
Fairytales much older than previously thought, say researchers - doener
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/20/fairytales-much-older-than-previously-thought-say-researchers
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the_af
I have a copy of the collected stories of the Brothers Grimm from my
childhood, but when I was young I skipped the preface (and to be honest, most
of the "Christian" stories, which I found boring, preferring instead the fairy
tales with blood, monsters, witches and the prototypical "the youngest of
three brothers gets the princess/treasure"), but when I was older I did
finally read the preface and was surprised to learn the Brothers Grimm were
_researchers_ , not authors of children's stories. These guys weren't trying
to collect stories for their entertainment value, but they were trying to
analyze European folk tales instead!

~~~
DasIch
These stories weren't meant to be children's stories. They just became popular
as such and have been edited to make them more child friendly to the point
that with Disney they're hardly recognizable anymore.

~~~
david927
That's not remotely true. Many of these stories were specifically to protect
children. If you can't watch your children all the time, you can't just tell
them, "Don't go too close to the water." They'll go anyway. So you tell them,
"There are Wassermen (German) / Vodnik (Czech) who will grab you by the feet
and pull you in."

~~~
pixl97
When my daughter was pretty young we were walking on the sidewalk beside a
road. There was an unfortunate squirrel that hand not made the crossing alive,
and died in a rather gory fashion. Rather than sheltering her from the cruelty
of death I told her that this squirrel didn't listen to its parents and played
in the road. The imagery was powerful enough that she 'self-policed' rather
well and kept herself and friends away from the road unless an adult was
helping them cross.

It's this same imagery we see in old tales like that. Vivid and terrifying
creatures and events that apply enough fear to curb our curiosity in places
that it might get the better of us.

------
adekok
The Australian aborigines have told the same stories for 10,000 years:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-
rise-t...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-
told-accurately-for-10-000-years/)

The same for India:

[http://www.earthporm.com/5-mind-blowing-underwater-
cities/](http://www.earthporm.com/5-mind-blowing-underwater-cities/)

See #3.

Most people don't realize just how _deep_ human history is. Words people use
every day are ~2000 years old. e.g. "via", goes back to the Roman times.

~~~
danieltillett
I am none too convinced by the evidence of the Australian aborigines stories.
They are so vague they could just be made up.

To give you an idea how unlikely a story would survive being passed down for
10,000 years is, the Tasmanian aborigines lost the ability to fish and and
even start fire [1]. Given the critical nature of this information to survival
how likely is it that a random story with no survival value would last 10,000
years?

1\. [http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/08/why-did-the-
tas...](http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/08/why-did-the-tasmanians-
stop-ea/)

~~~
shardinator
Pre-euro Australia was more like Europe with different tribes/nations that
shared common characteristics yet still had their own languages and cultures.

Compare and contrast the difference in sophistication between the Romans and
the gauls or germanic tribes around 200AD, they would seem totally different
worlds. It could have been similar in Aus.

Other indigenous Australian groups invented the boomerang - first ever
practical use of aerofoil technology - precursor of modern flight and the
woomera which launches a spear around 700-800m with accuracy.

From what I remember their art was somewhat codified so it could almost be
"read", this would make it easier to share information across time and place.

If you have groups on two ends of the continent sharing very similar stories,
then at least you'd have to allow the reasonable possibility it's more than
just random noise.

~~~
danieltillett
The boomerang was not invented in Australia [1]. Woomeras don't allow you to
throw a spear 800m (200m at most). These were not invented in Australia either
[2]. Both are really ancient technologies.

As for different cultures sharing the same stories is no more surprising than
people in England and China sharing similar stories. All pre-agricultural
people have somewhat similar lives so we should expect they have similar
stories and myths. Occam's razor should rule here.

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang)

2\. [http://www.donsmaps.com/atlatl.html](http://www.donsmaps.com/atlatl.html)

------
WalterBright
Or perhaps some stories may be so archetypical that they get reinvented
repeatedly. Stories that share some similar plot points does not mean they
must have a common origin.

~~~
kagamine
Given that Europe is a similar natural landscape: forest, river, mountain, and
has the same wildlife: bears, pigs, wolves, and that it was sparsely populated
by modern standards with travel going fastest by horse if you even had a
horse, I can see why there are common threads throughout. The dangers were the
same, the outcome the same, the weapons of defense the same. The common origin
I would assume, is no more than common experiences.

~~~
sveme
Seriously, there are guys researching this topic for years, applying
sophisticated linguistic analyses and then finally propose a novel hypothesis
to the world - then comes a guy on the internet and after a quick snap of
their thoughts destroys their work and claims they're wrong, _it is no more
than common experiences_.

Reminds me of all those internet scientists that ask "but what about the sun?"
when the topic of AGW comes up. No shit, Sherlock, never thought about that
blinding thing in the sky before!

