fairy tale

[TheBadger]

Hello.

I was wondering if you guys would mind to post the names of, and a link to, a fairy tail from your childhood.

I am looking for childrens stories that are unique to the cultural identity of the nations and cultures they originate from.
So someone from Japan should not submit "little red riding hood"

In particular I am interested in a visual description of the stories. Where the illustrations are of an aesthetic that authentically represents the culture the story originates from.... So a story that comes from 17-18th century Europe should not look like a Disney production.

Basically images and words from stories from your homelands, that were meant for children.

Thank you in advance!

[rcallicotte]

Tall order.  Not sure I have time to research.  Great idea, though.

[pokoy]

Great idea!

I grew up in Poland and there's the myth (and several tales) of Babajaga, an old witch with questionable intentions It's basically the same that we know from Disney but the original has some interesting aspects that I haven't seen covered by the western entertainment industry (yet).
The visuals for this myth are mostly quite frightening for kids but there are some nice images on google, the hut standing on a chicken leg for example is something you probably haven't seen yet.

Look it up on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga.

[TheBadger]

Thanks Pokoy!

I have heard of Babajaga from my wife who is from Russia. I even saw a movie with this character and the house you mentioned but I had forgotten all about her. And I did not know that she existed in so may different cultural manifestations. I never would have guessed that she was told in Germany too. Now I will have to investigate her origins.

This Image you found is very interesting for a lot of reasons!
[attach=1]

What I have found, and this image represents very well, is that there are certain ideas and images that seem to transcend all cultures and borders and oceans. In this case, mushrooms. I have found mushrooms to be a part of all folklore on the planet! The mushroom is either a direct part of at least one story, or is used as a image in a least on image created for a story from every place on earth, nearly.
In many russian stories a mushroom can walk and talk and has magical powers. In native American stories mushrooms make people walk and talk funny by their magial powers 

I hope to identify more visuals like the mushroom, that are present in nearly all cultural story traditions from around the world. I have been working on a story where there are lots of mushrooms as you may have seen in another thread. But I would like more ideas and visuals to add to the world I am making to help the story become more visually familiar to all potential audiences.

Thanks for helping!

[pokoy]

Totally missed the mushrooms, they're too obvious... What's interesting is that it's really the magic mushroom, need to investigate a bit more about my culture 

I agree about the same ideas/roots being spread all over the world. Another thing that's known to every archaic culture is the idea of the Tree of Life. It's one of the basic ideas in all native cultures (Russia, China, America) and has found its place in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic culture as the biblical Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, very interesting... Most Shaman stories involve the Tree of Life as a part of the Shaman initiation ritual as a connection between our world and the world of ghost.

It just shows how connected we are and that instead of pointing out how different we are (especially nowadays) we could just as well start to understand that we're all the same people.

Thanks for the interesting topic idea!

...now back to rendering!