Folk Tales

Famous quotes containing the words folk tales, folk and/or tales:

    Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.
    Northrop Frye (1912–1991)

    An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
    An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
    On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
    An’ the Crucified maun bleed.
    Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)

    A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them.
    Still, you can’t listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)