Grateful Dead Motifs and Tale Types

Yesterday I provided the short answer to the question, "So what is a Grateful Dead tale?" Today I provide the beginning of a longer answer. Here is another excerpt from my introduction to The Grateful Dead Tales From Around the World.

To further demonstrate the difficulties in finding one definitive Grateful Dead tale, it is helpful to have a basic understanding of the tale typing classification system. A motif is a distinctive and recurring idea or subject in a literary piece. In 1955-58, Stith Thompson published an extensive catalog of folklore motifs for classification purposes. The Grateful Dead motif (E341), as designated in his Motif Index of Folk Literature, appears in several tale types. The most common E341 motif is E341.1: Dead grateful for having corpse ransomed. This is the primary motif explored in the present volume of tales. Here are the grateful dead motifs classified by Thompson:

E341. The grateful dead.
E341.1. Dead grateful for having corpse ransomed. Corpse is being held unburied because of nonpayment of debts. Hero pays debt and secures burial of corpse.  
E341.1.1. Dead grateful for having been spared indignity to corpse. Kind man has given it burial.
E341.2. Dead grateful for food.
E341.3. Dead grateful for prayers.
E341.4. Dead grateful for clothes (shirt).
E341.5. Grateful priest returns to save gambler from devil.

In 1910, folklorist Antti Aarne created a system to classify types of Scandinavian folktales and published it with the title, Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (Index of Folktale Types). Stith Thompson later adapted the system in 1928 and again in 1961 with the title, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography which also incorporated the motif system he had developed in his Motif Index of Folk Literature. Although other folklore classification systems exist, this system has become the most widely used in folklore scholarship despite its flaws, especially its European-centric limitations. Tale types are designated in this system with the AT designation followed by a classification number, such as AT 505.

Norm Cohen in his introduction to the University of Illinois Press’ reprint (2000) of Gerould’s The Grateful Dead, provides a chart of the AT tale types present in Gerould’s list of Grateful Dead tales. A new chart based upon Cohen’s work is offered in the backmatter of this book. Generally, the AT 505-508 tales were grouped as The Grateful Dead, so a more detailed listing of those tale types, as well as the other tale types that most often include a Grateful Dead helper (E341.1), are listed here:

AT 505-508 The Grateful Dead
AT 505 Dead Man as Helper
AT 506 The Rescued Princess
AT 506A The Princess Rescued from Slavery
AT 506B The Princess Rescued from Robbers
AT 506* Prophecy Escaped
AT 506** The Grateful Saint
AT 507A The Monster’s Bride
AT 507B The Monster in the Bridal Chamber
AT 507C The Serpent Maiden
AT 508 The Bride won in a Tournament
AT 508* Dead Man Performs Difficult Tasks
AT 513 The Extraordinary Companions
AT 550 Search for the Golden Bird
AT 551 The Sons on a Quest for a Wonderful Remedy for their Father [Water of Life]
AT 554 The Grateful Animals

In 2004, Hans-Jörg Uther further revised the AT system, both streamlining and expanding it, with the publication of The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography. The system has been adopted in current scholarship and now most tale typing includes the ATU designation to denote usage of the updated tale types. Uther’s changes affected several of the original AT tale types related to the Grateful Dead. The new designations now appear as:

ATU 505 The Grateful Dead
[AT 506-506B, 506** The Rescued Princess now ATU 505]
ATU 506* Prophecy Escaped [Not generally Grateful Dead]
ATU 507 The Monster’s Bride [Includes AT 507A-507C]
[AT 508 The Bride won in a Tournament now ATU 505]
ATU 513 The Extraordinary Companions
ATU 550 Bird, Horse and Princess
ATU 551 Water of Life
ATU 554 The Grateful Animals

The greatest difference between the two systems is that AT 505-508 is no longer designated as the Grateful Dead grouping with many of the previous tale types folded into the ATU 505 type. The table of Gerould’s tales and their tale types offered in this book’s end matter uses a blend of the AT and ATU systems to produce a more intricate breakdown of the different themes offered in Grateful Dead tales. Uther’s updated system is generally more logical for folklore studies as a whole, but it removes the nuances of some of the Grateful Dead AT tale types by combining them, making it more difficult for the scholar intent on examining the different themes that are found in Grateful Dead tales.

