112 Quotes About Folklore

I have plucked snowdrops at Midwinter, died at my own choosing, and wept for a nightingale. Now I am beyond prophecy.

Once, at the dreaming dawn of history -- before the world was categorized and regulated by mortal minds, before solid boundaries formed between the mortal world and any other -- fairies roamed freely among men, and the two races knew each other well. Yet the knowing was never straightforward, and the adventures that mortals and fairies had together were fraught with uncertainty, for fairies and humans were alien to each other.

A midwife once told Erszébet of the üszögös gyermek, the stunted child, a premature fetus born alive, a scurrying spectral thing with a rat's feet and ears.Unless the stunted child is immediately destroyed, it will return to its mother's womb. It is something monstrous, grown in secret.

We thought it was dropsof dew and kissedcold tears from the crossgrass.

The story of wolf killing illustrates the tenacity of two Euro-American conquering devices—folklore and property. Folklore fueled wolf hatred through rituals and legends codified into motifs and transmitted by word of mouth. Wolf lore survived by being remembered and retold, while property in the form of livestock also traveled across landscapes and lifetimes.

A lack of communication with horses has impeded human progress, said Abrenuncio. If we ever broke down the barriers, we could produce the centaur

The protagonist of folktale is always, and intensely, a young person moving through ordeals into adult life. . . . and this is why there are no wicked stepchildren in the tales.

The copse of trees shut out the sky at intervals. Between them were gaps; snow, tinged with the faint light of the morning sun, alternated with shadows. This reminded her of all life’s joys and sorrows. The trail was Lifeitself, unfolding.

What are you reading?” she asked as he poured himself scotch and her a vodka. She looked over to the deserted volume. “Stories and Legends of Pagan Russia,” she read aloud. “Are you catching up on Yvan’s biography?