2,99 €
inkl. MwSt.
Sofort per Download lieferbar
  • Format: ePub

The tales included in this volume, though told in modern speech, relate to heroes and adventures of an ancient time, and contain elements peculiar to early ages of story-telling. The chief actors in most of them are represented as men; but we may be quite sure that these men are substitutes for heroes who were not considered human when the stories were told to Keltic audiences originally. To make the position of these Gaelic tales clear, it is best to explain, first of all, what an ancient tale is; and to do this we must turn to uncivilized men who possess such tales yet in their primitive…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
The tales included in this volume, though told in modern speech, relate to heroes and adventures of an ancient time, and contain elements peculiar to early ages of story-telling. The chief actors in most of them are represented as men; but we may be quite sure that these men are substitutes for heroes who were not considered human when the stories were told to Keltic audiences originally. To make the position of these Gaelic tales clear, it is best to explain, first of all, what an ancient tale is; and to do this we must turn to uncivilized men who possess such tales yet in their primitive integrity.
We have now in North America a number of groups of tales obtained from the Indians which, when considered together, illustrate and supplement one another; they constitute, in fact, a whole system. These tales we may describe as forming collectively the Creation myth of the New World. Since the primitive tribes of North America have not emerged yet from the Stone Age of development, their tales are complete and in good preservation. In some cases simple and transparent, it is not difficult to recognize the heroes; they are distinguishable at once either by their names or their actions or
both.
Autorenporträt
Jeremiah Curtin was an American ethnographer, folklorist, and translator. Curtin had a strong interest in languages and was fluent in numerous. From 1883 until 1891, he worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology as a field researcher, chronicling the practices and mythology of different Native American tribes. He and his wife, Alma Cardell Curtin, traveled widely, gathering ethnological data from the Modocs of the Pacific Northwest to the Buryats of Siberia. They toured Ireland numerous times, including the Aran Islands, and collected folklore in southwest Munster and other Gaelic-speaking regions with the help of translators. Curtin gathered one of the first accurate collections of Irish folklore and was a valuable resource for W. B. Yeats. Curtin was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Irish parents. He grew up on the family farm in what is now Greendale, Wisconsin, and went on to Harvard College, against his parents' intention for him to attend a Catholic college. While there, he studied with folklorist Francis James Child. Curtin graduated from Harvard in 1863. Curtin subsequently relocated to New York, where he studied law and worked for the United States Sanitary Commission, interpreting and teaching German.