An Art Post.
Sep. 14th, 2009 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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told_tales
Went to the library a while back and found a book with folktales from different parts of Europe and Asia. Naturally, I picked it up to see if it was anything interesting, but in the end, what made me borrow it was not the stories but the illustrations.
Hans Arnold was born in Switzerland in 1925, studied art in Luzern and came to Sweden in 1948. Here, he has been mostly recognized for his horror illustrations but he has also worked with folk- and fairytales, which is why I picked this book up. When I was young I read a lot of the collections of ghost stories he'd illustrated, books you now may find in many Swedish schools and Summer camps, and which used to haunt me quite a bit when I was a child.
As far as I know, he's not that renowned outside of Scandinavia. So I decided to post them here. I've tried to post the original titles of the stories and translations, but they're not always available and sometimes the Swedish titles have been changed...
We start with two illustrations from "Kong Lindorm", King Lindorm, a folk tale from Denmark in which a young maiden marries a gruesome dragon, who turns out to not be quite what he seems...
Later in the story, the maiden is not really a maiden anymore and after her two sons have been taken away from her, she has to empty her breasts of milk. A swan and a crane comes down to suckle and they turn out to be her enchanted sons.
From Germany comes something of a horror story, "Die Verwünschte Prinzessin", The Enchanted Princess. Here we see the princess and her lover, the mountain troll.
"The Son of Seven Queens"; An Indian tale that shows the danger of looking too deeply in the eyes of a hind, especially if you've already got seven wives.
"Marigo and the Fourty Dragons", Albania.
The Swedish title means "Donn and the Giants", while the original name of the tale is "An Crochaire Tárnocht". On Ireland lives this fighter who has to cope with more violent rows and more gruesome giants than what you with difficulty can imagine, but like all the heroes from the green island loves and kills with the same happy soul.
Very gruesome indeed.
From Dalsland in Sweden comes the story of "Askefisen", a lad with more luck and brains than most. For all of those familiar with Norwegian folk tales you would recognize his characterization as Askeladden. And indeed, this story reads as a remix of several stories both found in Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norske Folkeeventyr as well as Swedish sources.
In "O Zółmirzu co mu Pau Jezus Torbeczkę Dał", The Soldier who got a Backpack from Jesus, a Polish legend, we meet a soldier who handles officers and devils as well as Saint Peter, or, as here, Death.
The illustration is kind of huge and was hard to scan well, but it's one of my favourites...
A king's daughter stands looking out over the sea, seeking a ship to take her and her comrades home from an island inhabited by witches and trolls. From "Sagan af Surtlu i Blálandseyjum", The Tale of Surtlu on Blue Land's Island, Iceland.
A Russian tale about the use of a mother's blessing when you run into a witch who's got glowing skulls on her fence posts, is the introduction of Vasilisa the Beautiful, Василиса Прекрасная.
"The Exquisitely Beuatiful or The Three Lemons" is the alternative title for this tale that hearkens from Greece. The hero enters the house of the Exquisitely Beautiful, which is full of nereids.
And finally, a tale from Karelia, "The Heavy Chest", a kind of distant Finnish relative to the infamous Bluebeard tale.
If you're interested in more of Hans Arnold's works, there are a number of smaller examples on his website.
I hope you enjoyed. :)
P.S. Yes F-List, I'm back from Italy. Expect posts on the subject when I'm not completely drained.
told_talesWent to the library a while back and found a book with folktales from different parts of Europe and Asia. Naturally, I picked it up to see if it was anything interesting, but in the end, what made me borrow it was not the stories but the illustrations.
Hans Arnold was born in Switzerland in 1925, studied art in Luzern and came to Sweden in 1948. Here, he has been mostly recognized for his horror illustrations but he has also worked with folk- and fairytales, which is why I picked this book up. When I was young I read a lot of the collections of ghost stories he'd illustrated, books you now may find in many Swedish schools and Summer camps, and which used to haunt me quite a bit when I was a child.
As far as I know, he's not that renowned outside of Scandinavia. So I decided to post them here. I've tried to post the original titles of the stories and translations, but they're not always available and sometimes the Swedish titles have been changed...
We start with two illustrations from "Kong Lindorm", King Lindorm, a folk tale from Denmark in which a young maiden marries a gruesome dragon, who turns out to not be quite what he seems...
Later in the story, the maiden is not really a maiden anymore and after her two sons have been taken away from her, she has to empty her breasts of milk. A swan and a crane comes down to suckle and they turn out to be her enchanted sons.
From Germany comes something of a horror story, "Die Verwünschte Prinzessin", The Enchanted Princess. Here we see the princess and her lover, the mountain troll.
"The Son of Seven Queens"; An Indian tale that shows the danger of looking too deeply in the eyes of a hind, especially if you've already got seven wives.
"Marigo and the Fourty Dragons", Albania.
The Swedish title means "Donn and the Giants", while the original name of the tale is "An Crochaire Tárnocht". On Ireland lives this fighter who has to cope with more violent rows and more gruesome giants than what you with difficulty can imagine, but like all the heroes from the green island loves and kills with the same happy soul.
