The European Bear’s Son Tale: Its Reception and Influence on Indigenous Oral Traditions in North America

Abstract

The primary purpose of this article is to explore the way that the Bear’s Son tale, a wide-spread European folktale, came to be incorporated into the oral storytelling traditions of Native Americans. The work is divided into three parts. In the first section the reasons that led me to begin to investigate the European tale are discussed. The second part is dedicated to a discussion of the European tale itself, its plotline and geographical diffusion within Europe and North America. In the third section, I reflect on how and why versions of the European tale came to attract the attention of Native American storytellers, as well as the time frame that might be assigned to the transfer of these oral traditions.