Religious Tales Research Articles

Artistic Space Description in Novelistic Fairy Tales

The article deals with the artistic space issues in Azerbaijani folk tales, especially in novellistic tales. It is noted that space is an element that forms the poetic system of fairy tales. The article searches the form and content of the novelistic tales based on the features of artistic space due to the types of fairy tales. As a rule, the space where the hero was born, grew up is presented as his native space in fairy tales, the space that opposes this space and threatens him with war is introduced as a foreign space. The analysis of artistic space shows that unlike magic and religious tales, novelistic tales are more accurate reflection of reality, as they are composed of elements of real space. It is led to an exaggeration of the concept of social justice, vital issues, loyalty and betrayal, topics related to personal relationships such as trust and friendship, social justice in the fairy tales. The analysis of space shows that the thinking that shapes magic and religious tales with novelistic tales differs from one another. As society develops, people’s thinking and outlook on life have also changed and these changes impacts various groups of fairy tales differently. In novellistic tales, the depiction of artistic space is based on the promotion of intellect, the concept of social justice and personal relationships.

Beijing Mythological Stories about the Lady of the Bell Foundry

In the second half of the nineteenth century at the latest, a legend emerged in Beijing about the sacrificial death of the founder's daughter during the casting of a large bell for the Bell Tower. It is similar to a group of medieval Chinese tales associated with the cults of patron deities of the crafts. These have their origins in tales from Western regions related to Eastern European stories of walled-up wives. In the case of the Beijing tradition, the religious tale is transformed into a secular legend with, at best, a tenuous connection to a local cult. The story of the casting of a bell for the Bell Tower persists in Beijing's oral tradition to this day. There are also a number of related stories told in other regions of China, as well as Korean tales that are genetically linked to it. The article examines both the structural and semantic features of several mythological stories about the making of a bell for the Bell Tower recorded by Chinese folklorists from the 1950s to the 1980s, alongside those of the first known English (1870s) and the first known Chinese (1930s) amateur recordings of the legend. It also traces the connection of these texts with similar narratives from other regions, as well as with the aforementioned medieval legends of patron deities of crafts, ancient beliefs in the efficacy of human sacrifice for metallurgical production characteristic of the Wu region, and Confucian notions of filial piety.

An Analysis of Muslim History from Ancient to Ertugrul Ghazi: A Way Forward

This study analyses features of Islamic historical facts and inspiring storytelling, highlights important aspects of ancient Islamic history, and is best understood as a religious tale with some room for creative interpretation. It will look at the historical circumstances surrounding the founding of Islam, including the caliphates that were chosen at the time because, as many accounts imply, they served as the cornerstone of the Muslim community. The article makes an effort to understand the inspiring Islamic history in this light, with a focus on elucidating those components that do not naturally correspond with the recorded tale. The research also makes an effort to accomplish these goals while placing a special emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and the history of Ertugrul.

Epic Time in Azerbaijan Folk Tales (Based on Folk Tales Gathered in Nakhchivan)

The article investigates the characteristic features of the epic time in the folk tales gathered in Nakhchivan. It is noted that epic time is formed according to the poetic features of folk tale groups, their social functions, the idea they want to instill in the society, and it is perceived as a subjective time. In the fairy tales, it has a fantastic character and it is given with fantastic lines. The article also notes that along with space, time can form the poetic system of folk tales and also become a distinguishing indication of folktale groups. Taking into account the features of the epic time, the article searches the distinguishing means of tale groups and the meanings they express on the basis of examples of folk tales gathered in Nakhchivan. The article also mentions that in fairy tales, the one who has magical powers is also the master of time. He who has magical powers can take the time back or forth, bring a dead person back to life, and so on. In religious tales, time is presented on the basis of religious and moral values, and the existence of time beyond human will is brought to the fore. It also analyzes the fact that time is not subject to the man, but the man is subject to him, God is the judge of the time, and that the time is subservient to him because he is in control of everything.

Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Chaucer’s Relativity and Pluralism in His Religious Narratives

Chaucer’s encouraging of a reader’s cooperation in filling in the narrative halfway narrated or in making a judgment in the unsettling moments are frequently observed even in the religious tales such as the Pardoner’s Tale and the Man of Law’s Tale. Chaucer avoids an absolute and unilateral stance in carrying a religious message or a moral truth. Hiding his true opinion through the orchestration of multiple voices on a religious message, he usually assumes the stance of relativity and pluralism. For Chaucer, the religious tales like other tales in the Canterbury Tales suggest that a tale is fiction and that a teller is a fiction-maker, not an exegetical writer who indoctrinates his reader in the absolute truth and belief. Chaucer’s attitude of relativity and pluralism derives from his own intellectual interests and the social and political milieu where he lived.

Deciphering the Shi Jun Sarcophagus Using Sogdian Religious Beliefs, Tales, and Hymns

The discovery of the Northern Zhou (557–581AD) tomb of Shi Jun (494–579 CE) presents us with spectacular visual information about the Sogdians in medieval China, which was previously available to us only through written sources. The iconography-heavy sarcophagus in the tomb is an important vehicle for understanding the practices of religious (and everyday) life in the Sino-Sogdian community. The imagery on the Shi Jun sarcophagus reveals a mix of religious beliefs that existed among migrants in the premodern Eurasian world. Due to the absence of a dominant religion associated with Sino-Sogdian funerals, the iconography of the sarcophagus cannot be interpreted within an orthodox theological framework. Instead, it is possible that more syncretistic, indigenous, and regionally based folklore, tales, and hymns, in combination with a diversity of religious beliefs, might explain the sarcophagus’s enigmatic imagery, since the social order and religious order are often mutually reinforcing.

August Schleicher as the First Publisher of Lithuanian Folktales

The article focuses on the Lithuanian cultural activities of the famous German linguist August Schleicher (1821–1868). These activities included not only accumulation of linguistic data and writing of a Lithuanian grammar, but also recording and publication of the Lithuanian folklore. Schleicher edited the particularly valuable reader of the Lithuanian language and vocabulary (Handbuch der litauischen Sprache, Bd. 2: Lesebuch und Glossar, 1857), which included the first publication of Lithuanian folktales, among other kinds of folklore.The author of the article aims at elucidating the objectives and circumstances of Schleicher’s recordings of the Lithuanian folktales, establishing of their genres and defining the typical narrative qualities. Besides, the importance of the tales that Schleicher recorded in terms of the Lithuanian folklore research is highlighted.The letters that Schleicher wrote in the course of his research trip to the Eastern Prussia in 1852 reveal the kind of difficulties that he encountered during this journey, his ways of communication and his experiences while collecting the Lithuanian folktales. The folk narratives published in his Lithuanian reader and vocabulary include fifteen tales of magic, seven joke tales, four novella tales, three animal tales, three tales of lying, two tales of the stupid ogre, one religious tale, four folk-belief legends and one local legend. The scholar was the first to record numerous examples of various Lithuanian tale types, which mostly belonged to the popular Lithuanian oral tradition.The linguist himself highly valued his work among the Lithuanian inhabitants of the Lithuania Minor, being well aware that it served to the preservation of the declining culture at least in the scientific purposes. He hoped that folklore recorded and published by himself and his assistants could support the Lithuanians resisting the intense assimilation processes. The results of his research trip in the Lithuania Minor testified to the vitality of the folk narrative tradition among the local Lithuanians in the middle of the 19th century.By researching the Lithuanian language and recording the Lithuanian folklore, Schleicher established the importance of this culture to the Indo-European studies in general and attracted numerous followers that carried on with his scholarly activities. His activities prompted Lithuanians themselves to collect their oral folk heritage as well. Thanks to Schleicher, the first Lithuanian folktales were translated into German, published and attracted notice of the foreign scholars. Their subsequent publications reached even broader social layers. Therefore, Schleicher may be regarded as the promoter of the Lithuanian folktales across other countries. Nowadays the Lithuanian folktales published by Schleicher have been included into various folklore collections as anonymous folklore pieces and have acquired literary interpretations.

