The Immortal Hour is an opera by English composer Rutland Boughton . Boughton adapted his own libretto from the play of the same name by Fiona MacLeod, a pseudonym of writer William Sharp .
147-422: The Immortal Hour is a fairy tale or fairy opera , with a mood and theme similar to Dvořák 's Rusalka and Mozart 's The Magic Flute . Magic and nature spirits play important roles in the storyline. The fairy people are not mischievous, childlike sprites, but are proud and powerful: immortal demigods who are feared by mortals and who can (and do) interfere with the lives of men and women. Alternatively,
294-465: A Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766), which has been described by Yuken Fujita of Keio University as having "a reputation as the most outstanding short story collection." The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710), and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed
441-728: A band of druids, who, with hands uplifted to the sky, poured forth terrible imprecations on the heads of the invaders. He says these "terrified our soldiers who had never seen such a thing before". The courage of the Romans, however, soon overcame such fears, according to the Roman historian; the Britons were put to flight, and the sacred groves of Mona were cut down. Tacitus is also the only primary source that gives accounts of druids in Britain, but portrays them negatively, as ignorant savages. In
588-419: A boxed vinyl set. Dame Ethel Smyth in 1922 said " The Immortal Hour enchants me. The whole thing gripped me". In 1924, Sir Edward Elgar described the opera as "a work of genius". Speaking in 1949, Sir Arthur Bliss said "I remember vividly how Boughton made his characters live, and the masterly effect of the choral writing". The same year, Ralph Vaughan Williams opined that "In any other country, such
735-600: A categorization subsequently adopted by Piggott, divided the Classical accounts of the druids into two groups, distinguished by their approach to the subject as well as their chronological contexts. She calls the first of these groups the "Posidonian" tradition after one of its primary exponents, Posidonious, and notes that it takes a largely critical attitude towards the Iron Age societies of Western Europe that emphasizes their "barbaric" qualities. The second of these two groups
882-499: A chorus by unseen spirits, then is reprised by Midir of the "Shee" ( Tuatha Dé Danann ) as a solo aria accompanied by a harp . The song is featured in the Adam Curtis documentary "Can't get you out of my head", with the fifth episode named "The lordly ones", from a line in the song. Fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale , fairy story , household tale , magic tale , or wonder tale )
1029-406: A druid, for they were the intermediaries between the people and the divinities. He remarked upon the importance of prophets in druidic ritual: These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power ... and in very important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest; by observing
1176-499: A fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes. The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism , that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were
1323-418: A folklore, Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index 300–749,—in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction—to gain a clear set of tales. His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest , and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works. Were I asked, what
1470-862: A literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes . The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553), which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–36), which are all fairy tales. Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios, including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761). Simultaneously, Pu Songling , in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from
1617-427: A man-eating tiger with her own hand." In contemporary literature , many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides. Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse. Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues; this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in
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#17327988081681764-720: A mask on a human face, as in fables . In his essay " On Fairy-Stories ", J. R. R. Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie , the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves , elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels. However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart , which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book . Steven Swann Jones identified
1911-494: A monumental work called Le Cabinet des Fées , an enormous collection of stories from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the Brothers Grimm , collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815) remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote
2058-553: A number of female druids, often sharing similar prominent cultural and religious roles with their male counterparts. The Irish have several words for female druids, such as bandruí ("woman-druid"), found in tales such as Táin Bó Cúailnge ; Bodhmall , featured in the Fenian Cycle , and one of Fionn mac Cumhaill 's childhood caretakers; and Tlachtga , daughter of the druid Mug Ruith who, according to Irish tradition,
2205-451: A picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, Angela Carter 's The Bloody Chamber , which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view and Simon Hood's contemporary interpretation of various popular classics. There are also many contemporary erotic retellings of fairy tales, which explicitly draw upon the original spirit of the tales, and are specifically for adults. Modern retellings focus on exploring
2352-543: A prescribed number of years they commence a new life in a new body". In 1928, the folklorist Donald A. Mackenzie speculated that Buddhist missionaries had been sent by the Indian king Ashoka . Caesar noted the druidic doctrine that the original ancestor of the tribe was the god that he referred to as " Dispater ", which means "Father Dis". Diogenes Laertius , in the 3rd century CE, wrote that "Druids make their pronouncements by means of riddles and dark sayings, teaching that
2499-480: A professor of archaeology at Cardiff University, has noted that Suetonius's army would have passed very near the site while travelling to deal with Boudicca , and postulates that the sacrifice may have been connected. A 1996 discovery of a skeleton that was buried with advanced medical and possibly divinatory equipment has, however, been nicknamed the " Druid of Colchester ". An excavated burial in Deal, Kent discovered
