Английская Википедия:Bear's Son Tale

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates "Bear's Son Tale" (Шаблон:Lang-de)[1] refers to an analogous group of narratives that, according to Шаблон:Illm's 1910 thesis, represent the fairy tale material reworked to create the Anglo-Saxon poem BeowulfШаблон:'s first part, the Grendel-kin Story. Panzer collected over 200 analogue tales mostly from Eurasia.Шаблон:Sfnp Others have added more examples from worldwide.

The Bear's Son motif (B635.1) is exhibited only generally, not reliably.[2] Exceptions include versions of "Jean de l'Ours",[3] and the Grimms' fairy tale "Strong Hans" or "Шаблон:Illm". Beowulf does not explicitly reveal a bear origin for its hero, but his name and great strength connect him to the animal closely.

Most of the tales are formally catalogued as either Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale type 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses"Шаблон:RefnШаблон:Efn or ATU type 650A, "Strong John" or "Starker Hans".[4][5] Their plotlines are similar, with some differences;[4] in the latter, the hero is subjected to tests by ordeal.[5]

"Bear's Son Tale" has thus become only an informal term for tale type classification in folkloristics, but scholars in Beowulf criticism continue to assert the usefulness of the term in their studies.[6][7]

Core characteristics

Studies comparing the poem Beowulf to the Bear's Son Tale see these common core characteristics: a hero is raised by or descended from a bear, with bear-like strength. He and companions must guard a dwelling against a monster (which Panzer calls "Der Dämon im Waldhaus"Шаблон:Sfnp). The companions are defeated, but the hero wounds the creature, sending him to flight. In pursuit, the hero descends into a netherworld or underground domain. The hero often has a second round of adversaries.Шаблон:Sfnp

Other common elements are a captive princess, betrayal by a close friend or ally of the hero, and magical weapons.Шаблон:Sfnp[8] Some of these elements are paralleled in the Grendel story in Beowulf, others are not.

Parallel elements

Some of the traits in the Bear's Son Tale regarded as being paralleled in Beowulf will be explained further below.

Betrayal

The betrayal element (F601.3Шаблон:Sfnp) transpires in the fairy tale version (see Jean de l'Ours) as follows: After the hero descends to the world underground and rescues the princess, he is betrayed by his companions, who instead of pulling him up by a rope, either cut it or release it so he falls to the bottom.[9]Шаблон:Sfnp The parallel to this in Beowulf, (according to Panzer and Chambers) is that after seeing blood come up from Grendel's mere (lake), the Danes only wait until nones (3 PM) in the afternoon, and then they abandon the hero at the lake.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Magic weapon

The hero in the Bear's Son Tale may have a magic sword (motif D1081,Шаблон:Sfnp usually found in Type 301A) or a walking-stick (Type 301B).Шаблон:Refn The magic sword in Beowulf is supposedly represented by the sword of the "ancient giants' sword" (ealdsweord eotenisc) that Beowulf discovered in Grendel's mother's lair.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Elements lacking in Beowulf

Some significant elements of the folktale missing in Beowulf (listed by Chambers) are: the captive Шаблон:Not a typo, one of whom he marries, the hero's rescue by a "miraculous helper", his return to the Upper World under an assumed identity, and his retribution against his treacherous companions.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Princess

The princess or three princesses to be rescued are lacking in Beowulf,Шаблон:Efn but this absence has been rationalized by W. W. Lawrence, who theorized that romantic love elements are superfluous and out-of-place in historical epics and had to be truncated.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Elements in Beowulf not in folktale

Among elements considered vital to the epic are the loss of the ogre/demon's arm, and the trail of blood which leads the hero to the demon's lair (Шаблон:Harvp, cited by Шаблон:Harvp). These are not paralleled in any obvious way in the Bear's Son Tale.[10]

Grendel's severed arm

Regarding Beowulf wrenching Grendel's arm off, Robert A. Barakat stated that no counterpart was to be found in the Bear' Son Tale of "Juan del Oso" (Spanish version of Jean de l'Ours).Шаблон:EfnШаблон:Sfnp This was because there was no mention of "actual physical damage [Juan] inflicted" on the devil during the barehanded wrestling phase. However, Juan did cut off one of the devil's ears afterwards with his weapon.[11]

For a folktale analogue to Grendel's severed arm, commentators have looked on Celtic (Irish) tale of "The Hand and Child" type. The parallel had been recognized already in the 19th century by several writers,Шаблон:EfnШаблон:Sfnp but Carl Wilhelm von Sydow is generally credited with developing the analysis which took notice.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Trail of blood

Beowulf determines Grendel's lair by following a trail of blood. Although this is not specifically mirrored in the Bear's Son Tale, the hero is able to track the adversary to a hole in the ground (or a well), and a trail of blood has been speculated.Шаблон:EfnШаблон:Sfnp Chambers found that an Icelandic Bear's Son Tale, "Bjarndrengur" ("Bear-boy") parallels this exactly, and Bear-boy and his companions follow the blood-trail of the giant who had been grabbed by the beard but who has torn away.Шаблон:EfnШаблон:Sfnp

History and reception

Шаблон:Illm's monumental study, Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte, Part I: Beowulf, sought to prove that Beowulf was an eighth century Anglo-Saxon reworking of the "Bear's son" motif, which has been present since antiquity and widely disseminated.Шаблон:Sfnp[12] Later, the Panzer hypothesis on Beowulf was supported by W. W. Lawrence and R. W. Chambers, who elucidated and expanded on it.Шаблон:Sfnp

John F. Vickrey, who took up the thesis in 2009, wrote that there were very few studies focusing on folklore origins of Beowulf for 40 years as of his writing.Шаблон:EfnШаблон:Sfnp