From Moses to DeMille: Adapting the Bible to the Big Screen

The genre of historical and contemporary cinema, which takes as its source of plot and characters the Bible has long enjoyed a welcome from the viewing public (whether in theaters or streaming on the Internet). In both the silent and sound film eras, the “Biblical epic” offered a new channel for the communication of religious values and familiar scriptural tales to mass audiences. As research subjects they have been (and continue to be) explored by fields as diverse as film history, musicology, and traditional Biblical studies. This article reviews both the major Biblical films produced in both Europe and the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the research and reference works written about them.

Variations in Eight Manuscript Versions of al-Kisâ'ï's Depiction of Seven Heavens

AbstractThis contribution presents the concept of 'seven heavens' as preserved by eight manuscripts of Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah al-Kisâ'ï's collections of Islamic religious tales Kitab A’ğāi’b al-MalakUt and Qisas al-Anbiyā It focuses on and compares the contents and composition of the chapter devoted to the topic and analyses the variations in the mss., which shed light on the way the tales are transmitted. Some of them represent variability in the original information, whereas others (including significant semantic shifts) may easily have emerged as a result of even minor scribal lapses.

Stabreimende Wortpaare in den späteren Werken Hartmanns von Aue: Iwein, Gregorius, Der arme Heinrich

AbstractBuilding upon recent phraseological studies of Old High and Middle High German texts, the alliterating word pairs in the later works of Hartmann von Aue are catalogued and analyzed philologically, thus contributing to an emerging complete listing of the paired rhetorical expressions through the Early Middle High German period, here Hartmann’s major courtly Arthurian romance, Iwein, his religious tale Gregorius, and Der arme Heinrich. Each pair is listed, described in the context in which it appears, and compared with any extant pairs from earlier German works. Previous research on the pair is reviewed. Hence, we trace the evolution of these expressions, in some cases through centuries. On the one hand, Hartmann employs alliterating expressions that date to the Old High German period, while on the other hand apparently creates new, or at least not previously documented ones. As in findings in earlier texts, pairs recorded on multiple occasions are likely to have been used by other authors. Typical for medieval German texts - when compared to similar modern expressions - is the insight that there is a fair amount of variation concerning the sequence of the alliterating elements and/or the inclusion of morpho-syntactic modifiers such as pronouns, possessives, adjectives, or adverbs. When known, later examples of the alliterating word-pairs are cited, albeit for obvious reasons only in an incomplete fashion. Two updates on the emerging Old High and Early Middle High German word-pair catalogue are included. Finally, a complete listing of the alliterating word-pairs in Hartmann’s works is provided. The long-term project continues to chart the emergence of German alliterating word-pairs chronologically, here within the first decade of the thirteenth century.

Food and Eating As Religious Metaphor: Focusing on Chaucer's Religious Tales

Food and Eating As Religious Metaphor: Focusing on Chaucer's Religious Tales

La narración nahua de "El cerro del Jumil": ¿un relato social o un cuento maravilloso? / The Nahuatl Tale of "El cerro del Jumil": a Social Story or a Wonderful Tale?

En el municipio de Temixco, Morelos, existen versiones en castellano y náhuatl de un relato sobre el Diablo y el Cerro del Jumil. Este relato popular podría considerarse un cuento fantástico o maravilloso, pero cuando examinamos con atención su contexto y modo de producción nos damos cuenta que este tlahtolli responde a una tradición oral que otorga un sentido muy diferente a este tipo de relatos, más cercanos al relato religioso, social y realista. Se trataría por tanto de una narrativa construida colectivamente y cuyo propósito es concienciar de las amenazas que puede sufrir la comunidad y de su grado de responsabilidad en la conformación de un espacio cohesionado, armónico y sustentable entre los seres humanos y su entorno numénico-natural.

