Ceallaigh's Blog
Hello, and welcome to the November 2021 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. In this edition, I'll be exploring ATU 450 "Little Brother and Little Sister." Let's begin with a Child Ballad for which there is no associated tune, titled "The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea." Please note that there are spelling variations in Francis James Child's original text, and there is a line missing as well, which I have preserved below.
Here are the folklore-related memes I published to social media in October 2021.
Hello, and welcome to the October 2021 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. In this edition, I'll be exploring ATU 113B "The Cat as Sham Holy Man." Let's begin with a Syrian fable about the king of mice, the king of cats, and a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Here are the folklore-related memes I published to social media in September 2021.
Happy book birthday to Rhonda Parrish and all the contributors to G is for Ghosts! I'm very proud of my own contribution, titled "Metal Crow and Ghost Crow," a near-future fable about souls and what it means to have one.
Hello, and welcome to the September 2021 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. In this edition, I'll be exploring ATU 2014 "Chains Involving Contradictions or Extremes." Let's begin with a Palestinian story that tells us right in the title where it fits among folklore genres and contains a treasure chest of narrative jewels to admire.
Here are the folklore-related memes I published to social media in August 2021.
Hello, and welcome to the August 2021 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. In this edition, I'll be exploring ATU 1284 "Person Does Not Know Himself" by way of an Irish story entitled "Seán na Scuab" and ATU 1326 "Moving the Church" by way of a German story by the same name. Both tale types feature short, humorous anecdotes about fools, and they form the foundation of this month's broader folkloristic discussion of comedic narrative.
"Seán na Scuab"
Long ago there was a poor man living in Buffickle, west in Béara. He was married. He made his living by making brushes and selling them in Cork a few times a year.
Here are the folklore-related memes I published to social media in July 2021.
Myths, legends, fairy tales, and fables are distinct folk narrative types with specific characteristics, but the terms are often conflated in common usage, and the genres themselves are sometimes muddied in contemporary storytelling. Many writers and readers also believe they are inflexible categories of established tales, when in reality they are dynamic tools we can use to weave familiar narrative patterns into new tales.
