You are confused. I am pointing out that preservation of written accounts is not a constant; not everything is deemed equally valuable and not everything is agreeable to those with the resources to do that preservation.
The folklore we have is a) very late (e.g. Grimms is 1821) b) from fairly narrow areas. We have very few sources that date any time back to when there was still heavy feudal aspects.
Um. Really? Because Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden would like a word with you.
am pointing out that preservation of written accounts is not a constant; not everything is deemed equally valuable and not everything is agreeable to those with the resources to do that preservation.
Ah, yes, I see. Ok. I understand the point.
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden would like a word with yo
The point was, and maybe I wasn’t being clear, we don’t have much in the way of folklore type sources that were written in the feudal era. Is this wrong?
The point was, and maybe I wasn’t being clear, we don’t have much in the way of folklore type sources that were written in the feudal era. Is this wrong?
The earliest surviving written European folktale (excluding epics, semi-historical stories, and anything Greco-Roman) that I can think of off the top of my head is Le Roman de Renart, an early Reynard story written in the late 12th century. The Codex Regius, the oldest source for the Elder Edda, was written down a century or so later but is generally thought to represent folklore and mythology from an earlier point (though it’s difficult to judge how much is legit and how much is interpolation). There’s several others of slightly later vintage.
However, people only started aggressively collecting and reinterpreting European folklore in the 17th century or so, which is why pretty much all traditional European folktales that still get told passed through the likes of Perrault (a revisionist writer) or the Grimms (a bit more on the ethnographic side).
The short version is that we’ve got a few, but they’re pretty rare.
You are confused. I am pointing out that preservation of written accounts is not a constant; not everything is deemed equally valuable and not everything is agreeable to those with the resources to do that preservation.
Um. Really? Because Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden would like a word with you.
Ah, yes, I see. Ok. I understand the point.
The point was, and maybe I wasn’t being clear, we don’t have much in the way of folklore type sources that were written in the feudal era. Is this wrong?
The earliest surviving written European folktale (excluding epics, semi-historical stories, and anything Greco-Roman) that I can think of off the top of my head is Le Roman de Renart, an early Reynard story written in the late 12th century. The Codex Regius, the oldest source for the Elder Edda, was written down a century or so later but is generally thought to represent folklore and mythology from an earlier point (though it’s difficult to judge how much is legit and how much is interpolation). There’s several others of slightly later vintage.
However, people only started aggressively collecting and reinterpreting European folklore in the 17th century or so, which is why pretty much all traditional European folktales that still get told passed through the likes of Perrault (a revisionist writer) or the Grimms (a bit more on the ethnographic side).
The short version is that we’ve got a few, but they’re pretty rare.
That’s pretty close to my understanding then: We have isolated stuff, but no systematic or large scale collections until after the feudal period.