Islamic lifestyle and Emine Beder’s TV cookery showKitchen Love

Turkish television has seen the diversification of themes and genres in both fictional and factual programmes reflecting the expansion of the television market in the 2000s. As well as thematic television channels, various television shows on cooking and food are currently on air in Turkey. These cookery programmes not only introduce and ‘re-invent’ local recipes from different regions of Turkey but also promote particular lifestyles and consumption patterns for the audience. However, in the case of Turkey, cookery programmes draw comparisons between Islamic and secular lifestyles through combining religious tales with personal stories, local ingredients with global recipes and suggested housework strategies for producing tasteful food. This article examines Kitchen Love, a cookery programme presented by Emine Beder, one of the pioneers of culinary consumption as a form of popular culture. Both Emine Beder’s public persona and her show frame food and cooking as part of an Islamic identity that negotiates Islamic values in relation to modern lifestyles and patterns of consumption.

The Mystery Play in Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province (review)

Reviewed by: The Mystery Play in Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province Éric Le Calvez Rogers, Peter . The Mystery Play in Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province. New York: Rodopi, Chiasma, 26, 2009. Pp. 193. ISBN 978-90-420-2706-0 In his study, Peter Rogers intends to show that there is a mystère, a liturgical drama (or mystery play) in Madame Bovary through Flaubert's use of religious tales, topoi, objects, discourses and imagery. The religious traditions, restaged in the novel, would display "a bond between theatre and religion in Flaubert's provinces" (back cover) beyond the obvious importance of religion in the narrative, which, because of the way it was represented, sent Flaubert to trial (among other problems from the prosecution's standpoint). Mystery plays are indeed mentioned by Homais in the novel, in a dialogue with the pastor Bournisien: "on représentait au milieu du choeur des espèces de farces, appelées mystères, dans lesquelles les lois de la décence souvent se trouvaient offensées" and Flaubert had already written, but not published, a "vieux mystère" in one of his earlier works (Smar). After recalling that the writer knew the Bible extremely well (in a letter to Louise Colet, Flaubert declares that it was the only book he read, before falling asleep, for more than three years), Rogers intends to demonstrate that the Bible "is inscribed in the story of Madame Bovary as a mystery play" which "threads its way through the fabric of its narrative and punctuates it with spicy and piercing details that have also been salient points of salvation history according to the Catholic tradition" (27). In order to do so, he has divided his study into three parts of different length: the first (29-90) deals with the close links between Emma and the Virgin Mary, the second (91-145) continues to "trace how Flaubert uses significant aspects of the devotion to Notre-Dame" (28) and the last and shortest (147-184) examines images of the sacred and of evil; these three parts are followed by a selected bibliography (185-193). And indeed, throughout this study can be found numerous signs, sometimes hidden, sometimes more obvious, along with interesting comments on scenes, episodes or details, such as Emma's education at the convent (44-45) where religious comparisons associate her with the Virgin Mary, or the scene where she goes to see Bournisien for religious help (55-60). Also illuminating are the explanations on naming Berthe (68) [End Page 359] who was almost named Madeleine, on the agricultural fair (73-76), where Lheureux is called a "rempant," "the cajoling serpent of Eden" (74; we find Lheureux several times in the study because of his role as a tempter, see also 114-115) and where Rodolphe, in order to seduce Emma, "has recourse to messianic discourse from the New Testament" (76; see also, later, in the woods for the baisade, the language he uses when he talks to her: she is a "madone sur un piédestal" and appears "immaculée," 84). The name that Homais gives to his pharmacy, "capharnaüm," is the name of the place of Jesus' first miracles (96); in the scene of the apricots which is interpreted here as a temptation, Charles plays the role of Eve (106-107); the figure of the snake is an important one in the novel (116); three motifs are related to the Immaculate Conception and reappear in the narrative (120-127): the blue shawl, the moon and the diabolical snake, and after Emma's death (133-139) the snake reappears in the form of a musical instrument ("le serpent souffl ait à pleine poitrine") "as a metaphor for the evil spirit" (138). The comments on the clubfoot's operation and on the blind beggar are also inspiring (155-163), as well as those on Homais's final figure when winning the Legion of Honor: "Homais is not playing the role of Satan but rather that of Jesus: he has both cross and an infernal band" (168). Nevertheless, at other times the demonstration is no longer convincing, which is often the case with this type of interpretative reading that subjectively...