2646-897: A study of magic widely attributed to Aristotle . Both texts are now lost, but are quoted in the 2nd century CE work Vitae by Diogenes Laërtius . Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi, and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei, among the Indians the Gymnosophistae, and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called druids and semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on magic, and Sotion in
2793-645: A succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvellous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses." The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls ; youngest sons and gallant princes ; ogres , giants , dragons , and trolls ; wicked stepmothers and false heroes ; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers , often talking horses, or foxes, or birds ; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions. Although
2940-571: A technique developed by evolutionary biologists to trace the relatedness of living and fossil species . Among the tales analysed were Jack and the Beanstalk , traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of The Smith and the Devil ( Deal with
3087-461: A time " rather than in actual times. Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form ( literary fairy tale ); the name "fairy tale" (" conte de fées " in French) was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world. The history of
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#17327988081683234-481: A time ", this tells us that a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. (Indeed, one less regular German opening is "In the old times when wishing was still effective".) The French writers and adaptors of the conte de fées genre often included fairies in their stories; the genre name became "fairy tale" in English translation and "gradually eclipsed
3381-495: A version intended for children. The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected." Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim , who regarded
3528-657: A work as The Immortal Hour would have been in the repertoire years ago". Dalua, the Lord of Shadow, is seen in a dark and mysterious wood. He is known as the Amadan-Dhu, the Faery Fool, the Dark One, and is an agent of unseen and fateful powers, whose touch brings madness and death to mortals. He has come there under some compulsion, following visions, but does not know for what purpose. He is mocked by invisible spirits of
3675-539: A world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story, such as in the film series Shrek . Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives. The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch ,
3822-409: Is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre . Such stories typically feature magic , enchantments , and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in
3969-405: Is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine : that is a fairytale ... of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly
4116-757: Is associated with the Hill of Ward , site of prominent festivals held in Tlachtga's honour during the Middle Ages . Biróg , another bandruí of the Tuatha Dé Danann , plays a key role in an Irish folktale where the Fomorian warrior Balor attempts to thwart a prophecy foretelling that he would be killed by his own grandson by imprisoning his only daughter Eithne in the tower of Tory Island , away from any contact with men. Bé Chuille (daughter of
4263-451: Is best known today. The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children. In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on sexual references; Rapunzel , in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting
4410-406: Is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious. Other famous people commented on the importance of fairy tales, especially for children. For example, G. K. Chesterton argued that "Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child
4557-409: Is its own best explanation; that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story. [...] Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolical pictures and events and is discoverable in these". "I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and
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4704-488: Is no more than that which is due to a bóaire (an ordinary freeman). Another law-text, Uraicecht Becc ('small primer'), gives the druid a place among the dóer-nemed , or professional classes, which depend upon a patron for their status, along with wrights, blacksmiths, and entertainers, as opposed to the fili , who alone enjoyed free nemed -status. While druids featured prominently in many medieval Irish sources, they were far rarer in their Welsh counterparts. Unlike
4851-530: Is termed the "Alexandrian" group, being centred on the scholastic traditions of Alexandria , Egypt ; she notes that it took a more sympathetic and idealized attitude toward these foreign peoples. Piggott drew parallels between this categorisation and the ideas of "hard primitivism" and "soft primitivism" identified by historians of ideas A. O. Lovejoy and Franz Boas . One school of thought has suggested that all of these accounts are inherently unreliable, and might be entirely fictional. They have suggested that
4998-630: Is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD), such as Vikram and the Vampire , and Bel and the Dragon . Besides such collections and individual tales, in China Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works. In the broader definition of the genre,
5145-643: Is the only ancient author drawing the association between oaks and druids and the intensifying modifier sense of the first element fits better with other similar compounds attested in Old Irish ( suí 'sage, wise man' < *su-wid-s 'good knower', duí 'idiot, fool' < *du-wid-s 'bad knower', ainb 'ignorant' < *an-wid-s 'not-knower'). The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru- and *weid- "to see". Both Old Irish druí and Middle Welsh dryw could refer to
5292-486: Is to kiss the queen's hand and serenade her with a song, but his word was given so Etain is roused. Midir sings the Faery song heard at the end of Act I. Etain, awakened to her immortal origins, leaves with Midir to the sounds of a Faery chorus. Only the heartbroken king remains, and as he begs for his dreams back, Dalua steps in and touches him soundlessly. He collapses, dead. The song "How beautiful they are" appears first in
5439-415: Is waylaid by Dalua. As he touches her with a shadow she forgets all of where she came from barring her name. Dalua realises that the reason for their meeting is now clear to him; a mortal king has sought immortal love and is led towards them under similar compulsion to theirs. He bids Etain to go and awaits the king. Eochaidh, who is High King of Eiré, enters and is welcomed by Dalua. Dalua shows him visions of
