The Dragon Daughter And Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales

"Although the influence of the Brothers Grimm on folklore in virtually every country in the West has been widely studied, a similar development in the early part of twentieth-century China is virtually unknown. This book collects and translates more than 40 tales selected from the "Lin Lan" series, published in China from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. The pseudonym "Lin Lan" was created in 1924, when a group of three literary stories about the legendary Xu Wenchang (1521-1593), himself the author of many literary works still popular today, were published in a morning newspaper. The success of this first attempt encouraged the creators to publish more folk tales and fairy tales, which ultimately played a major role in the development of modern folk literature in China. The series, written and developed by a Shanghai publisher under the pen name Lin Lan, was divided into three subgenres-minjian chuanshuo (folk legends/tales), minjian tonghua (folk fairy tales), and minjian qushi (comic folk tales)-published in 43 volumes containing nearly one thousand tales in all. The tales were collected the tales from oral storytellers throughout China in response to a call from the publisher, and combined elements of European fairy-tale literature with traditional Chinese narratives"--

A delightful collection of modern Chinese tales The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales brings together forty-two magical Chinese tales, most appearing for the first time in English. These stories have been carefully selected from more than a thousand originally published in the early twentieth century under the pseudonyms Lin Lan and Lady Lin Lan—previously unknown in the West, and now acclaimed as the Brothers Grimm of China. The birth of the tales began in 1924, when one author, Li Xiaofeng, published a set of literary stories under the Lin Lan pen name, an alias that would eventually be shared by an editorial team. Together, this group gathered fairy tales (tonghua) from rural regions across China. Combining traditional oral Chinese narratives with elements from the West, the selections in this collection represent different themes and genres—from folk legends to comic tales. Characters fall for fairies, experience predestined love, and have love/hate relationships with siblings. Garden snails and snakes transform into cooking girls, and dragon daughters construct houses. An introduction offers historical and social context for understanding the role that the Lin Lan stories played in modern China. Appendixes include information on tale types and biographies of the writers and contributors. The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales is a captivating testament to the power of storytelling.

This book presents a unique collection of fairy tales from contemporary China, translated into English for the first time. Demonstrating the continuity of oral tradition throughout Chinese history, the thirty tales are selected according to the theme of magic love. Many readers are familiar with European tales of love and family, but these Chinese tales have a very different emphasis. The structural differences are also striking: there are more tales with tragic endings, instead of the familiar happily ever after, and often more tale types in one tale. They are fascinating to read and challenging in terms of both morphology and cultural symbolism. Unlike many collections of fairy tales, this book provides contextual information on the tellers, collectors, and time and location of collection, along with an introduction to the Chinese social and cultural background, and folkloristic approaches to fairy tale studies.

"The French folklorist and Breton-language poet François-Marie Luzel (1826-1895) published several volumes of Breton tales that he collected in Brittany and translated into French. Unlike many nineteenth-century folklorists, including the Brothers Grimm, who relied on correspondents to conduct much of their scholarly research, Luzel and his sister Perrine transcribed nearly all of the tales they collected by spending many winter nights at Breton veillees, social gatherings that took place in houses and cottages throughout Brittany during the winter months of darkness, where communities of family and neighbors would come together to tell traditional stories and share news, gossip, and songs. The folklorist Michael Wilson has translated 29 of Luzel's French tales into English for this volume. Many of these tales have never appeared in English; others have not been translated into English for nearly a century. The tales are organized into a series of five veillees to capture the full context of the tales' original performance at these gatherings. Introductory material provides historical and literary context about Luzel, his surprisingly modern approach to collecting and publishing folk tales, and the Breton culture he worked throughout his life to preserve"--

This volume examines East and Southeast Asian folktales unfamiliar to most Western audiences and highlights similarities to and differences from Western folktales. The discussion includes folktales from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, China, Japan, and Korea.

Through a historical survey and analyses of oral traditions like fairy tales, proverbs, and ballads, among others, that are still in vigorous practice in China today, this informative and stimulating book proposes a theoretical framework for interpreting how and why traditions continue or discontinue in any culture.

A captivating collection of authentic Chinese fairy tales, based on legends, ghost stories, and myths. Stories include "The Flower-Elves," "The Dragon-Princess," "The Bird with Nine Heads," many others. 25 illustrations.

Grade level: 1, 2, 3, 4, k, p, e.