Very gruesome indeed.
From Dalsland in Sweden comes the story of "Askefisen", a lad with more luck and brains than most. For all of those familiar with Norwegian folk tales you would recognize his characterization as Askeladden. And indeed, this story reads as a remix of several stories both found in Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norske Folkeeventyr as well as Swedish sources.
In "O Zółmirzu co mu Pau Jezus Torbeczkę Dał", The Soldier who got a Backpack from Jesus, a Polish legend, we meet a soldier who handles officers and devils as well as Saint Peter, or, as here, Death.
The illustration is kind of huge and was hard to scan well, but it's one of my favourites...
A king's daughter stands looking out over the sea, seeking a ship to take her and her comrades home from an island inhabited by witches and trolls. From "Sagan af Surtlu i Blálandseyjum", The Tale of Surtlu on Blue Land's Island, Iceland.
A Russian tale about the use of a mother's blessing when you run into a witch who's got glowing skulls on her fence posts, is the introduction of Vasilisa the Beautiful, Василиса Прекрасная.
"The Exquisitely Beuatiful or The Three Lemons" is the alternative title for this tale that hearkens from Greece. The hero enters the house of the Exquisitely Beautiful, which is full of nereids.
And finally, a tale from Karelia, "The Heavy Chest", a kind of distant Finnish relative to the infamous Bluebeard tale.
If you're interested in more of Hans Arnold's works, there are a number of smaller examples on his website.
I hope you enjoyed. :)
P.S. Yes F-List, I'm back from Italy. Expect posts on the subject when I'm not completely drained.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 06:06 pm (UTC)Actually, in Prussia's case I see it more as a kind of desperate "HE CAN'T BE DEAD" cry from his fangirls than historical plausability. And well, he's an amusing character, I SORT of see where they're coming from, but I still don't understand it...
Oh geez. Like Rome didn't get enough asskising in, like... All former centuries. I can honestly say that I don't like Roman culture and history, I always found it rather boring. Give me Ancient Greece/Hellas over the Roman Empire any day. That leads me to the point... I was kind of puzzled that "Mama Greece" was a woman. It has nothing to do with gender discrimination, it just seemed extremely strange considering women's incredibly inferior position in Hellas. They weren't let out of the house without their husband's permission, they didn't work but stayed at home, had to cover up their bodies and... You get the point. There were exceptions but they weren't that usual, except in Sparta. And even in Sparta they just existed and were discarded when they couldn't have children anymore...
Which leads to the point that technically "Ancient Greece" shouldn't exist at ALL, since the city states didn't identify themselves as part of a kingdom. They just had a common language and religion. :/
Oh well, maybe it's nothing. I just found it puzzling. It MIGHT have something to do that I find Greece x 1000 more interesing than Rome and Rome overrated overall, but yeah...
Being a history major basically means nothing. Depending on your age and teacher, it could mean everything from "being a good student and do the homework and know basic events" to "being able to think critically and argue and discuss historical events, find connections as well as use basic facts in consideration to culture at the time etc etc". The latter is what I strive for and what I should expect from all history majors, but alas...
I'm also rather unforgiving with details. When I ponder Hetalia fics I often find obstacles not in history, but the everyday history; what people wore or ate or how architecture looked at the time etc etc... Writing Hetalia fic to me is incredibly srs bsns, which is why I don't do it. I just don't have the time or ability to.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:37 pm (UTC)LOL, I think Rome is hella boring too. I'm only morbidly fascinated by the Gladiators, but I'm probably biased because I've visited a colloseum ever since childhood and then I generally like all kinds of archealogical stuff. Other than that, nothing could make me read any more books about it - I nearly bored myself to tears. Mainly because they are such copycats.
I get what ya mean. I assume Mama Greece is Mama Greece to make Grampa Rome even a bigger macho jerk or whatever. I also LOVE what euphemism is used in Rome's description. Something like "Lively ruler that fell in love with Mama Greece". Yah. Fell in love and raped her and stole her culture? O u Hetalia...
Same with "Germania". Germania is not a country or an ethnicity. The bajilion tribes never identifyed themselves as same people or even tribe. Among Saxons, Kimbri, Teutonics and others, Germanics was the name of one tribe and then used by Caesar for all of them. They even had completely different habits and all, and Hetalia Germania hardly looks like the men back then. Long flowy hair and bishi face? OH DEAR. I still sorta love him. But fandom should get right who pwn3d who and lay off this shitty BARBARIAN stereotyping, JEEZ.
Well that's exactly why Hetalia is either hated or loved. I know it's just a comic, but the subject is so damn touchy and history does rely on facts, so getting them wrong just upsets me. I don't even mean obscure stuff, but basic shit. I don't know, I always thought it was common knowledge that vikings have no horns on their helmets, Rome was pwn3d by Germanics and Prussia is something entirely different than the GDR.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:06 pm (UTC)To be honest, yes, that's the impression I've got. Not to mention the Greeks kind of founded Rome to begin with... Rome is a sweet guy in the series but knowing all these things makes it kind of sour, indeed. Egypt is a different question. She's much older, advanced, her culture was at its peak when Rome was a little baby. I can't help but think that she should be the kind of character to give Rome a good punch in the face, but looking at fanon and the few character hints... At least her being a woman isn't that implausible. The Egyptians were far ahead of the Greeks when it came to women's rights.
