I am a natural history writer just starting a doctorate which will also form the basis of my next book. I want to explore animal behavior which has been highlighted in stories - myths, legends, literature, film - anywhere. The animal doesn’t have to be the main character of the story. I am interested in how well the behavior in the story reflects the real behavior of the actual species the creator of the story would have been observing.
I’m also going to be using well known fairy tales and other legends with kids to introduce the natural history of specific animals to them.
I am REALLY keen to get stories from all over the world. Then I will have to travel there as part of my research!
Which legends or other stories with animals in them have caught your attention as a child or an adult or anywhere in between?
the myth that lemmings are odd creatures that deliberately commit mass suicide as a species each spring after they have laid a litter. not true. This behaviour was observed by scientists under a controlled environment and it was discovered that the behaviour was only observed under these particular restrictions (whatever they were).
I love the Anansi tales, and particularly how they along with other African and Cherokee trickster tales merged into the Brer Rabbit tales, always evolving with the culture.
Maybe not on-point, and I’m not a PC fanatic by any means, but I was thinking the other day of how the portrayal of sentient snakes are somewhat equivalent to racism in culture. They’re almost always the villains, it’s due strictly to their species (i.e. nothing they can change) and from Genesis to song to cartoons/fables they’re nasty, deceiving, utterly selfish creatures. (Of course I have a near phobia of them so I may not be impartial.)
Thanks, Saga, lemmings are a great case. I hadn’t thought of them - which will be true of most of what is offered here. I only started the doctorate last week! What fun I am going to have.
Sampiro - Anansi is very high on the list. I have only done a tiny bit on the stories and look forward to a lot more. Spiders are my absolute passion so Anansi is mentioned in my next book, currently in editing. Brer Rabbit is going to be a very rich source - thank you for that. From my current (limited) knowledge, they will lead me to all sorts of animals.
Your comment on snakes is fascinating. The link between the different traditions and their links is also of great interest. I will be looking at the history of myth and legend writing as well as that of natural history writing.
Don’t worry about being off topic (which you aren’t) - I am in the first six months of the doctorate which is that luxury time of just reading all over the place before finally defining the actual scope. So almost anything goes! That is the beauty of the Straight Dope - I will be pointed in all sorts of directions I would never have thought of myself.
This is one of those annoying “I can’t remember where I read this but I swear I did”, but I “somewhere I read” that in the Southwest when movie going was an event (newsreels, cartoons, featurettes, coming attractions, etc.) Hopi and Apache and other Indians would leave the reservations, come into town, buy their tickets to the show, watch the Road Runner/Coyote cartoons {laughing uproariously}, then leave before the movie started. Road Runner & Coyote were the two main figures in their folklore centuries before Chuck Jones was born.
Are you just looking at ancient stories? As a tot, my favorite animal stories by far were by A.A. Milne. True, they were about anthropomorphic toy animals, but they did exhibit some classic animal behavior: the bear eats honey, the rabbit lives in a hole, the kangaroo carries her young in her pouch. I especially liked, eh, like the way it turned the “wise old owl” archetype on its head.
Think of me while you’re on your research expedition to the wilds of Sussex.
Also loved Kipling’s stories. I think I’m a Victorian/Edwardian English boy at heart.
I am not sure - but I think he might have known some of the animal fables from the Indian classics Pancatantra and Hitopadesa. There is a nice selection of these Indian fables by Joseph Gaer called The Fables of India - it might suit your purpose. Or you could go for the Indian works themselves - I think both the Pancatantra and Hitopadesa have been translated numerous times. And by the way: What a cool doctorate project - great idea.
Wow! I wake up to these great ideas! Thank you. My poor brain is going in multiple directions at once. Thank you, Panurge, I think it’s cool, too. Thanks for the India leads. Exactly what I need. irishgirl: gorgeous book. I can just see my scholarship all going into the coffers of Amazon.
Even after less than two weeks working on it, I think I am going to get the basis for a number of books for both adults and children. So questions about old or new stories, TWDuke, are easily answered: I am interested in everything! The official title of the project for which I have been granted the scholarship is “Animals in Life, Legend and Literature”. The manuscript is to be narrative natural history - non-fiction. Within the proposal I talked about Charlotte’s Web (spiders being my passion) along with the Australian aboriginal legends - so A.A.Milne fits within that range!
I have just checked my Kipling, twickster - great stories to include! The blurb seems to imply he wrote them. I have both the academic aspect and the natural history manuscript as requirements, so the derivation of stories is all part of it. I spent breakfast out on our deck reading Kipling, eating toast with a nice hot cup of tea, and called it work!
Winsome Lousom, your question about the three pigs just sent me in another direction - a fun kid’s book where the natural history isn’t right. I can see this topic providing material for books for the rest of my life!
What about the bi colored python rock snake, from “The Elephant’s Child”? He does spank the elephant, just like everyone else, but he helps rescue him.
But you’re right. That was the only vaguely nice snake I could think of.
ETA: I think the Elephant’s Child can count as one of my favorite animal stories. I loved the animated version of it I saw as a kid.
Wanna go to Zimbabwe?
I’m reading “How Dogs Think” by Stanly Coren right now, and the following was in the intro:
It was the first one that popped into my head, and was conveniently on line to be copied and pasted. My all time favorite, though, is Watership Down, which is a bit more than a fable. What a fun project you’re starting!
I like the story of Beth Gellert, which has a couple different variations. The Wikipedia article sums it up, but of course there are better resources blah blah blah. You know that.
The Bremen Town Musicians is another one. There are some really nice children’s books of this story out there.
The Wild Swans or Seven Ravens/Crows is another one that I like. Seven brothers get turned into crows/ravens, and their loyal sister turns them back into boys by making them shirts out of nettles/thistles, though it hurt her terribly. I mean, who doesn’t love a story with bleeding fingers and open sores in it?
Obviously, “Beauty and the Beast”. The Beast isn’t a specific animal, but he is beastly. It leads to questions of what makes a human and what makes an animal.
Are you interested in metamorphosis? People change into animals and back into people all over the place in fairy tales. It seems to be a common punishment if you piss an old woman off and you’re a good-looking young man. Doubly so if you’re a prince.
You might also want to look into the different classification systems for fairy tales, like Aarne-Thompson. They have their drawbacks, but it’s one way to find a lot of different tales.
Oooh, I’ve got a modern variation of that one! I recently attended a lecture given by the author Michael Cunningham, and he read his short story “A Wild Swan,” based on an old fairy tale about twelve brothers, all princes, who were transformed into swans. Their sister sewed magic cloaks to turn them back into men, but racing against time to break the curse, she did not finish the sleeve on one of the cloaks, so one brother was left with a swan’s wing in place of his arm.
Well, for modern “legends” of animals in story, I’d suggest the fiction of Jim Kjelgaard, best known for his Big Red books, Jack London for Call of the Wild and White Fang, and Fred Gibson’s Old Yeller.
I’d also suggest Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf, and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.
All except the first of the Mowat book deal with dogs, but they are still interesting views of one of the animals closest to people.
