# Fairy Tales



## Warrigal (Nov 21, 2013)

As a child I read many fairy tales and all kinds of myths and legends.

Today, reading an article linking the deaths of JFK and C S Lewis** (they died an hour apart) I was struck by this quote


> Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
> C S Lewis writing to his Goddaughter Lucy



In many ways, I've never ceased to be a reader of fairy stories, although a lot of them now come as films - Lord of the rings, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Peter Pan, Braveheart and so on.

Do you appreciate myths, legends and fairy stories now, and which are your favourites.
Are you old enough to read them again?

** C S Lewis is the author of the Narnia series of books and also a late convert to Christianity.
The article I referred to talks about Camelot (JFK) and Narnia (C S Lewis) but he is biased in favour of the latter.
However, if you are interested: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-22/smart-camelot-and-narnia/5105224


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## Diwundrin (Nov 21, 2013)

Strangely enough yes, I found I enjoyed the Narnia, Dragonheart, Willow type movies that I avoided like the plague years ago.
I even enjoy the Ice Age and Nemo types now.  2nd childhood?
(Nemo's on this weekend Warri, have a look, not bad for a smirk.)

I went through a phase that couldn't get enough of legends and 'fairy tales' from the age of around 10 to 12.  The school library had somehow acquired by donation a cabinet full of Scandanavian sagas and ancient Greek and Roman tales. Some were short stories and some were full 'epics'.   I read every single one of them. I think I was the only one who did.  I was rubbish at their history, but hell on wheels at their legends.  It won me more than a few trivia games in later life if nothing else.



I wasn't into the Grimms type stuff especially though, just the 'exotic' ones.  Grimm's were just really creepy, I preferred the poetically epic Scandanavian types.

Never did believe in Camelot, the original or the later DC version. That article sums up how I viewed the whole cynical JFK exercise rather well.   (Katy, look away. 

 )  I'm 'revisiting' the whole thing but without any changed views at all.


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## Warrigal (Nov 21, 2013)

IMO the best King Arthur movie is still "Excalibur" with Helen Mirren as Morgana. CS Lewis would have approved because it was very layered.

Speaking of Greek and Roman myths, it was my job to sidetrack the Latin teacher at the beginning of a double lesson with an innocent question about Roman mythology. The poor old dear was a total eccentric and probably didn't want to waste her time on the mechanics of conjugation and declension so she was happy to go along with it. She was quite fond of me, I think.


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## Diwundrin (Nov 21, 2013)

I'm among the few disgruntled people who would have loved to have learned Latin but wasn't allowed as it was reserved for those students with high range maths passes and I was lucky to fall in with a pass at all.   They all hated Latin so there were no winners.

If anyone ever figures out any correlation between adding 2+2 and learning a language I'd be grateful for the explanation.

Warri??


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## Warrigal (Nov 21, 2013)

Sydney Uni required a pass in maths for matriculation and Latin was a prerequisite for medicine.
My school was selective and your choice of subjects was determined by the streaming process.

Actually, the way Latin was taught in those days was suited to people who also coped well with geometry and algebra. It was mostly rules and logic rather than anything resembling conversation. I baled out after three years and missed out on the erotic poetry but I did have to study/translate Caesar's Gallic War diaries.


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## Diwundrin (Nov 21, 2013)

I was okay with algebra but not with calculating straight numbers. What little I've twigged of Latin seems to make sense to me, the changing tense etc so I think my wiring would have handled it even though maths blew multiple circuits. 

 Too late now but still huffed about it after all those years.  Then again maybe they did me a favour, sure haven't needed it for much more than passing interests and adding poser gravitas to posts occasionally.


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## Warrigal (Nov 21, 2013)

You'd have been great at Latin but in those days students had little choice. 
I handled it fairly easily but I was a lazy student and probably wouldn't have coped at matriculation levels.

Still, it helped with formal English studies and was a lot better as far as I was concerned than the various social sciences.


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## babyboomer (Nov 22, 2013)

Hot crap, all those semi violent and violent cartoons and stories. I still love Disney,!


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## Warrigal (Nov 22, 2013)

Walt Disney should have been indicted for crimes against English literature.
For my first witness I call Rudyard Kipling.