Same thing up here. The viking kingdoms were entangled in an endlessly complicated feodal system where there was a leader for every village who had to obey someone in a bigger and mightier tribe who stood under someone else and-- Yeah. In Sweden, the two biggest and most powerful kingdoms were Svitjod and Götland. Those two would later merge with Christianization and form Sweden.
I'm slightly ashamed to admit it, but damnit, it's so perfect it made me create OCs out of them. :/ I'm a terrible person~~ But more historically correct than Himaruya.
I know what you mean. But in my case, well, that mostly goes for the fandom. Himaruya-- sometimes he does incredibly STUPID things, but it's all for great fun, I can't really shake my fist at him. =3= But yes. We should have a basic history course or something. That people are still even ALLOWED to believe that vikings had horned helmets...
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:54 pm (UTC)AFAIK they called every non-Roman a barbarian anyways. The word pretty much derrives from "gibberish", as all they understood was "barbarbarbarbar" when other peoples talked. And yeah, the fact that a "nature people" like the Germanics defeated their highly developed military system really pissed them off. And it is this arrogant attitude I despise about them. Either they'd dehumilate our ancestors by describing them worse as animals, or mystify them. I think I love most how they said Germanics were a bunch of pussies for treating women with respect and sometimes rather listen to the priestess than to the tribal leader, but when they attacked Germanic women and got fucking pwnd by them... Lol... The list of events "How Germania kicked Grampa Rome in the nuts" is endless.
It's interesting since Hidekaz stays rather blurry and leaves out all touchy stuff, but fandom totally falls for all those traps and is the one that come up with the gross shit, like Nanking rape fics, Ludwig doing the Heil Hitler in front of current German flag, HORNED VIKING HELMETS and all that.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 05:15 am (UTC)I think what puzzles me the most is a general lack of... Knowledge about this. Germania was the reason Rome was defeated, but few people seem to KNOW about this. And personally I haven't really seen it commercially used either, in movies and the like, but then again I'm not really looking hard enough. :/
"How Germania Kicked Garmpa Rome in the Nuts" sounds like the name of a fanfic actually... Maybe it should be written. XD
Oh yes. I got personally affronted when I saw a Germany/Sweden fic with the prompt "racial biology"; Sweden being the first to found a university for that etc etc. It felt like a slap in the face, partly because Sweden's guilt of this is still MONUMENTAL, and partly because having a character act out an ideology that wasn't practised by the entire people or part of the legal system (like nazism) is so... Bleh. It's a bit like saying that only because Marx and Engels and their pals came from Germany Germany was originally communist. :/
Not to mention, with Sweden's character... Does not compute.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 11:18 am (UTC)Well science knows more about Ancient Egypt than Germania, who is only half as old, to speak in Hetalia terms. Partly because they didn't have any writing systems until the runes came up, and I think contrary to Scandinavians they used these barely ever to write longer texts. They rather wrote their names on their weapons or "bucket" on buckets (lol), etc. I don't expect fandom to know that Germania's hair was long, but is way too long in Hetalia canon (then it should be logics since you can't really fight with long flowy hair, but MEH, LOGICS) or what clothes they wore or what they ate. This is obscure knowledge. But, you know... that he defeated Rome SHOULD be obvious, and it's pretty much a cold hard fact anyways, so... I JUST DON'T GET IT. God help me though if someone stumbles upon the fact they prefered to fight naked!
a Germany/Sweden fic with the prompt "racial biology"
What kind of fucking twat has one to be to even think about this?! Jesus H. Christ...
I'm all for freedom of arts and freedom of expression, but that sort of stuff is so grossly WRONG, why does one have the need to read that kind of shit? Maybe I'm just super touchy, GERMAN AND ALL and it's still a way big fucking deal here, but why would someone downtalk something horrible by a stupid fic? That is just as gross as depicting the Rape of Nanking as actual rape, I mean... wtf... In Germany, they confront you with Holocaust very very early and very VERY drastically. I got used to pictures of starved dead people in concentration camps at the age of 15 and sadly it does absolutely nothing to me anymore. But stumbling upon the Nanking Wiki article made me absolutely speechless and horrifiyed me, so yeah, PERFECT TOPIC TO MAKE A FIC ABOUT!!!
I just don't fucking get it. I'm just glad I don't know these people in fandom, I think it's terrible enough that there are tons of German kids who love to draw themselves in SS uniforms now because LUDWIG SO KAWAII and write fics about things they don't fucking understand at all. The lack of respect towards history is terryfying, but as we pretty much figured the majority of this fandom doesn't even know the basics... -.-"