5586-556: The Historia Augusta , Alexander Severus received a prophecy about his death from a Gallic druidess ( druiada ). The work also has Aurelian questioning druidesses about the fate of his descendants, to which they answered in favor of Claudius II . Flavius Vopiscus is also quoted as recalling a prophecy received by Diocletian from a druidess of the Tungri . The earliest surviving literary evidence of druids emerges from
5733-702: The Celtic Church like the " Táin Bó Cúailnge " (12th century), but also in later Christian legends where they are largely portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the introduction of Christianity by missionaries. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries, fraternal and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism . Many popular notions about druids, based on misconceptions of 18th-century scholars, have been largely superseded by more recent study. The English word druid derives from
5880-649: The Coligny calendar , with druidic culture. Nonetheless, some archaeologists have attempted to link certain discoveries with written accounts of the druids. The archaeologist Anne Ross linked what she believed to be evidence of human sacrifice in Celtic pagan society (such as the Lindow Man bog body) to the Greco-Roman accounts of human sacrifice being officiated-over by the druids. Miranda Aldhouse-Green –
6027-469: The Renaissance , such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile , and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm . In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term Conte de fée , or fairy tale, in the late 17th century. Before the definition of
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6174-591: The Roman Empire " and one that required civilizing with Roman rule and values, thus justifying his wars of conquest. Sean Dunham suggested that Caesar had simply taken the Roman religious functions of senators and applied them to the druids. Daphne Nash believed it "not unlikely" that he "greatly exaggerates" both the centralized system of druidic leadership and its connection to Britain. Other historians have accepted that Caesar's account might be more accurate. Norman J. DeWitt surmised that Caesar's description of
6321-498: The wren , possibly connected with an association of that bird with augury in Irish and Welsh tradition (see also Wren Day ). Sources by ancient and medieval writers provide an idea of the religious duties and social roles involved in being a druid. The Greco-Roman and the vernacular Irish sources agree that the druids played an important part in pagan Celtic society. In his description, Julius Caesar wrote that they were one of
6468-415: The " Deal Warrior "– a man who was buried at around 200–150 BCE with a sword and shield, and wearing an almost unique head-band, which is too thin to be part of a leather helmet. The crown is bronze with a broad band around the head, and a thin strip that crosses the top of the head horizontally. Since traces of hair were left on the metal, it must have been worn without any padding beneath it. The form of
6615-409: The "purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes" and "they represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form" because they are less overlaid with conscious material than myths and legends. "In this pure form, the archetypal images afford us the best clues to the understanding of the processes going on in the collective psyche". "The fairy tale itself
6762-470: The 17th century, a passion for the conversational parlour game based on the plots of old folk tales swept through the salons. Each salonnière was called upon to retell an old tale or rework an old theme, spinning clever new stories that not only showcased verbal agility and imagination but also slyly commented on the conditions of aristocratic life. Great emphasis was placed on a mode of delivery that seemed natural and spontaneous. The decorative language of
6909-466: The 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales. The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales. Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale. However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had
7056-449: The 1st-century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius , and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century. In about 750 AD, the word druid appears in a poem by Blathmac , who wrote about Jesus , saying that he was "better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king who was a bishop and a complete sage." The druids often appear in both the tales from Irish mythology first written down by monks and nuns of
7203-691: The Devil ) appears to date from the Bronze Age , some 6000 years ago. Various other studies converge to suggest that some fairy tales, for example the swan maiden , could go back to the Upper Palaeolithic. Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children. Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature. The précieuses , including Madame d'Aulnoy , intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as
7350-456: The Faeries marching, beautiful, powerful and frightening. He begs her not to go but she insists. As soon as she has retired to her room, a stranger appears at the door - Midir, Etain's immortal lover, disguised as a harpist. He is welcomed warily by Eochaidh, who is upset when the stranger will not give his name. Midir asks a favour of the king and Eochaidh assents. He is unhappy when he learns it
7497-572: The Gauls' teaching that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body Caesar made similar observations: With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can
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#17327988081687644-513: The German tribes to the east of the Rhine . According to Caesar, many young men were trained to be druids, during which time they had to learn all the associated lore by heart. He also said that their main teaching was "the souls do not perish, but after death pass from one to another". They were concerned with "the stars and their movements, the size of the cosmos and the earth, the world of nature, and
7791-459: The Greco-Roman writers were accurate in their claims. J. Rives remarked that it was "ambiguous" whether druids ever performed such sacrifices, for the Romans and Greeks were known to project what they saw as barbarian traits onto foreign peoples including not only druids but Jews and Christians as well, thereby confirming their own "cultural superiority" in their own minds. Nora Chadwick , an expert in medieval Welsh and Irish literature who believed
7938-649: The Greek historian Strabo , who wrote that their island was forbidden to men, but the women came to the mainland to meet their husbands. Which deities they honored is unknown. According to Pomponius Mela, the Gallizenae acted as both councilors and practitioners of the healing arts: Sena, in the Britannic Sea, opposite the coast of the Osismi, is famous for its oracle of a Gaulish god, whose priestesses, living in
8085-519: The Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant. Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids ). Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through