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## SifuPhil (Nov 22, 2013)

The best King Arthur interpretation is still this one ...


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## Diwundrin (Nov 22, 2013)

You've heard they're getting back together, not the ex one but the rest of them, and doing a tour or movie something?

Not sure if the magic will still be there but I'd like to think so.


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## SifuPhil (Nov 22, 2013)

Diwundrin said:


> You've heard they're getting back together, not the ex one but the rest of them, and doing a tour or movie something?
> 
> Not sure if the magic will still be there but I'd like to think so.



Meh - you can never go back. Too old, too set in their ways, too much water under the bridge. 

I enjoyed them live and on TV and in the movies - that's good enough for me.


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## Jillaroo (Nov 22, 2013)

_I love them, anything they have done has had me laughing my head off, The Life of Brian was so funny and that sketch you posted Phil i still remember that with the arms off, and loved their horses, when i see a picture of them all the vision of them on the crosses singing always look on the bright side of life ho hum_:lofl::lofl::lofl:


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## Old Hipster (Nov 22, 2013)

Love Monty Python too The Meaning of Life is a real fav of mine, but I like all of their movie, Life of Brian and their songs, just glorious!

I'm a huge fan of fantasy and sci-fi movies too. Fantasy is so much more interesting that reality.

Best Monty Python song EVER.


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## rkunsaw (Nov 22, 2013)

My favorite 'Fairy Tale'

http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_claus.html

Full of jealousy, violence, murder, lies, adultry, all the things a fairy tale should be. If you haven't read it before I suggest you do so now.


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## Diwundrin (Nov 22, 2013)

And so ends the first lesson in how to be a politician.



Never seen that one before Rky, good read.


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## Warrigal (Nov 22, 2013)

That's a new one for me too but I'm a bit worried about it being your favourite.

:eek1:


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## rkunsaw (Nov 22, 2013)

Warrigal said:


> That's a new one for me too but I'm a bit worried about it being your favourite.
> 
> :eek1:



Do you mean to tell me it didn't become an instant favorite of yours?:wink: What's not to like? Hans Christian Anderson tells the best tales.


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## Warrigal (Nov 22, 2013)

You've never read all ten volumes of _The Thousand Nights and One Night_, I take it.
Much more entertaining than Hans Christian Anderson

mg:


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## Diwundrin (Nov 22, 2013)

Some of the Koori tall tales leave European ones for dead in terms of imagination.  
I'll chase a few up, some of them are rippers.


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## Diwundrin (Nov 22, 2013)

Hell's bells, there's weeks' worth of them. Some shortish ones here:  http://www.janesoceania.com/australia_aboriginal_dreamtime/index1.htm
There's a long intro which is only interesting if you want some background on the aborigines. The stories start down the page.

The Rainbow Serpent is the main creator in their culture, apt I guess. 
If you can't beat the snakes give 'em a 'holy' reason to be there. 




Google    Aboriginal Dreamtime legends    for a good look around at the tales.
Here's one new to me from another site.  
* Dreamtime Legends - The Southern Cross *​                                                                                                                            [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif]
[/FONT]In  the very beginning when Baiame the sky king, walked the earth, out of  the red ground of the ridges he made two men and a woman. When he saw  that they were alive he showed them such plants as they should eat to  keep life, then he went on his way. 
              For some time they  lived on such plants as he had shown them; then came a drought, and  plants grew scarce, and when one day a man killed a kangaroo rat, he and  the woman ate some of its flesh, but the other man would not eat though  he was famished for food, and lay as one dead. 



             Again and again the woman  told him it was good and pressed him to eat. Annoyed, weak as he was, he  rose and walked angrily away toward sunset, while the other two still  ate hungrily. 
              When they had finished  they looked for him, found he had gone some distance, and went after  him.  Over some sandhills, over the pebbly ridges they went, losing  sight of him from time to time. When they reached the edge of the  coolabah plain they saw their mate on the other side, by the river. They  called to him to stop, but he heeded them not; on he went until he  reached a huge yaraan , or white gum tree, beneath which he fell to the  ground. As he lay there dead they saw beside him a black figure with two  huge fiery eyes. This figure raised him into the tree and dropped him  into its hollow centre. 


