While folk tales differ greatly from culture to culture, what they have in common is that they serve the same purpose. They offer give a culture a way to explain the world, its existence and offer insight into different cultures. For this essay three folk tales from three distinct cultures have been selected. While each is different, each offers insight into the culture from where they originated. The cultures selected are Native American Indians, Eskimo and the Celtic cultures.
There is an Eskimo folk tale called “The Great Bear.” The story is about a bear that helps a woman as long as she promises not to reveal to the men in her village that she has “seen bears.” When she tells them, it leads to the bear losing her cubs because man pursues them. As revenge, the bear kills the woman. The bear is then killed by man’s dogs, and in his death becomes an image in the star.
This tells us that nature, bears, and the threat of them were very real in this culture. The Native American folk tale, “Fire” likewise has a bear as a subject, but instead of relating of the dangers of bears, it uses them to explain where fire came from. Fire, it says came from the bear and was taken by man. The story concludes, “And now fire belongs to man” (S. E. Schlosser, 2011). In both these stories bears suffer at the hand of man.
A Celtic Folk Tale, “The Field of Bolianuns” conveys a distinct interaction between man and nature. This tale is about a field and the amount of sustained effort that man must give it in order to have enough to eat.
Though each folk tale listed her conveys a different moral, each of them has to do with humankind’s dominance in the natural world.
References:
Eskimo Folk-Tales: THE GREAT BEAR. (n.d.).Eskimo Folk-Tales: THE GREAT BEAR. Retrieved February 7, 2014, from http://sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/eft/eft26.htm
Fire: From Native American Myths at Americanfolklore.net. (n.d.). Fire: From Native American Myths at Americanfolklore.net. Retrieved February 6, 2014, from http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2011/07/
Jacobs, J. (n.d.). Celtic Fairy Tales. Celctic. Retrieved February 6, 2014, from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/joseph-jacobs/Celtic-Fairy-Tales.pdf