J. R. R. Tolkien was very interested in the idea of the bear-son folktale underlying Beowulf,[13] and pointed to several minor but illuminating characteristics supporting the assumption: Beowulf's uncouthness and appetite, the strength of his grip, and his refusal to use weapons against Grendel.[14] He also saw Unferth as a link between folktale and legend, his (covert) roles as smith and treacherous friend standing behind his gift to Beowulf of the "hafted blade" that fails.[15]

Critics of Panzer's thesis have argued however that many of the incidents he sees as specific to the Bear's Son Story are in fact generic folktale elements; and that a closer analogue to Beowulf is to be found in Celtic mythology and the story of the 'Monstrous Arm'.Шаблон:Sfnp

Tale group

Panzer lists some 202 examples of Bear's Son Tales in his study,Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Refn

The "Strong John" subgroup includes more than 400 tales counted in the Baltic-Scandinavia area. The tale remained current in French Canada, but its original may no longer survive in France.Шаблон:Sfnp

North American examples

Panzer's list did not include any North American examples, but "Bear's son" tales have been known to have disseminated to native North American populations, and these are considered to have European origins, an example being the Assiniboine story published as "The Underground Journey" by Robert H. Lowie in 1909.[16][17][18]

Other literary examples

There are several other literary examples perceived as being related to Bear's Son Tales.

One example regarded as particularly important to the Beowulf study is the bear-hero Böðvar Bjarki who appears as a companion to Hrólf Kraki in the legendary saga Hrólfs saga kraka.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Another literary incident is in the Grettis saga, or the saga of Grettir the Strong.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Also, there have been attempts to associate King Arthur with the bear, and thus with the Bear's Son Tales. An attempt to make the connection by asserting Arthur's name as based on the root arth- meaning "bear" in Welsh has been refuted.[19] Therefore, a more elaborate explanation has been advanced, which postulates Arthur's prototype to be the mythological Arcturus "guardian of the bear" of constellation lore.Шаблон:Sfnp[20]

Odysseus[19] in the cave of Polyphemus has also been related to the theme.

Psychoanalytic interpretations

For psychoanalysis, the bear-parents represent the parents seen in their animal (sexual) guise[21] – the bear as the dark, bestial aspect of the parental archetype.[22] Their offspring, represented by Tolkien in Sellic Spell as "a surly, lumpish boy...slow to learn the speech of the land",[23] is the undersocialised child. And in the underground struggle, Géza Róheim argued, we find a representation of the primal scene, as encapsulated in the infantile unconscious.[24]

See also

Шаблон:Columns-list

Notes

Шаблон:Notelist

References

Citations

Шаблон:Reflist

References

Шаблон:Refbegin

Шаблон:Refend

Further reading

  • Barakat, Robert A. "The Bear's Son Tale in Northern Mexico." I: The Journal of American Folklore 78, no. 310 (1965): 330-36. doi:10.2307/538440.
  • Rhys Carpenter, Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in Homeric Epics (Cambridge 1946)
  • Ting, Nai-tung. "AT Type 301 in China and Some Countries Adjacent to China: A Study of a Regional Group and its Significance in World Tradition". In: Fabula 11, Jahresband (1970): 54-125, doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.54

  1. Шаблон:Harvp uses "Bear's Son Tale" and give German equivalent "das Märchen vom Bärensohn"
  2. Шаблон:Harvp, p. 4, note 9: "typically if not always of part bear parentage or raised by bears".
  3. Шаблон:Harvp, referring to his No. 65 and 69, Brittany versions of Jean de l'Ours edited by Sebillot
  4. 4,0 4,1 Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег <ref>; для сносок klaeber не указан текст
  5. 5,0 5,1 Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег <ref>; для сносок bierhorst не указан текст
  6. Шаблон:Harvp: "While more recent folklorists prefer to call this folktale 'The Three Stolen Princesses', classified by Aarne as Type 301, it would seem more appropriate in a consideration involving analogy and parallelism with Beowulf to use the name 'The Bear's Son', employed by Panzer and other[s].
  7. Шаблон:Harvp: "I shall continue to use the term Bear's Son for the folktale in question; it is established in Beowulf criticism and certainly Stitt has justified its retention".
  8. Róheim, Géza (1992), Fire in the Dragon, p. 72
  9. Шаблон:Harvp, Der Starke Hans example; p. 378, Jean de l'Ours example.
  10. Шаблон:Harvp, pp. and 8.
  11. Шаблон:Harvp, with "iron weapon"; p. 8, with machete.
  12. Шаблон:Harvp: "patterns found in numerous folktales.. parallel many of the lives found in heroic legends, including those of Beowulf.."
  13. John D. Rateliff, Mr Baggins (London 2007) p. 256
  14. C. Tolkien ed, J. R. R. Tolkien: Beowulf (London 2015) p. 206-7, p. 241-2 and p. 235
  15. C. Tolkien ed, J. R. R. Tolkien: Beowulf (London 2015) p. 208-11, and p. 381
  16. Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег <ref>; для сносок boas не указан текст
  17. Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег <ref>; для сносок thompson-euro-northamerican не указан текст
  18. Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег <ref>; для сносок espinosa не указан текст
  19. 19,0 19,1 Шаблон:Citation
  20. Шаблон:Citation
  21. M. Wolfenstein, Children's Humour (1954) p. 151-6
  22. Jung, Carl (1990), The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, London, p. 195
  23. Tolkien, Christopher, ed. (2015), J. R. R. Tolkien: Beowulf, London, p. 360
  24. Róheim, Géza (1992), Fire in the Dragon, p. 71