Beauty and the Beast and ATU 425: The Search for the Lost Husband

Yesterday I began a series of posts about ATU tale typing of Animal Bridegroom tales. Today I will continue by focusing solely on ATU 425, the behemoth of the Animal Bridegroom tales. As I mentioned yesterday, Swahn and Thompson broke ATU 425 down into sixteen distinct subtypes. The new Uther revision has consolidated these into eight subtypes, combining several of the very small ones into the larger types.

ATU 425 The Search for the Lost Husband is the main title for the type and those tales which don't easily fall into one of the subtypes--the indeterminate ones which are still obvious 425--are kept at ATU 425 and are not further classified. ATU 425C is the subtype for Beauty and the Beast, considered the "short" version of the tale since it usually ends after the Beast's broken enchantment. These usually are obvious derivatives of the Villeneuve and Beaumont versions of the tale. It is a significant subset with its differences from the other types which are much longer and have a solid literary history with an overwhelming popularity in popular culture.

The largest groups, however, are ATU 425A: The Animal as Bridegroom and ATU 425B: Son of the Witch (previously The Disenchanted Husband: the Witch’s Tasks). These two have been switched around a few times and can be confusing.

From my introduction to Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World:

The most common subtypes are 425A and 425B, which are very similar and have had their defining elements switched back and forth across assorted studies. Uther clarified their differences with his revisions, stating, "Essential for Type 425A are the motifs 'wife's quest and gifts' and 'nights bought'" in which the heroine uses gifts she has received along her quest in trade to spend the night in her estranged husband's room. He also states for ATU 425B, "The essential feature of this type is the quest for the casket, which entails the visit to the second witch’s house. Usually the supernatural bridegroom is the witch’s son, and he helps his wife perform the tasks." In these tales, the heroine performs impossible tasks culminating in retrieving a box from a dangerous witch who is expected to kill her. In the updated system, Cupid and Psyche is in essence the original ATU 425B tale. A popular example of 425A can be found in the Norwegian "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" (1845) collected by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe although one of the earliest versions can be found in "Pinto-Smauto" by Giambattista Basile. Many examples of these tales are provided in this anthology for comparison and analysis.

ATU 425A is the largest of them all, rather surprising since it is apparently newer than ATU 425B's Cupid and Psyche. There are 34 examples of it in Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World. There are only 14 ATU 425B tales in the collection.

I will share more ATU 425 subsets tomorrow so stay tuned.

Tale Typing Beauty and the Beast and Other Animal Husband Tales

I receive occasional emails about the ATU system of folktale typing. I am far from an expert although I know how to use the system for research. I have a black belt in that small part of it. I hate typing tales on my own, because it is rarely a slam dunk decision.

Tale typing is helpful for finding similar tales but there is very much an art and science to tale typing, one that can be intimidating when tales fail to meet the criteria comfortably or sufficiently. And what about when the groom is not an animal? But everything else fits the type criteria? I'll be sharing more of those soon when I begin sharing individual tales. But let's start at the beginning today's post. Since I decided to include tales from ATU 425-449, I ended up dealing with over 40 tale types for this book, including all of the subtypes and previous iterations of the system. I had only dealt with up to six or seven previously for Cinderella Tales From Around the World. Child's play and I didn't even know it then.

From my introduction to Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World:

In 1910, Antti Aarne created a system to classify types of Scandinavian folktales and published it with the title, Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (Index of Folktale Types). Stith Thompson later adapted the system in 1928 and again in 1961 with the title, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography. Although other folklore classification systems exist, this system has become the most widely used in folklore scholarship despite its flaws, especially its European-centric limitations. Tale types are designated in this system with the AT designation followed by a classification number, such as AT 425.

In 2004, Hans-Jörg Uther further revised the system, both streamlining and expanding it, with the publication of The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography. The system has been adopted in current scholarship and now most tale typing includes the ATU designation to denote usage of the updated tale types. The system groups Animal Husband tales—including Beauty and the Beast—in a range of types: 425-449. The ATU index and bibliography is not limited to English language versions—they are in the minority in the bibliography—so the index is a critical tool for anyone searching for a large listing of Animal Bridegroom variants. The Animal Bridegroom listings are far from comprehensive and further direct the researcher to external sources, such as the work of Jan Öjvind Swahn.

In his book, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche (1955), Swahn compiled a list and studied over 1,100 Animal Bridegroom tales. Concentrating on AT 425: The Search for the Lost Husband—which includes Cupid and Psyche as well as Beauty and the Beast—Swahn subdivided the tales into seven sections and provided a list of motifs for each section of the tale. The seven sections include: I. Introductory Motifs, II. The Supernatural Husband, III. The Marriage, IV. The Breaking of the Taboo, V. The Search for the Husband, VI. The Reunion, and VII. Final Motifs.

