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I guess you mean alternate proposals for the origin/dating of various tales. The cell.com article says: "Fourteen of the 76 tales, including Beauty and the Be

I guess you mean alternate proposals for the origin/dating of various tales. The cell.com article says: "Fourteen of the 76 tales, including Beauty and the Beast, were assigned a 50% or greater chance of having been present in the common ancestor of the entire western branch of the Indo-European languages. This group includes all of the Celtic, Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages, and might have originated between around 6,800 years ago" This makes no sense as Beauty and the Beast is known to be literary in origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast I have been following the work of Finnish folklorist and professor emerita Satu Apo, who has recently released a 400 page tome on the history of fairy tales. I have to get my hands on it as it apparently includes a section called "The rise or belly landing of phylogenetic fairy tale research?". I can translate some bits from the press release: https://www.epressi.com/tiedotteet/tiede-ja-tutkimus/mista-sadut-tulevat-uutuuskirja-selvittaa-tuttujen-prinsessasatujen-alkuperan.html https://www.epressi.com/tiedotteet/tiede-ja-tutkimus/mista-s... The oldest known variant of Cinderella is fantasy literature from 9th century China ("Ye Xian"). Sleeping Beauty comes from Perrault's Tales of Mother Goose (17th century). Snow White ("Richilde") comes from Johann Musäus's Volksmärchen der Deutschen (18th century).

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danaris 8y ago
Beauty and the Beast I'm skeptical about, but have no particular way to refute. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were compiled in those works, not originally created there. Hell, "Volksmärchen" means "folk fairy tales." The very name tells you that Musäus didn't claim them as original creations, he was writing down what people had been telling each other for centuries orally.
- buovjaga 8y ago
  Well, that is the heart of the debate. Folklorists like Satu Apo are pretty convinced these particular tales are literary creations, not compilations of oral tradition. Perrault's Sleeping Beauty was actually a retelling of this literary fairy tale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun,_Moon,_and_Talia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun,_Moon,_and_Talia
  - danaris 8y ago
    But if you follow the link to the Wikipedia page for the Pentamerone, the collection in which Sun, Moon, and Talia appears, you get this: > The stories in the Pentamerone were collected by Basile and published posthumously It's clear, once again, that while he may have embellished them for publication, he was not creating them out of whole cloth, but collecting them from folk tales in his area.
    - buovjaga 8y ago
      It is far from clear, which is why I am pointing out that some folklorists think it does not come from folk tradition. Regarding Basile, see long argument starting from page 75 in this book: http://www.academia.edu/19594654/A_FAIRY_TALE_NEW_HISTORY_Ruth_Bottingheimer http://www.academia.edu/19594654/A_FAIRY_TALE_NEW_HISTORY_Ru... Chapter 4: The Two Inventors of Fairy Tale Tradition Giambattista Basile (1634–1636) and Giovan Francesco Straparola (1551, 1553)

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danaris 8y ago

Beauty and the Beast I'm skeptical about, but have no particular way to refute. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were compiled in those works, not originally created there. Hell, "Volksmärchen" means "folk fairy tales." The very name tells you that Musäus didn't claim them as original creations, he was writing down what people had been telling each other for centuries orally.

buovjaga 8y ago
Well, that is the heart of the debate. Folklorists like Satu Apo are pretty convinced these particular tales are literary creations, not compilations of oral tradition. Perrault's Sleeping Beauty was actually a retelling of this literary fairy tale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun,_Moon,_and_Talia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun,_Moon,_and_Talia
- danaris 8y ago
  But if you follow the link to the Wikipedia page for the Pentamerone, the collection in which Sun, Moon, and Talia appears, you get this: > The stories in the Pentamerone were collected by Basile and published posthumously It's clear, once again, that while he may have embellished them for publication, he was not creating them out of whole cloth, but collecting them from folk tales in his area.
  - buovjaga 8y ago
    It is far from clear, which is why I am pointing out that some folklorists think it does not come from folk tradition. Regarding Basile, see long argument starting from page 75 in this book: http://www.academia.edu/19594654/A_FAIRY_TALE_NEW_HISTORY_Ruth_Bottingheimer http://www.academia.edu/19594654/A_FAIRY_TALE_NEW_HISTORY_Ru... Chapter 4: The Two Inventors of Fairy Tale Tradition Giambattista Basile (1634–1636) and Giovan Francesco Straparola (1551, 1553)