Sorry for the rant and attacking you, but sometimes a bit of humility is
warranted when it comes to science.

~~~
kagamine
Yeah, there are a lot a lot of people in universities wasting time and money
while trying a make a name and career for themselves. I once studied
literature, have you delved into the amount of BS people will write about
Shakespeare just to come up with something original? Academia is an industry
too.

But you know, a common ancestor who imparted the wisdom of ye olde wurld on to
generations to come, like a LotR type sceanrio, that's not making the square
evidence fit in a round hole. /sceptic

------
xefer
There is a theory that the common motif of a bear associated with the
constellation Ursa Major may have been brought to the New World from Siberia
during the Ice Age over 13,000 years ago.

[http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol31/berezkin.pdf](http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol31/berezkin.pdf)

This theory goes back over a 100 years:

"Its stars seem to have been called the Bear over nearly the whole of our
continent when the first Europeans, of whom we have knowledge, arrived. They
were known as far north as Point Barrow, as far east as Nova Scotia, as far
west as the Pacific Coast, and as far south as the Pueblos."

\- Stansbury Hagar, “The Celestial Bear”, The Journal of American Folklore
(JAF), Apr.-Jun., 1900

"Occasional local names notwithstanding, the possibility of the bear as Ursa
Major having originated independently is inconceivable. Classical Old World
mythology is replete with the bear in its role as Ursa Major. Ancient Greek,
Hebrew, and Arabic all contain references to this motif."

\- William B. Gibbon, “Asiatic Parallels in North American Star Lore: Ursa
Major”, JAF, Jul.-Sep., 1964.

~~~
WalterBright
> inconceivable

I'm skeptical. Bears used to be very commonplace and a big (literally) deal to
anyone who lived in N. America. I don't find it inconceivable at all that
bears would figure prominently in N. American spiritualism, which would
include the stars.

------
david927
Carl Jung talks about a collective unconscious and I have to say that I find
it absolutely fascinating that our symbols are so durable and our desires
petrified.

We have a core psychology of what it means to be human that remains unchanged
and so its stories remain unchanged.

~~~
Outdoorsman
Humans do indeed love a narrative...start telling a story, particularly one
with an unusual character(s) in an interesting situation, then stop telling it
and see what happens...you'll be prompted: "Go on, what happened next?"....at
our core I think we're very hungry for knowledge, and eventually the closure
provided when a story comes to a satisfactory ending...

For the majority of our time on the planet the oral tradition was all that was
available to us...

I think the simpler the elements of a story are--e.g., good vs evil, good
eventually wins, etc., (easily remember-able) the greater the odds are that it
will be passed down through generations, or the ages, with changes and
embellishments...

------
freshyill
While the length of time these stories have survived is impressive, it doesn't
seem so shocking that many stories would be passed on despite not having been
written. I can imagine that even at the time they were collected by the
Brothers Grimm, they were usually passed along orally, not on paper. I can't
imagine the literacy rate was very high for most of that time.

------
jedberg
What's that quote from the movie producer? "All the good stories have already
been told, it's just a matter of how you tell it"? Something like that.

There are volumes and volumes of books about how every story can be described
by just a few "proto" stories. It's not entirely surprising that there were
proto stories before the written word.

~~~
BurningFrog
This comment is not very original.

~~~
bottled_poe
Your humour is wasted here.

------
thisnews
A related story featured on HN a couple of days ago [1]. I'll echo JonnieCache
and recommend Jordan Peterson's lectures [2]. If you are concerned about
investing the time in an entire lecture, check out the video "Dragons, Divine
Parents, Heroes and Adversaries: A complete cosmology of being" [3]; it gives
a high level overview of the content contained within his lectures. I believe
'Personality and its Transformations' (2014 series) followed by 'Maps of
Meaning' (2015) to be the best approach, though I haven't yet had a chance to
listen to the 2016 releases.

Jordan has uncanny ability to piece together observations on human behavior
with science and mythology; expounding humanity's nuances, ticks and everyday
common behavior through the lens of ancient mythology, evolution and ideas and
theories by notable psychologists and philosophers.

Keep an open mind while listening, but also be prepared to think critically
about many of his assumptions and assertions as Jordan takes a number of
'educated' leaps (and demands you follow) in regards to published studies and
what they may infer, but the leaps are never illogical - just yet to be
soundly proven.

Overall, listening to these lectures truly was a transformative experience for
myself.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941363)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos](https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos)
[3][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqONu6wDYaE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqONu6wDYaE)

edit: linked this story and not the previous one.

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moultano
I've always wondered if stories with trolls and dwarves date from a time when
there actually were other hominids around.

~~~
WalterBright
Consider the Bigfoot stories. No evidence seems to be required.

~~~
mclovinit
I would not be surprised if stories of other worldly beings aiding in the
construction of the pyramids of Egypt long after the pyramids are gone,
becomes another fairy tale or at least a derivative in part of that theory.

------
marshray
I have this theory that the Bigfoot story goes back to the time when there
really were multiple species of humanoids living in tense proximity.

Perhaps it predates even language and became embedded instinctually, thus
explaining the sightings.

~~~
kuschku
Well. the Yeti/Mountain Ape stories have existed for centuries.

It's just hard to prove.

------
coco1989
Religion and superstition - there has to be a story that is not true for there
to be a True story. Goblins and evlves are not real but ghosts and demons and
angels and gods are.