From Genre Poetics to Structure: Nada Milošević-Djordjević's Contribution to Serbian Structural Folklore Studies

This paper looks at the structural analyses of the composition of several oral literary genres in Serbian literature performed by Prof. Nada Milošević-Đorđević. By analyzing romantic tales, religious tales, tales of fate and sagas, Milošević-Đorđević, a renowned Serbian folklore scholar, has made original contributions to narrative semiotics and syntagmatic analysis. Taking as her starting point the morphology of Vladimir Propp but also of some other semioticians, she revised his narrative scheme, adapting it to the specific characteristics of these literary genres and also proposing an entirely original scheme for religious tales and tales of fate, thus becoming one of the first literary folklorists in Serbia to apply structural analysis.

Vindictive virgins: animate images and theories of art in some thirteenth-century miracle stories

Vindictive virgins: animate images and theories of art in some thirteenth-century miracle stories

<i>Barlaam i nord: Legenden om Barlaam och Josaphat i den nordiska medeltidslitteraturen</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Barlaam i nord: Legenden om Barlaam och Josaphat i den nordiska medeltidslitteraturen Kirsten Wolf Barlaam i nord: Legenden om Barlaam och Josaphat i den nordiska medeltidslitteraturen. Edited by Karl G. Johansson and Maria Arvidsson. Bibliotheca Nordica, 1. Oslo: Novus forlag, 2009. Pp. 207; 15 illustrations. NOK 290. Barlaam i nord: Legenden om Barlaam och Josaphat i den nordiska medeltidslitteraturen is the inaugural volume in a new series, Bibliotheca Nordica, edited by Odd Einar Haugen of the University of Bergen and Karl G. Johansson and Jon Gunnar Jørgensen of the University of Oslo. According to the editors, the series will treat the Nordic Middle Ages broadly from linguistic, literary, and historical perspectives and comprises both monographs and collections of articles in English, German, or a Scandinavian language. Bibliotheca Nordica, which seeks to supplement existing journals and series within the field, is aimed at scholars and students, though the editors express the hope that it will be of interest also to a wider group of readers. Barlaam i nord has its origin in a conference held at the University of Oslo in 2004 on the topic of Barlaam and Josaphat, a religious tale based upon legends of the life of Buddha. The tale, which probably originated in Central Asia in the sixth century, was translated from Georgian into Greek, from Greek into Latin, and from Latin into most European vernaculars, including Norwegian, Icelandic, and Swedish. The volume comprises seven articles in Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish mostly on the Norwegian translation, though one of the essays deals with a Swedish translation while another treats manuscript illuminations and church murals depicting scenes from the tale. In an introductory essay, Odd Einar Haugen and Karl G. Johansson discuss the origin and development of the legend and present a survey of the extant Nordic versions, which are all derived, directly or indirectly, from the so-called Vulgata version from the twelfth century. The Nordic versions comprise an Old Norwegian translation, Barlaams ok Josaphats saga, undertaken by or at the request of King Hákon Hákonarson (1232–1257); an Old Swedish translation, Sagan om de helige Barlaam och Josaphat, contained in the Old Swedish Legendary from the end of the thirteenth century; a younger Swedish translation, Barlaam och Josaphat, possibly undertaken by Olaus Gunnari or Johannes Hildebrandi around 1440; and an Icelandic translation, Barlaham og Josaphat, in Reykjahólabók (Holm Perg. 3 fol.) from around 1525. The source of the Old Norwegian translation is the Historia duorum Christi militum, which also serves as the source for the abridged versions (epitomae) included in Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum historiale and Jacob of Voragine’s Legenda aurea. The younger Swedish translation is based on the Speculum historiale (though the translator made use also of the Old Norwegian version), while the older Swedish translation is based on the Legenda aurea. The Legenda aurea is also the source of the legend contained in Reykjahólabók, though at some removes, for the Icelandic translation was based on a version of the Low German Dat Passionael, which in turn was based on the High German Der Heiligen Leben. The four following essays are concerned primarily with the Old Norwegian translation. Magnus Rindal discusses the Norwegian literary milieu in which Barlaams ok Josaphats saga was produced and provides a survey of translation activity in medieval Norway. Odd Einar Haugen treats the composition of the saga and [End Page 376] examines in detail the interpolations in the text. He analyzes the features that differentiate and unite the altogether twenty-four interpolations, the characteristics of exemplum as a genre, and the extent to which the interpolations are to be considered exempla. He concludes that it is reasonable to regard the apologies and parables from the New Testament as exempla but that the legendary and biblical interpolations are borderline cases. Vera Johanterwage examines the depiction of the pagan King Avennir in the saga and its parallels in courtly literature. She focuses on the descriptions of pomp and hierarchical structures, the use of courtly concepts and terms, and the emphasis on emotions, and argues that the depiction of King Avennir is reflective of the Hákon-dynasty’s courtly ideals. Jens Eike...