8232-482: The Irish Language defines a druí (which has numerous variant forms, including draoi ) as a magician, wizard, or diviner. In the literature, the druids cast spells and turn people into animals or stones, or curse peoples' crops to be blighted. When druids are portrayed in early Irish sagas and in saints' lives that are set in pre-Christian Ireland, they are usually given high social status. The evidence of
8379-513: The Irish texts, the Welsh term commonly seen as referring to the druids, dryw , was used to refer purely to prophets and not to sorcerers or pagan priests. Historian Ronald Hutton noted that there were two explanations for the use of the term in Wales: the first was that it was a survival from the pre-Christian era, when dryw had been ancient priests; the second was that the Welsh had borrowed
8526-587: The Latin word druidēs (plural), which was considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Gaulish word for these figures. Other Roman texts employ the form druidae , while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as δρυΐδης ( druidēs ). Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form, the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words: Old Irish druí 'druid, sorcerer'; Old Cornish druw ; and Middle Welsh dryw ' seer ; wren '. Based on all available forms,
8673-524: The Middle Ages, after Ireland and Wales were Christianized , druids appear in a number of written sources, mainly tales and stories such as Táin Bó Cúailnge , and in the hagiographies of various saints. These were all written by Christian monks. In Irish-language literature, druids ( draoithe , plural of draoi ) are sorcerers with supernatural powers, who are respected in society, particularly for their ability to do divination . Dictionary of
8820-516: The Romans and the Greeks. The earliest known references to the druids date to the 4th century BC. The oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). They were described by other Roman writers such as Cicero , Tacitus , and Pliny the Elder . Following the Roman invasion of Gaul , the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under
8967-723: The Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866), the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845), the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890), and Jeremiah Curtin , an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890). Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout
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#17327988081689114-737: The Winter Gardens 7-9 January 1915. The opera ran in London for 216 consecutive performances in 1922, and for a further 160 performances the following year, and was staged in New York City in 1926. It was revived at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London in 1953. The first recording of the complete work, sponsored by The Rutland Boughton Trust, took place in 1983 and was released the following year by Hyperion Records (CDD22040) on CD and as
9261-499: The accuracy of his accounts by highlighting that while he may have embellished some of his accounts to justify Roman imperial conquest, it was "inherently unlikely" that he constructed a fictional class system for Gaul and Britain, particularly considering that he was accompanied by a number of other Roman senators who would have also been sending reports on the conquest to Rome, and who would have challenged his inclusion of serious falsifications. Other classical writers also commented on
9408-405: The children's window of tolerance". These fairy tales teach children how to deal with certain social situations and helps them to find their place in society. Fairy tales teach children other important lessons too. For example, Tsitsani et al. carried out a study on children to determine the benefits of fairy tales. Parents of the children who took part in the study found that fairy tales, especially
9555-435: The choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color. The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all Indo-European peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the anthropologist Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using phylogenetic analysis ,
9702-774: The classical world of Greece and Rome. Archaeologist Stuart Piggott compared the attitude of the Classical authors toward the druids as being similar to the relationship that had existed in the 15th and 18th centuries between Europeans and the societies that they were just encountering in other parts of the world, such as the Americas and the South Sea Islands. He highlighted the attitude of " primitivism " in both Early Modern Europeans and Classical authors, owing to their perception that these newly encountered societies had less technological development and were backward in socio-political development. Historian Nora Chadwick , in
9849-399: The color in them, triggered their child's imagination as they read them. Jungian Analyst and fairy tale scholar Marie Louise Von Franz interprets fairy tales based on Jung's view of fairy tales as a spontaneous and naive product of soul, which can only express what soul is. That means, she looks at fairy tales as images of different phases of experiencing the reality of the soul. They are
9996-452: The common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins. Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by
10143-418: The conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavoured to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratorical style that would gradually have a major effect on literary forms." Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before
10290-687: The course of study. What was taught to druid novices anywhere is conjecture: of the druids' oral literature , not one certifiably ancient verse is known to have survived, even in translation. All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports, the Gauls had a written language in which they used Greek letters. In this he probably draws on earlier writers; by the time of Caesar, Gaulish inscriptions had moved from Greek script to Latin script. Caesar believed that this practice of oral transmission of knowledge and opposition to recording their ideas had dual motivations: wanting to keep druidic knowledge from becoming common, and improving
10437-503: The cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues. Fairy tales do teach children how to deal with difficult times. To quote Rebecca Walters (2017, p. 56) "Fairytales and folktales are part of the cultural conserve that can be used to address children's fears …. and give them some role training in an approach that honors
10584-449: The distinction is commonly made, even within the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his " The Light Princess ", " The Golden Key ", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of novelistic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting. Druid A druid