Swahn determined the sixth section, The Reunion, to have the most variety across all AT 425 tales and so he divided it into fifteen subtypes, designated with the letters A-O—except for I—and the letter X for indeterminate. Discussing each of these subtypes in detail is not the goal of this introduction, but a chart has been provided in the appendix to help readers learn more about each by referencing representative tales in this collection.

Swahn’s work, in turn, influenced Thompson’s revisions in The Types of the Folktale in 1961. Some of the classifications chosen by Swahn and adopted by Thompson were very narrow, containing a low number of tales limited to a small geographical area. During his revisions in 2004, Uther folded several of these back into the larger type classes, primarily ATU 425A and 425B, making the system more functional but less refined for studying this specific tale type.

I mention the chart from the back of my book--it was one of the greatest challenges of the book. Tale typing Animal Bridegroom tales is a brainteaser--I think this book staved off Alzheimer's for at least five extra years of my life--and then there have been significant changes to the system over the years, too. Whenever a tale in the collection fit in one of the old tale types--say an AT 425L The Padlock on the Enchanted Husband which is now folded into ATU 425E The Enchanted Husband Sings Lullaby--I chose the older, more precise type with a reference to the new type. With most of these, I only have 1-3 representative tales, mostly because there are so few to begin with. They were steamlined for good reasons.

And then there is all the confusion over the two largest types, ATU 425A and ATU 425B. But that will be tomorrow's discussion. This post is long enough!

Library Essentials Month: African Folktales with Foreign Analogues by May A. Klipple

African Folktales with Foreign Analogues (Folklore Library) by May A. Klipple is another great resource for finding fairy tale variants of many tales, especially the better known European ones, but from Africa. This book is considerably smaller than the Arab collection discussed yesterday, but it is very helpful, especially in finding English language variants. The goal of SurLaLune has always been to multicultural/international, but due to my own interests, experiences and access to scholarship, it has and will always be dominated by European tales. However, I don't want to miss out on other tales so books like this one are very helpful. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of this book is its publication date of 1992 which means that the last 20 years of African folktale publications are absent, but that doesn't diminish the usefulness of this book, just a loss of scope since many books have been published in the past 20 years.

Library Essentials Month: Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type Index by Hasan M. El-Shamy

Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type Index by Hasan M. El-Shamy is another important book in your repertorie if you are searching for fairy tale and folklore variants. While the AT /ATU system is critical, they are still dominated by the European tales. For that matter, the system is primarily based upon the European versions of the tales. El-Shamy, one of the leaders in Arab folklore, organizes tales in Arab folklore under the AT system. So if you are looking for say, Cinderella tales in Kuwait, Yemen, or Lebanon, this is the book you need to consult.

Unfortunately for English speakers, more than half of the tales listed are not available in English. But if a tale was available in English before the book's 2004 publication date, it is most likely here. El-Shamy also breaks down the tales into their motifs, making it easier to see why each tale qualifies to be listed under different variant types. After all, the tales from other parts of the world often don't fit easily into the European dominated system due to cultural, especially religious, differences.

I've spent many hours perusing this book, searching it for variants from around the world. It is fascinating to see some of the underlying motifs that show how tales that appear dissimilar on the surface really have strong ties through their themes.

Here's the book description from the publisher:

Types of the Folktale in the Arab World is an index and preliminary analysis of folktales told by the diverse ethnic groups that populate what is commonly called "the Arab World." It is also a comprehensive and interdisciplinary guide to tales told in related cultural spheres, from sub-Saharan Africa to Turkey and beyond. A folktale's emergence, spread, stability, change, continued presence, or disappearance among certain social groups depends on specific psychological, social, and cultural forces. While Hasan El-Shamy has adopted the familiar tale-type classification system employed by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, he also seeks to remedy the Eurocentric shortcomings of their system by addressing folklore as behavior, striving to bring the psychosocial foundation for the Arab renditions to this comprehensive and inclusive index. Types of the Folktale in the Arab World is destined to become an indispensable reference work for all who are interested in Arab culture and the folktale.