La Centralidad del Discurso del ‘Héroe’ en la Construcción del Mito Nacional: una lectura de la historiografía conservadora desde el género

The idea of Chile as an unitary nation, that is built by the historiographical conservative discourse, is fundamented in the integrating construction of the relation between the collective and specific subjects which, under the supposition of a motherland demanding duties, constructs solidarity by the sacred action of one of its own, the national heroe, who is capable of reaching personal sacrifice with the aim to protect the community. The triade virility-heroe-nation, linked to the image of a founding or sacrificing subject, seems like a symbolic ordering that assures the transcending of nation and, through this, the inmortality of the heroe, who solves magically the imaginary contradiction of the community regarding its cosmogony. The unperishableness of nation is garanteed through the use of violence, and intimidation towards an “other” out of the group, which assures the exercise of the group’s internal solidarity. Therefore, the action of the heroe allows the transition from an internally conflicted past towards a future, meant as a particular project that assures the continuity of nation and historic projection. The conservative historiography, definitely, reads the history of Chile as a religious tale about the constitution of a new lineage that revalues the process of independence as constrution of a new legitimacy, where the last of the old order (with Bernardo O´Higgins as the ilegitimate son - “huacho”) will turn into the first of the new lineage, sacralization process that finds its peak in the conservative interpretation about Arturo Prat, where the (Chilean) lineage already consolidated, wishes for Latin America the superior values that has already installed.

'What Could Be Better Than This?' Conflicting Visions of the Good Life in Traditional Education

Traditional (especially religious) education draws on a received vision of the good life to guide its educational efforts. But rich traditions have multiple visions of the good life. Educators who aspire to openness as well as rootedness seek canonical stories that raise for discussion these multiple visions. Such discussions negotiate a relationship with outside, majority culture, but also foster rich internal discussion on the meaning of life. They allow for the growth of tradition in the light of changing reality, as well as its preservation. As an illustration, the paper considers an ancient Jewish religious tale as a means of ‘pulling students up short’ and thereby making actual and vivid within the curriculum issues concerning the good life and the nature of tolerance. The discussion raises questions concerning communitarianism, liberalism and religious education, as well as considering possibilities of autonomy in conditions of pluralism.