10731-474: The druids and their practices. Caesar's contemporary, Cicero , noted that he had met a Gallic druid, Divitiacus , of the Aedui tribe. Divitiacus supposedly knew much about the natural world and performed divination through augury . Whether Diviaticus was genuinely a druid can however be disputed, for Caesar also knew this figure, and wrote about him, calling him by the more Gaulish-sounding (and thereby presumably
10878-544: The druids as being concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual questions". He said they played an important part in Gaulish society, being one of the two respected classes along with the equites (in Rome the name for members of a privileged class above the common people, but also "horsemen") and that they performed the function of judges. Caesar wrote that
11025-461: The druids recognized the authority of a single leader, who would rule until his death, when a successor would be chosen by vote or through conflict. He remarked that to settle disputes between tribes, they met annually at a sacred place at the borders of the Carnute territory, which is said to be the center of Gaul. They viewed Britain as the centre of druidic study; and that they were not found among
11172-407: The druids to be great philosophers, has also supported the idea that they had not been involved in human sacrifice, and that such accusations were imperialist Roman propaganda. Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor referred to the druids as philosophers, and called their doctrine of the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis (reincarnation), " Pythagorean ": The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among
11319-729: The druids' faculties of memory. Caesar writes that of the Druids "a large number of the young men resort for the purpose of instruction". Due to the privileges afforded to the druids he tells us that "many embrace this profession of their own accord", whereas many others are sent to become druids by their families. Greek and Roman writers frequently made reference to the druids as practitioners of human sacrifice . Caesar says those who had been found guilty of theft or other criminal offences were considered preferable for use as sacrificial victims, but when criminals were in short supply, innocents would be acceptable. A form of sacrifice recorded by Caesar
11466-408: The economy and concision of the tales. Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term " Märchen " stems from the old German word " Mär ", which means news or tale. The word " Märchen " is the diminutive of the word " Mär ", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning " once upon
11613-433: The fairy tale Momotarō . Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children. Many fairy tales feature an absentee mother, as an example " Beauty and the Beast ", " The Little Mermaid ", " Little Red Riding Hood " and " Donkeyskin ", where the mother is deceased or absent and unable to help the heroines. Mothers are depicted as absent or wicked in
11760-403: The fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's Conte de fées , first used in her collection in 1697. Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which
11907-453: The fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon , such stories may date back thousands of years, some to the Bronze Age . Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. The Jatakas are probably the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and
12054-655: The fairy tales served an important function: disguising the rebellious subtext of the stories and sliding them past the court censors. Critiques of court life (and even of the king) were embedded in extravagant tales and in dark, sharply dystopian ones. Not surprisingly, the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights. The salon tales as they were originally written and published have been preserved in
12201-766: The first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece . Scholarship points out that Medieval literature contains early versions or predecessors of later known tales and motifs, such as the grateful dead , The Bird Lover or the quest for the lost wife. Recognizable folktales have also been reworked as the plot of folk literature and oral epics. Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True , "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , and in many of William Shakespeare plays." King Lear can be considered
12348-542: The following centuries, the new rulers of Roman Gaul subsequently introduced measures to wipe-out the druids from that country. According to Pliny the Elder , writing in the 70s CE, it was the emperor Tiberius (ruled 14–37 CE) who introduced laws which banned not only druidic practices, but also other native soothsayers and healers– a move which Pliny applauded, believing that it would end human sacrifice in Gaul. A somewhat different account of Roman legal attacks upon
12495-503: The forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella . Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect. In the mid-17th century, a vogue for magical tales emerged among the intellectuals who frequented the salons of Paris. These salons were regular gatherings hosted by prominent aristocratic women, where women and men could gather together to discuss
12642-548: The future. In the tale of Deirdre of the Sorrows – the foremost tragic heroine of the Ulster Cycle – the druid prophesied before the court of Conchobar that Deirdre would grow up to be very beautiful, and that kings and lords would go to war over her, much blood would be shed because of her, and Ulster's three greatest warriors would be forced into exile for her sake. This prophecy, ignored by
12789-460: The genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit , George Orwell 's Animal Farm , and L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the subgenre of fairytale fantasy , draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,
12936-485: The genres are now regarded as distinct. The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale . Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen . The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone , show considerable reworking from the oral form. The Grimm brothers were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet
13083-535: The gods must be worshipped, and no evil done, and manly behavior maintained". Druids play a prominent role in Irish folklore , generally serving lords and kings as high ranking priest-counselors with the gift of prophecy and other assorted mystical abilities – the best example of these possibly being Cathbad . The chief druid in the court of King Conchobar mac Nessa of Ulster , Cathbad features in several tales, most of which detail his ability to foretell
