Wednesday, January 31, 2018 <p><img alt="Related image" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/52000/52023/52023_greeks_lg.gif" /></p> <p>National Geographic recently created a nice <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/12/explore-traditions-folktale-evolution/">graphic</a> to illustrate the idea that some folktales go back to the dawn of recorded time. Most of those shown in that piece flowed down into Pontic territories.</p> <ul> <li>"The Smith and the Devil" (6,000 years old) was told in Imera in 1914 by Vasilis Vassiliades. You can find a translation of mine on a blacksmithing <a href="https://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/stories/blacksmith_devil.htm">website</a>.</li> <li>"A Boy Steals the Ogre's Treasure" (4,500 years old) was collected in Kerasounta around 1880 by Ioannis Valavanis. It was also collected from a Haldian refugee by Georgios Kandilaptis in the 1940s.</li> <li>"The Animal Bridegroom" (3,000 years old) has been collected from Alatsata, Ano Amisos (twice), Imera, Kars, Kerasounta, Kotyora, Sinope, Trebizond, and Tripolis during the 20th century.</li> <li>Cinderella (not mentioned in the NatGeo piece) (2,000 years old) has been collected in the late 19th and during the 20th century from Argyroupolis, Haldia, Imera, Kotyora, Nikopolis, Stavrin, Trebizond (twice), and Tripolis.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>Each of these tale types (and many others) have distinct traits across time. But as they traveled across the world and time, they also evolved in distinct ways as they were integrated into local cultures. Any true folktale (a narrative handed down orally from generation to generation)&nbsp;contains a distinct&nbsp;interplay between fidelity to tradition and cultural distinctness that fairy tales (traditional stories composed by individual authors in writing) often lack.</p>