              While still speeding  across the plain they heard such a terrific burst of thunder that they  fell startled to the ground. When they raised themselves they gazed  wonderingly toward the giant gum-tree. They saw it being lifted from the  earth and passing through the air toward the southern sky. They could  not see their lost mate, but fiery eyes gleamed from the tree.  
              Suddenly, a raucous  shrieking broke the stillness; they saw that it came from two  yellow-crested white cockatoos flying after the vanishing tree--Mooyi,  they called them. 


              On went the Spirit Tree,  and after it flew the Mooyi, shrieking loudly to it to stop, so that  they might reach their roosting place in it. 
              At last the tree planted  itself near the Warrambool, or Milky Way, which leads to where the sky  gods live. When it seemed quite still the tree gradually disappeared  from their sight. They only saw four fiery eyes shine out. Two were the  eyes of Yowi, the spirit of death.  The other two were the eyes of the  first man to die. 


              The Mooyi fly after the tree, trying always to reach their roost again. 
              When all nature realized  that the passing of this man meant that death had come into the world,  there was wailing everywhere. The swamp oak trees sighed incessantly,  and the gum-trees shed tears of blood, which crystallized into red gum. 
              To this day to the tribes  of this part, the Southern Cross is known as Yaraan-doo, the place of  the white gum-tree. And the Pointers are called Mooyi, the white  cockatoos. 
              So is the first coming of death remembered by the tribes, to whom the Southern Cross is a reminder.


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## Diwundrin (Nov 22, 2013)

A point to ponder that has bothered me a little for some time about Aboriginal/Koori legends is that there being no written language all legends were handed down verbally.  There is no real way of dating the stories, we just have to take their word for it that are thousands of years old. They probably have no idea themselves.   For all we can prove Granddad might have made it up last Thursday. 

Due to a few instances of them being sprung making up stories about 'sacred ground' that just happened to be sited where lucrative minerals were deposited, or in the middle of prime real estate developments some degree of doubt must creep in. 

The correlation of some tales with those of other civilizations is puzzling.  If as claimed they've been here 40,000 years, and  still living in the most primitive stage of stone age culture, it's stretching coincidence to breaking point that the 'creation' stories are similar to other cultures',  unless you want to accept that the legends are all true representations of life back in the 'Dreamtime' everywhere.

 I find it hard to believe that no Asian or European influence has crept into their tales.  There has been almost constant contact through fishing boats and traders from Asia for thousands of years among the far Northern tribes.  That stories were told over campfires by nomads encountering other tribes would account for some of the anomalous cultural 'coincidences.'   The Chinese Whisper syndrome.
A tale can have a twist easily added to impress a gullible missionary or Government funded grant bestower. 
 I know I could do that.

 



Religion everywhere only really ran into trouble when the printing press was invented.  Before that the shamans could vary the sermons to suit the circumstances but they found contradictions were being noticed once the 'word' was printed and unalterable.
Damned technology, get's ya every time.


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## Warrigal (Nov 23, 2013)

Now, that's what I call insight, Diwundrin.
Oral folk lore and oral history can be enduring like DNA but evolving, also like DNA.


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## JustBonee (Nov 23, 2013)

Old Hipster said:


> Love Monty Python too The Meaning of Life is a real fav of mine, but I like all of their movie, Life of Brian and their songs, just glorious!
> 
> I'm a huge fan of fantasy and sci-fi movies too. Fantasy is so much more interesting that reality.



Love Monty Python too.  ... 

I'm beginning to wonder though, if reality isn't a bit more interesting than fantasy these days _..  e_verything is being lived out anymore.


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## Pappy (Nov 23, 2013)

I've only seen a couple of Monty Python skits. One was two guys fighting with swords and one kept cutting off the others body parts, but the poor fellow kept on fighting. Geez, it was funny.

The other damn near made me sick to watch. Some big doings with a lot of people and one threw up all over the place. This started everyone in the room to start vomiting. God, you neede a strong stomach to watch it. Sick humor, I guess.


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## JustBonee (Nov 23, 2013)




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