13230-497: The greater part of the rest are demonstrably more than a thousand years old. It is certain that much (perhaps one-fifth) of the popular literature of modern Europe is derived from those portions of this large bulk which came west with the Crusades through the medium of Arabs and Jews. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among
13377-528: The headdress resembles depictions of Romano-British priests from several centuries later, leading to speculation among archaeologists that the man might have been a religious official– a druid. In the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BCE, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar , conquered the many tribal chiefdoms of Gaul, and annexed it as a part of the Roman Republic . According to accounts produced in
13524-532: The highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on the stars and their movement, on the extent and geographical distribution of the earth, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion. Diodorus Siculus , writing in 36 BCE, described how the druids followed "the Pythagorean doctrine", that human souls "are immortal, and after
13671-641: The history of their development is necessarily obscure and blurred. Fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass , which includes Cupid and Psyche ( Roman , 100–200 AD), or the Panchatantra ( India 3rd century BC), but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms. What they do show
13818-501: The holiness of perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number. They call them Gallizenae, and they believe them to be endowed with extraordinary gifts to rouse the sea and the wind by their incantations, to turn themselves into whatsoever animal form they may choose, to cure diseases which among others are incurable, to know what is to come and to foretell it. They are, however, devoted to the service of voyagers only who have set out on no other errand than to consult them. According to
13965-477: The hypothetical proto-Celtic word may be reconstructed as * dru-wid-s (pl. * druwides ), whose original meaning is traditionally taken to be " oak -knower", based upon the association of druids' beliefs with oak trees, which was made by Pliny the Elder , who also suggested that the word is borrowed from the Greek word δρῦς ( drỹs ) 'oak tree' but nowadays it is more often understood as originally meaning 'one with firm knowledge' (ie. 'a great sage'), as Pliny
14112-460: The idea of the druid might have been a fiction created by Classical writers to reinforce the idea of the barbaric "other" who existed beyond the civilized Greco-Roman world, thereby legitimizing the expansion of the Roman Empire into these areas. The earliest record of the druids comes from two Greek texts of c. 300 BCE: a history of philosophy written by Sotion of Alexandria, and
14259-500: The idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." Albert Einstein once showed how important he believed fairy tales were for children's intelligence in
14406-404: The issues of the day. In the 1630s, aristocratic women began to gather in their own living rooms, salons, to discuss the topics of their choice: arts and letters, politics, and social matters of immediate concern to the women of their class: marriage, love, financial and physical independence, and access to education. This was a time when women were barred from receiving a formal education. Some of
14553-652: The king, came true. The greatest of these mythological druids was Amergin Glúingel , a bard and judge for the Milesians featured in the Mythological Cycle . The Milesians were seeking to overrun the Tuatha Dé Danann and win the land of Ireland but, as they approached, the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann raised a magical storm to bar their ships from making landfall. Thus Amergin called upon
14700-424: The law-texts, which were first written-down in the 600s and 700s CE, suggests that with the coming of Christianity, the role of the druid in Irish society was rapidly reduced to that of a sorcerer who could be consulted to cast spells or do healing magic, and that his standing declined accordingly. According to the early legal tract Bretha Crólige , the sick-maintenance due to a druid, satirist, and brigand ( díberg )
14847-422: The legendary Fount of Beauty which the king has pursued in dreams. Spirit voices warn Eochaidh to return to his people, but by then he is under Dalua's spell and follows him blindly into the wood. In a hut, the peasant Manus and his wife Maive sit with Etain, who is sheltering from a stormy night. A stranger - Dalua - has given them gold for Etain's accommodation and for their silence. They are nervous not just from
14994-521: The literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody. This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments. The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this,
15141-539: The more authentic) Diviciacus, but never referred to him as a druid and indeed presented him as a political and military leader. Another classical writer to take up describing the druids not too long afterward was Diodorus Siculus , who published this description in his Bibliotheca historicae in 36 BCE. Alongside the druids, or as he called them, drouidas , who he believed to be philosophers and theologians, he remarked how there were poets and singers in Celtic society, who he called bardous , or bards . Such an idea
15288-458: The more general term folk tale that covered a wide variety of oral tales". Jack Zipes also attributes this shift to changing sociopolitical conditions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that led to the trivialization of these stories by the upper classes. Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of
15435-405: The most gifted women writers of the period came out of these early salons (such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette ), which encouraged women's independence and pushed against the gender barriers that defined their lives. The salonnières argued particularly for love and intellectual compatibility between the sexes, opposing the system of arranged marriages. Sometime in the middle of
15582-423: The most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale" to refer to the genre rather than fairy tale , a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale : "...a tale of some length involving
15729-500: The most popular contemporary versions of tales like " Rapunzel ", " Snow White ", " Cinderella " and " Hansel and Gretel ", however, some lesser known tales or variants such as those found in volumes edited by Angela Carter and Jane Yolen depict mothers in a more positive light. Carter's protagonist in The Bloody Chamber is an impoverished piano student married to a Marquis who was much older than herself to "banish
15876-572: The power and might of the immortal gods", indicating they were involved with not only such common aspects of religion as theology and cosmology , but also astronomy . Caesar held that they were "administrators" during rituals of human sacrifice , for which criminals were usually used, and that the method was by burning in a wicker man . Though he had first-hand experience of Gaulish people, and therefore likely druids, Caesar's account has been widely criticized by modern historians as inaccurate. One issue raised by such historians as Fustel de Coulanges
