Folk Tales of Old Europe
Be transported from the limestone caves of Slovenia to the coast of Norway, and from French salt pans to a village in Poland. John Weeks retells nine folk tales, each one set in a different country of Europe. They introduce the reader to an Irish weaver, to Scottish fishermen and to a Jewish dealer in violins. The stories share the familiar narrative features of folk tales all over the world – quests undertaken, wicked plots thwarted, mysteries revealed and kindness rewarded. Many of the familiar characters are there – trolls, an ogre and a cheating miller. But have you ever wondered what the characters in folk tales ate and drank? When not adventuring what work did they do to support themselves? What did they believe? As they journeyed what sort of landscapes did they cross? In his retellings John Weeks answers some of those questions. Each tale is grounded in a real landscape, with the features and the creatures distinctive to it. Something of the culture of each country is shown, so the reader will encounter the rivalries of tribal chiefs, piracy preying upon merchant shipping, and the poverty of feudal peasantry. Local ways of life are depicted, showing, for example, trade in amber, peat cutting and salt production. The tales are peopled by folk who embrace Christianity, by Jewish people and by those who acknowledge pagan spirits and Celtic deities. In notes to each of the tales the author briefly explains details, where necessary, and he refers to the sources, both literary and oral, which lie behind the stories. The result is a collection of tales richly contextualised to present a picture of Europe not in one era, but in an unspecified, distant past, a Europe at a time before modernity dulled the sparkle of its magic.
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