And while we are here, here is the table of contents:

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note on Data Presentation
Outline of the Aarne-Thompson Classification of Tales (1-2412)

DOTTI-A: TALE TYPES
I. ANIMAL TALES 1-299
II. ORDINARY FOLK-TALES: 300-1199
A. Tales of Magic: 300-749A
B. Religious Tales: 750-84
C. Novelle (Romantic Tales): 850-999
D. Tales of the Stupid Ogre: 1000-1199
III. JOKES AND ANECDOTES: 1200-1999
IV. FORMULA TALES: 2000-2399
V. UNCLASSIFIED TALES: 2400-2499
REGISTER OF MOTIFS
REGISTER OF TALE TYPES
SOURCES
GENERAL INDEX

This book was a massive undertaking for El-Shamy and is quite indispensible in my library. It is also referenced regularly in the Uther edition of the ATU index as a resource, so it walks hand in hand with it although the classifications are based upon the AT, not the updated ATU.

Library Essentials Month: The Types of International Folktales by Hans-Jorg Uther

Today's library essentials--The Types of International Folktales by Hans-Jorg Uther--is a budget stretcher. I admit it. But there is a lot of bang for the buck and I will never regret this purchase. And for the amount of information and the three volumes overall in hardcover, it is more than fairly priced, so this is not a complaint about the price at all. It is simply an acknowledgement that the average student cannot rush out and easily buy her own desk copy.

If you are new to all of this, this is the book you use to say, "Oh, Cinderella is ATU 510. Beauty and the Beast is ATU 425. There are many variants of these tales!" Then you can look up many of the resources to hunt those variants down.
In recent years, the Aarne Thompson Classification System has been updated to the Aarne Thompson Uther System, abbreviated to ATU. That's not big news these days, but understanding the changes as the textbooks and other informational sites catch-up can be a challenge. It also doesn't help that the classification system books are usually single copies in the reference section of a decently sized university library, limiting access for many others.

In the end, this is the set you need if you are going to work with the ATU system, because, obviously, it is the ATU system. It is updated and I find it easier to use than the older AT system volumes with somewhat more intuitive listings and bibliography.

I wish these were available as an electronic resource (i.e. software or ebook) which would be lovely. Now that's some programming I could enjoy and find infinitely useful on many levels! I have often considered building a fairy tale database of resources old and modern, but the cost is prohibitive. I have the resources to do it, since my husband and I do that for other companies--that is how we support ourselves--I am fortunate when SurLaLune breaks even. But I would still have to pay our programmers for the additional programming and that isn't feasible, alas, although John and I could easily design it which would cut the costs in half.



I gleaned the rest of this post from some of my previous posts. And if you want to order the books, I have instructions here. They are not currently listed on Amazon or B&N or essentially anywhere but with the publisher.

More about ATU:

There is a helpful article on Wikipedia, of course. It has a long list, but it is lightweight in giving background.

If you are hunting the web for information, the best site I've discovered so far is The Gold Scales. Now, that said, it is a site full of useful stuff, but it is hard to navigate at times. So I am going to provide some direct links to some of the most helpful stuff for today's topic:

From the Introduction to the Latest Folktale Catalogue This explains the new system, giving an overview of what has changed and what hasn't.

The ATU System: This page breaks down the basic areas of the system and then offers a further listing of Norwegian tales classified in the system. (Or something like that. I'm not very good at summarizing today.)

Publisher description for the entire set:

The Types of International Folktales (ATU) based on the system of Aarne/Thompson constitutes a fundamentally new edition with extensive additions and innovations. The descriptions of the tale types have been completely rewritten and made more precise. The essential research cited for each type includes extensive documentation of its international distribution as well as monographic works or articles on that type. More than two hundred and fifty new types have been added. Types with very limited distribution have been omitted. A detailed subject index includes the most important subjects, actions, and other motifs, including actors and settings.

The Types of International Folktales is a bibliographic tool that guides its users through the corpus of published traditional narratives of different ethnic groups and time periods, with a description of each type followed by references to catalogs, texts, and published research. Each “tale type” in all the traditional genres (fables, animal tales, religious legends, ordinary folktales, jests, and cumulative tales) must be understood to be flexible. It is not a constant unit of measure or a way to refer to lifeless material from the past. Instead it is adaptable, and can be integrated into new thematic compositions and media. The background for this model of narrative alteration and innovation is evident in a change of paradigm that took place in recent decades in historical-comparative folktale research, a change that has necessarily affected the nature of this new catalog. The catalog permits international tale types to be located quickly, thus providing a historical-comparative orientation toward folktale research for scholars in all disciplines that touch on popular narrative traditions.