16023-530: The presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves , goblins , trolls , giants, huge monsters, or mermaids) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp , in his Morphology of the Folktale , criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as
16170-435: The presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales. Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre. From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives. In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of
16317-509: The progression of Etain into the mortal realm and her pursuit and redemption by Midir have similarities with the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice . In this work, completed in December of 1913, Boughton combined Wagnerian approaches to musical themes and symbolism with a folk -like modal approach to the music itself, reflective of the Celtic origins of the tale, which is based on the Irish story Tochmarc Étaíne . The Immortal Hour
16464-462: The quote "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales." The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney 's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market. The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on
16611-507: The region of the Belgae chiefdom. The excavator of these sites- Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in devotion to a war god, although this conclusion was criticized by another archaeologist- Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors who were buried in the sanctuary, rather than sacrifices. Some historians have questioned whether
16758-533: The role of druids in Gallic society, stating that the druids were held in such respect that if they intervened between two armies they could stop the battle. Diodorus writes of the Druids that they were "philosophers" and "men learned in religious affairs" who are honored. Strabo mentions that their domain was both natural philosophy and moral philosophy , while Ammianus Marcellinus lists them as investigators of "obscure and profound subjects". Pomponius Mela
16905-463: The role of druids in Gaulish society may report an idealized tradition, based on the society of the 2nd century BC, before the pan-Gallic confederation led by the Arverni was smashed in 121 BC, followed by the invasions of Teutones and Cimbri , rather than on the demoralized and disunited Gaul of his own time. John Creighton has speculated that in Britain, the druidic social influence
17052-495: The same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician's variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. [...] Every archetype
17199-445: The simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity. Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results. Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty , as
17346-431: The spectre of poverty". The story is a variant on Bluebeard , a tale about a wealthy man who murders numerous young women. Carter's protagonist, who is unnamed, describes her mother as "eagle-featured" and "indomitable". Her mother is depicted as a woman who is prepared for violence, instead of hiding from it or sacrificing herself to it. The protagonist recalls how her mother kept an "antique service revolver" and once "shot
17493-455: The spirit of Ireland itself, chanting a powerful incantation that has come to be known as The Song of Amergin and, eventually (after successfully making landfall), aiding and dividing the land between his royal brothers in the conquest of Ireland, earning the title Chief Ollam of Ireland . Other such mythological druids were Tadg mac Nuadat of the Fenian Cycle , and Mug Ruith , a powerful blind druid of Munster . Irish mythology has
17640-723: The spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference. Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs , comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle , noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle ,
17787-516: The stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form. Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands. The literary fairy tale came into fashion during the 17th century, developed by aristocratic women as a parlour game. This, in turn, helped to maintain the oral tradition. According to Jack Zipes , "The subject matter of
17934-409: The storm but from fear of the Faery folk, whom they avoid talking of or even naming. When Eochaidh appears and asks for shelter, they are terrified, especially as he has been out in the storm but is not even damp! He assures them he is mortal just like them, but then sees Etain and forgets everything else. Etain and Eochaidh sing a love duet, interrupted by a mocking laugh from outside. Etain tells him it
18081-456: The story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin , with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter. Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is
18228-443: The tale through use of the erotic, explicit sexuality, dark and/or comic themes, female empowerment, fetish and BDSM , multicultural, and heterosexual characters. Cleis Press has released several fairy tale-themed erotic anthologies, including Fairy Tale Lust , Lustfully Ever After , and A Princess Bound . It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but
18375-469: The tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work. Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of " Bluebeard "
18522-403: The tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children. Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child. Among the late précieuses , Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that
18669-569: The term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale ; it is used especially to describe any story that not only not true, but also could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real within their culture; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics , fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place " once upon
18816-456: The term from the Irish, as had the English (who used the terms dry and drycraeft to refer to magicians and magic respectively, most probably influenced by the Irish terms). As the historian Jane Webster stated, "individual druids ... are unlikely to be identified archaeologically". A. P. Fitzpatrick, in examining what he believed to be astral symbolism on late Iron Age swords, has expressed difficulties in relating any material culture, even
18963-530: The tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales. MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess , and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith . Two theories of origins have attempted to explain
