The Bear and The Fox

Once upon a time there was a bear, who sat on a sunny hillside taking a nap. Just then a fox came slinking by and saw him.
"Aha! have I caught you napping, grandfather? See if I don't play you a trick this time!" said Reynard to himself.
He then found three wood mice and laid them on a stump of a tree just under the bear's nose.
"Boo! Bruin! Peter the hunter is just behind that stump!" shouted the fox right into the bear's ear, and then took to his heels and made off into the wood.
The bear woke at once, and when he saw the three mice he became so angry that he lifted his paw and was just going to strike them, for he thought it was they who had shouted in his ear.
But just then he saw Reynard's tail between the bushes and he set off at such a speed that the branches crackled under him, and Bruin was soon so close upon Reynard that he caught him by the right hind leg just as be was running into a hole under a pine tree.
Reynard was now in a fix; but he was not to be outwitted, and he cried:
"Slip pine root, grip fox foot," and so the bear let go his hold; but the fox laughed far down in the hole and said:
"I sold you that time, also, grandfather!"
"Out of sight is not out of mind!" said the bear, who was in a fine fury.
The other morning, when Bruin came trudging across the moor with a fat pig, Master Reynard was lying on a stone by the moorside.
"Good-day, grandfather!" said the fox. "What nice thing have you got there?"
"Pork," said the bear.
"I have got something tasty as well," said the fox.
"What's that?" said the bear.
"It's the biggest bees' nest I ever found," said Reynard.
"Ah, indeed," said the bear, grinning, and his mouth began to water, he thought a little honey would be so nice. "Shall we change victuals?" he said.
"No, I won't do that," said Reynard. But they made a wager about naming three kinds of trees. If the fox could say them quicker than the bear he was to have one bite at the pig; but if the bear could say them quicker he was to have one suck at the bee's nest. The bear thought he would be able to suck all the honey up at one gulp.
"Well said the fox, "that's all well and good but if I win you must promise to tear off the bristles where I want to have a bite," he said.
"Well, I suppose I must, since you are too lazy yourself," said the bear.
Then they began to name the trees.
"Spruce, fir, pine," growled the bear. His voice was very gruff. But all these were only different names of one kind of tree.
"Ash, aspen, oak," screeched the fox, so that the forest resounded. He had thus won the bet, and so he jumped down, took the heart out of the pig at one bite, and tried to run off. But the bear was angry, because he had taken the best bit of the whole pig, and seized hold of him by his tail and held him fast.
"Just wait a bit," said the bear, who was furious.
"Never mind, grandfather; if you'll let me go you shall have a taste of my honey," said the fox.
When the bear heard this he let go his hold and the fox jumped up on the stone after the honey.
"Over this nest," said Reynard, "I'll put a leaf, and in the leaf there is a hole, through which you can suck the honey." He then put the nest right up under the bear's nose, pulled away the leaf, jumped on to the stone, and began grinning and laughing; for there was neither honey nor honeycomb in the nest. It was a wasp's nest as big as a man's head, full of wasps, and out they swarmed and stung the bear in his eyes and ears and on his mouth and snout. He had so much to do with scratching them off him that he had no the to think of Reynard.
Ever since the bear has been afraid of wasps.
Once the fox and the bear made up their minds to have a field in common. They found a small clearing far away in the forest, where they sowed rye the first year.
"Now we must share and share alike," said Reynard; "if you will have the roots I will have the tops," he said.
Yes, Bruin was quite willing; but when they had thrashed the crop the fox got all the corn, while the bear got nothing but the roots and tares.
Bruin didn't like this, but the fox said it was only as they had agreed.
"This year I am the gainer," said the fox; "another year it will be your turn; you can then have the tops and I will be satisfied with the roots."
Next spring the fox asked the bear if he didn't think turnips would be the right thing for that year.
"Yes, that's better food than corn," said the bear; and the fox thought the same.
When the autumn came the fox took the turnips, but the bear only got the tops.
The bear then became so angry that he parted company then and there with Reynard.
One day the bear was lying eating a horse which he had killed. Reynard was about again and came slinking along, his mouth watering for a tasty bit of the horseflesh.
He sneaked in and out and round about till he came up behind the bear, when he made a spring to the other side of the carcass, snatching a piece as he jumped across.
The bear was not slow either; he made a dash after Reynard and caught the tip of his red tail in his paw. Since that time the fox has always had a white tip to his tail.
"Wait a bit Reynard, and come here," said the bear, "and I'll teach you how to catch horses."
Yes, Reynard was quite willing to learn that, but he didn't trust himself too near the bear.
"When you see a horse lying asleep in a sunny place," said the bear, "you must tie yourself fast with the hair of his tail to your brush, and then fasten your teeth in his thigh," he said.
Before long the fox found a horse lying asleep on

The Ant's House

"What a curious picture that is at the head of this story." That is what I think I hear some of the "Little Ones" say. "What does it mean?" some one asks. It looks like a procession of ants. That is just what it is. A procession of ants all marching off to find a new home. Some one has destroyed their old one. Let us hope no one did it on purpose.

The ants are very busy and very nice little creatures. If their houses are stepped upon, or injured so as to be useless the ants immediately go to work to repair damages. They do not sit down and fuss about it first, but I have no doubt they let each other know what they think. And how do you suppose they do this? By touching each other with their tiny feelers.

After they have talked in this way, and decided what is to be done some of them take the eggs from the ruins and carry them to a safe place. Look carefully at the pictures, and you will see that almost every ant is carrying an egg. They know that if they lose the eggs all the young ants inside the eggs will be lost too.

While ants do not seem to have a very keen sense of hearing, their sense of smell is very strong. And where do you think it lies ? In the same little feelers with which they talk to each other. The first ant's house seen in the round picture has been cut in two to show you how wonderfully these little creatures can build.

It was made by the ants that live in tropical countries. The house at the back of the picture has not been disturbed. Does it not look as if an architect had planned it? Ask some of the older people in your family to tell you something more about ants. There is much more of interest in regard to them than I have space to write you.

(from Cinderella or, the Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories)

rick@rickwalton.com

An Introduction to Folklore

Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually ethnographic study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal Athenaeum in 1846.

History
The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological goals; only in the 20th century did ethnographers begin to attempt to record folklore without overt political goals. The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, collected orally transmitted German tales and published the first series as Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales") in 1812.

The term was coined in 1846 by an Englishman, William Thoms, who wanted to use an Anglo-Saxon term for what was then called "popular antiquities." Johann Gottfried von Herder first advocated the deliberate recording and preservation of folklore to document the authentic spirit, tradition, and identity of the German people; the belief that there can be such authenticity is one of the tenets of the romantic nationalism which Herder developed. One definition is "artistic communication in small groups," coined by Dan Ben-Amos a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and the term, and the associated field of study, now include non-verbal art forms and customary practices.

Types of folklore
Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.