I've always been a singer/musician so I've never felt the need to follow in the wake of Taffy Thomas, Mike Rust or Shonaleigh. I suppose I sing my stories.

However, when you are singing a ballad you are more often not constrained by the staightjacket of the tune and structure ready given, whereas when telling a story you can easily make it your own and craft it and adapt it to different situations.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 11:47 AM

I have similar experiences to Steve and if this has not already been done, I'll go further. I think that 'narrative' is perhaps fundamental to being human and using language-based interaction.

Why are you late? Whether the answer is I got attacked by a mammoth, or we found a great source of food, or the dog ate my homework so I had to do it again, whatever, the response will be a narrative, will it not? And it will be more or less full/accurate depending on context etc. So I think framing narratives is something we can all do.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 11:52 AM

Talking about 'the dog ate my homework', here's a true story, I took a pile of geography books home to mark like you do, and we had a cat. One of the kids had unfortunately stuck into his book a piece of fish skin, quite valid to the work we were doing. I had to take the kid's exercise book back to school and tell him the cat ate his homework!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 12:24 PM

We had a lad once who denied being out with his greyhound when supposedly ill in bed. Upon being quizzed by a deputy, he denied being anywhere other than his sick bed, until, eventually, he could not resist correcting his interlocutor and giving himself away: "Sir, it's a lurcher!" . But whether I witnessed this or it was a story told by the deputy, I cannot now remember. Stories and the folk process....?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Iains
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 12:28 PM

I think that 'narrative' is perhaps fundamental to being human and using language-based interaction.
To that(at the risk of being ridiculed) I would add that "shamans/witchdoctors" were an essential part of ancient societies, even up to modern times in some places. Worship was another extremely human trait.
    Working some miles south of the Cape of Good Hope, a witchdoctor was brought out by chopper to do his thing on the rig floor prior to spudding a well( A failure I am afraid). I was on another drillship in the mouth of the Congo and another witchdoctor was brought on board to decapitate a chicken over the well head. Yet another shaman? topped a goat in Oman prior to drilling out. I never got as far as Sakalin Island, although several colleagues did, What the Nivkh did to bless exploration I have no idea but I guess it was a success.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 02:14 PM

>>>>shamans/witchdoctors" were an essential part of ancient societies<<<
Surely that's a massive understatement. They were all powerful, moreso than the leaders who they advised. They were the representatives of the gods. Their later equivalents, the priests, wielded the same sort of power, before learning and literacy diminished it, and some of the leaders realised they were being taken for a ride.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Iains
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 02:43 PM

For the most part their imbibing of "substances" would put Timothy Leary to shame. Somewhat akin to the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 02:46 PM

On second thoughts the penny probably dropped when the shamans and priests overstepped the mark and became too greedy.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 04:58 PM

Going back to the OP:

"The study, which was published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, employed phylogenetic methods to investigate the relationships between population histories and cultural phenomena, such as languages, marriage practices, political institutions, material culture and music."

Phylogenetic: online definition: "relating to the evolutionary development and diversification of a species or group of organisms, or of a particular feature of an organism."

So it looks to me as if they have used a computer programme designed to trace genetics and applied it to bits of stories/themes etc.

So how far the somewhat 'sensational' reporting of this really reflects the claims of the study, I don't know. I know that scientists do sometimes critique/complain about the way scientific findings are presented by journalism. But I'm thinking you would have to mount an argument that methods designed for use in one context might produce meaningful results on another?

Just throwing ideas out here, happy to hear objections/thoughts...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Nov 19 - 05:26 PM

Studies of genetics, stemmatics and other sciences have been applied to all sorts of literature in the last 20 years, including ballads, stories, mythology etc.

One person who has done this in the States is Bob Waltser (apologies if I spelt this wrong) who occasionally posts on the Indiana Ballad List. I use a primitive evolutionary study system when analysing ballads but all my own invention. I have received no formal training. And hitherto I have not used any computer programmes. But messaging with Bob it would appear what I do is something similar to stemmatics but without the rigid discipline of academia. One of Bob's studies involves the Robin Hood ballad 'The Geste' in all its manifestations. That's what I call dedication.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: Iains
Date: 20 Nov 19 - 11:31 AM

It is always useful to apply scientific methods to a study, in fact it is essential. How meaningful it is depends upon not only what questions are asked, but also how they are phrased. My feeling is that for such a phylogenetic study to be valid the data base being consulted would have to be, not only reasonably comprehensive, but also correct. I suspect the study would fail to be meaningful due to a failure on both counts.
I would place it's validity in the same category as polling. Many polls make assumptions, history frequently proves them to be wrong. By the same token predictions by economists on the economy are rarely correct.
( A recent working paper by Zidong An, Joao Tovar Jalles, and Prakash Loungani discovered that of 153 recessions in 63 countries from 1992 to 2014, only five were predicted by a consensus of private-sector economists in April of the preceding year.) I would not discredit such studies, as proposed, but I would take their conclusions with extreme caution.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 08:38 PM

Thought I would refresh --
this thread was lively for a while --

the focus on methods is certainly pertinent to the topic,
however the effect on the thread is sort of wet-blanket.

And I don't think Rumpelstiltskin is all wet ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Rumpelstiltskin, thousands of years old?
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 06:32 AM

On methods, I have just been engaging with Atkinson's use of Propp's 'tale role' theory as an analytic tool. I had heard vaguely of this before.

Here is a link to a piece about it:

https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/87381/mod_resource/content/1/Buchan,%20Propp%20and%20the%20Ballads.pdf