[INDOLOGY] a woman marrying a calf

Wed May 27 20:00:32 UTC 2020

Dear Herman et al,

My apologies for the lengthy response, as it is a rare but beautiful occasion to learn that someone may be interested in international comparative folktale research.

Aside from consulting Thompson’s motif index, which will give you a massive but sparsely documented database of worldwide folk narrative elements (in which, see motifs B600-699, “Marriage of Person to Animal”),

it might be more valuable for your colleague to do the following research process, which they may not be aware of if they do not have exposure to international folk narrative studies:

First investigate the updated Aarne Thompson Uther (ATU) tale type index (2004, FFC 284-286), (which has superceded the older Aarne-Thompson TT index (1928,1961).

Here I might ask your colleague to pay particular attention to ATU 441, in which Indic tales involving marriages to animal husbands have been classified by Thompson & Roberts (*on that see below). In general animal husband tales are grouped together under ATU 425-449.  It is hard to say without further information about the tale, which tale type this one may be a more precise version of. 

Then consult the various regional Asian tale-type indices, including:

for China:
 Naitong Ting’s _Type Index of Chinese Folktales_ (FFC 223), which has largely superceded
Wolfram Eberhard,  Typen chinesischer Volksmärchen (FFC120),

I suspect that the tale under question would have been catalogued in one or both of these.

for Japan: - [where it might perhaps be a cognate of the famous tale collected by Kunio Yanagita of the girl who marries a horse? (Oshirasama origin story, Tono Monogatari, tale no. 69)]
Hiroko Ikeda, A Type and Motif Index of Japanese Folk-Literature. (FFC209), which has largely superceded
Keigo Seki, Types of Japanese Folktales (Asian Folklore Studies v. 25, 1966)

and for Korea:
In-hak Choi, A Type Index of Korean Folktales (1979, Seoul: Myeong Ji Univ. Press)
as well as perhaps James Grayson, _Myths and Legends from Korea_ (Routledge 2012).

For finding Indic parallels, there are, as far as I know, four basic resources:

1. Stith Thompson and Warren Roberts, Types of Indic Oral Tales (FFC 180), which is keyed to the AT tale type numbering system (and has been integrated into ATU mentioned above). 

Kirin Narayan notes, in her _Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon_  (P.244) that “Thompson and Roberts group together Indic tales with an animal groom under Tale Type 441.” Here she is discussing a tale collected by her (chapter 13 of the book), in which a girl marries a lion. 
She deems this to be Motif B647, “Marriage to person in animal form - miscellaneous” but it appears to me more likely to be placed under one of the many variants of B601, “Marriage of person to beast” (in which a number of both Indic and Chinese parallels are listed and might be worth investigating further.)
Incidentally, there is another story in this collection (Chapter Five), involving marriage to a frog, which is perhaps cognate to the familiar european “Frog King” tale type (ATU 440) - could the Chinese tale be cognate with this one?  

2. Stith Thompson and Jonas Balys, The Oral Tales of India (Indiana Univ. Press, 1958), 
which is a motif index, allied with the Thompson Motif-Index mentioned at the start. 

various versions of B601 will be found in this book, and may lead to fruitful parallels, though perhaps not *cognate* tales in the strict sense. 

3. Heda Jason, Types of Indic Oral Tales Supplement (FFC 242)
this serves as a supplement to Thompson/Roberts mentioned above. 

4. Edwin Kirkland, A BIbliography of South Asian Folklore (Indiana Univ. Press, 1966). 
this will provide numerous possibilities of tracking down sources that may not have been (properly) catalogued in modern digital databases. 

With best wishes,
Adheesh

—
Adheesh Sathaye
University of British Columbia

> On May 27, 2020, at 08:14, Rolf Heinrich Koch via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> 
> Stith Thompson's
> Motif-Index of Folk-Literature:
> 
> https://archive.org/details/Thompson2016MotifIndex <https://archive.org/details/Thompson2016MotifIndex>
> 
> Best
> 
> Heiner
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Am 27.05.2020 um 16:02 schrieb Tieken, H.J.H. via INDOLOGY:
>> Dear members of this list,
>> A friend of mine, a sinologist, is working on a story (with versions in Chinese and Japanese), in which a princess marries a calf (young cow). The editor of the Chinese version writes that this is a common theme in South Asian story literature, but my friend has so far been to find any references to it. He checked Cowley's collection of jātaka stories and Laurits Bodker's on Indian animal stories.
>> I myself am unable to help him either. For one thing, the name of the author of the index on motifs in Indian literature does not occur to me (Thomson?). I hope the motif rings a bell with someone on this list.
>> With kind regards, Herman
>> 
>> Herman Tieken
>> Stationsweg 58
>> 2515 BP Den Haag
>> The Netherlands
>> 00 31 (0)70 2208127
>> website: hermantieken.com <http://hermantieken.com/>
>> 
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> -- 
> Dr. Rolf Heinrich Koch
> www.rolfheinrichkoch.wordpress.com <http://www.rolfheinrichkoch.wordpress.com/>_______________________________________________
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