19110-444: The twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers . Subsequent Greek and Roman texts from the 3rd century BCE refer to " barbarian philosophers", possibly in reference to the Gaulish druids. The earliest extant text that describes druids in detail is Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico , book VI, written in the 50s or 40s BCE. A general who was intent on conquering Gaul and Britain, Caesar described
19257-479: The two most important social groups in the region (alongside the equites , or nobles) and were responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure in Gallic, British, and Irish societies. He wrote that they were exempt from military service and from paying taxes , and had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals, making them social outcasts. Two other classical writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo , wrote about
19404-531: The veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables . Prevalent elements include dragons , dwarfs , elves , fairies , giants , gnomes , goblins , griffins , merfolk , monsters , monarchy , pixies , talking animals , trolls , unicorns , witches , wizards , magic , and enchantments . In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending ) or "fairy-tale romance ". Colloquially,
19551-401: The way his limbs convulse as he falls and the gushing of his blood, they are able to read the future. Archaeological evidence from western Europe has been widely used to support the theory that Iron Age Celts practiced human sacrifice. Mass graves that were found in a ritual context, which date from this period, have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre in
19698-417: The witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch. On the other hand, in many respects, violence—particularly when punishing villains—was increased. Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in
19845-632: The woodland goddess Flidais , and sometimes described as a sorceress rather than a bandruí) features in a tale from the Metrical Dindshenchas , where she joins three other of the Tuatha Dé to defeat the evil Greek witch Carman . Other bandrúi include Relbeo– a Nemedian druid who appears in The Book of Invasions , where she is described as the daughter of the king of Greece, and the mother of Fergus Lethderg and Alma One-Tooth. Dornoll
19992-476: The woods, who recognise him as an outcast, feared even by the gods themselves. He ripostes that he is the instrument of powers beyond even the gods, and bids the voices be silent. A woman's voice is heard and Etain enters the clearing, looking bewildered and singing about the wonderful place she came from, where death is only a "drifting shadow" and where the Faery folk - the Shee - hold court. She resolves to return but
20139-549: The world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series . They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang. Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued
20286-463: Was a bandrúi in Scotland, who normally trained heroes in warfare, particularly Laegaire and Conall ; she was the daughter of Domnall Mildemail. According to classical authors, the Gallizenae (or Gallisenae) were virgin priestesses of the Île de Sein off Pointe du Raz, Finistère , western Brittany . Their existence was first mentioned by the Greek geographer Artemidorus Ephesius and later by
20433-503: Was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as
20580-420: Was already in decline by the mid-1st century BCE, in conflict with emergent new power structures embodied in paramount chieftains. Other scholars see the Roman conquest itself as the main reason for the decline of the druid orders. Archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green (2010) asserted that Caesar offered both "our richest textual source" regarding the druids, and "one of the most reliable". She defended
20727-550: Was an owl. As they sit together, the faint voices of the Faeries can be heard singing. A year has passed in Eochaidh's court, and he has called a celebration for the anniversary of his winning of Etain. Choruses of druids , maidens, bards and warriors sing and raise toasts to the royal couple. In the middle of this, Etain announces that she is weary and has been troubled by strange dreams. She bids them goodnight. Eochaidh admits that he too has had unsettling dreams, in which he saw
20874-403: Was expanded upon by Strabo , writing in the 20s CE, who declared that amongst the Gauls, there were three types of honoured figures: The Roman writer Tacitus , who was himself a senator and historian, described how when the Roman army, led by Suetonius Paulinus , attacked the island of Mona ( Anglesey ; Welsh : Ynys Môn ), the legionaries were awestruck on landing, by the appearance of
21021-540: Was first performed in Glastonbury on 26 August 1914, at the inaugural Glastonbury Festival which Boughton co-founded. Boughton himself sang Dalua, replacing a singer who had fallen sick. In 1921, Penelope Spencer was engaged by Boughton to stage dances and choruses for the Glastonbury Festival, some of which he incorporated into this opera. It was first performed with orchestra (as against piano) at
21168-567: Was that while Caesar described the druids as a significant power within Gaulish society, he did not mention them even once in his accounts of his Gaulish conquests. Nor did Aulus Hirtius , who continued Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars after Caesar's death. Hutton believed that Caesar had manipulated the idea of the druids so they would appear both civilized (being learned and pious) and barbaric (performing human sacrifice) to Roman readers, thereby representing both "a society worth including in
21315-422: Was the burning alive of victims in a large wooden effigy , now often known as a wicker man . A differing account came from the 10th-century Commenta Bernensia , which stated that sacrifices to the deities Teutates , Esus , and Taranis were by drowning, hanging, and burning, respectively (see threefold death ). Diodorus Siculus asserts that a sacrifice acceptable to the Celtic gods had to be attended by
21462-465: Was the first author to say that the druids' instruction was secret and took place in caves and forests. Cicero said that he knew a Gaulish druid who "claimed to have that knowledge of nature which the Greeks call physiologia, and he used to make predictions, sometimes by means of augury and sometimes by means of conjecture". Druidic lore consisted of a large number of memorized verses, and Caesar remarked that it could take up to twenty years to complete
21609-414: Was thus rejected, and the tale of Little Briar Rose , clearly related to Perrault's " Sleeping Beauty ", was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr , from much earlier Norse mythology , proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore. This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of
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