Follow-Up on The Types of International Folktales Books

If you have tried to order these books previously when they were out of print, reorder them. The bookstore is not going to contact you about the old order. It was essentially cancelled if the books were out of print when you placed it. They didn't contact me about the reprinting. They don't even know I exist as SurLaLune. I am just a customer to them who ordered the set a few weeks ago.

I have been checking back semi-regularly since the books were supposed to be reprinted in the early part of this year and never were. I have desperately wanted my own copies for a while to facilitate research and because copies are not easy to find in most university libraries yet. Check WorldCat and you'll see how rare they really are. Nashville is surrounded by university libraries and only one had copies of this set which are lent out, not kept as reference books, so essentially they are unavailable. Fortunately, I had some fair use photocopies of the pages I needed the most.

Place a new order with the new listings provided in my post yesterday and await the email. You won't be double charged for anything by the bookstore. The nice thing about their antiquated ordering system is that an actual person is handling your complete order once it is received. If you have questions, you can also email them at tiedekirja (at) tsv.fi They can communicate with you in English. It might not be fluent, but it is adequate to your needs. And, yes, the books are in English so no worries there.

You can send the email requesting a total. Include your shipping address and the following:

Tilatut tuoteet:
1kpl 33,00 eur/kpl 83-265-30282 Types of International Folktales . A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti A
1kpl 33,00 eur/kpl 83-265-30283 Types of International Folktales . A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti A
1kpl 33,00 eur/kpl 83-265-30284 Types of International Folktales . A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti

As for availability through Amazon, B&N and others, not that I've seen so far and perhaps never. Most likely the price would equal or surpass ordering them direct if they were. These are from a small academic press in another country. They are not going to be easy for distributors to distribute for a profit without a severe markup especially in today's publishing economy. But at 33 euros apiece, they are very reasonably priced through the publisher. I've paid much more for much less with American academic publishers.

Finally, these books are HIGHLY recommended. I find they are more intuitive than the previous versions of the system with helpful categories and resources. If you work with tale types, they are a must, the primary tool you will end up using. Is the system perfect? No. But this is the best for the intended purposes.

Back in Print: Newest Version of The Types of International Folktales

Good news!

One of the most frequently asked questions on SurLaLune is about the ATU Folktale Classification System, and more specifially since my post last year, on the availability of the three books containing the new system. The books have been out of print for well over a year.

So the good news is that the books are back in print. They are not inexpensive, but in comparison to other academic folklore books, they are very reasonable. Alas, the biggest expense is the shipping which equals the price of one book since they are shipped from Helsinki.

So how do I get me some of this wonderful, important, critical folklore goodness you may ask... Go to the bookstore's main page and search for Uther in the search box. Hint: The site is not in English, but you can switch it over by clicking the British flag in the upper right hand corner. The English isn't perfect, but it's usable. The three titles for The Types of International Folktales appear at the bottom of the search results. You do have to put each in your cart separately.

The links to the individual books are here but may break since the site doesn't maintain a linking stability in my experience, but we'll hope for the best:

The Types of International Folktales. A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Part I. Animal Tales, Tales of Magic, Religious Tales, and Realistic Tales, with an Introduction

The Types of International Folktales. A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Part II. Tales of the Stupid Ogre, Anecdotes and Jokes, and Formula Tales

The Types of International Folktales. A Classification and Bibliography. Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Part III. Appendices

Add them to your cart. The tricky part is that the bookseller doesn't have an online merchant option. You have to order the books and then wait for an email with an order total in euros and a fax number. You can fax your credit card information to them. I chose to create a unique number with my credit card company with a specified credit limit and then emailed it back to the bookstore as an attachment to control any identity theft issues. I had difficulty getting the fax number to work and resorted to this method instead and so far have had no issues.

You may try to save money by ordering only Volume 1 (most of the popular fairy tales and other tales are in this volume) but Volume 3 is critical to using Volumes 1 & 2 since it contains the bibliographies. You won't know the citations in the first two volumes without it, in other words. You need those appendices.

My books arrived today. They are in perfect condition and hardcover to boot which is a boon to the usage I will give them. I had to sign for them and am grateful to not be working from my dogeared copies of critical pages from a local library edition that has been checked out for months anyway so I couldn't access it recently. There has been no other edition in my area. And the price of ordering all three copies is still less expensive than photocopying the books if that is your inclination. Unless you have free photocopying and an assistant to do the painful copy work, but that isn't quite legal anyway whatever the fair use. I had some page copies of pages for marking up with my research, but I am happy to have the originals on hand now, too.