I use “belief legends” as the correct term for fairy-tales recorded from everyday people, i.e. stories that were part of local beliefs. Please elaborate the themes highlighted in pink. For any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
ESSENTIAL RESOURCES:
Danish folklore database
http://etkspace.scandinavian.ucla.edu/danishfolklore/#
http://etkspace.scandinavian.ucla.edu/etkSpace/index.php
http://etkspace.scandinavian.ucla.edu/macroscope.html
Dutch Folkore database:
http://www.verhalenbank.nl
Joint database (not fully functional)
https://search.isebel.eu
To get sufficient search results, you must use google translate to find the respective search terms in Dutch and Danish, also use google translate for any foreign text so you can understand and describe its meaning.
– MERMAIDS (8 pages)
Add 8 pages to existing text, expand on Danish folktales and make a comparison with the dutch ones.
– The role of a pact with the Devil in Dutch and Danish belief legends (12 pages)
Good reference point:
http://www.verhalenbank.nl/items/show/69369
Follow approximately my work on Mermaids and explore how a pact with the devil is intertwined in the dutch and danish belief legend culture. Compare how this pact may differ in both countries.
– The role of witches in Dutch and Danish belief legends 15 pp
Follow the style the mermaids chapter i’ve included, explore the role of witches in Dutch and Danish belief legends, and if their geographical distribution is to any relevance. Explore if there’s differences between the two countries.
(dutch keyword for witch: Heks)
– Evolution of fairytale illustration (15 pages)
Describe the evolution of fairytale illustration, underlining that initially orally transmitted folktales would not be illustrated, but that they were a common theme in the arts and manuscripts, and that with improving printing techniques this would have changed. Please accompany this with illustrations (which do not count as text on pages.) John D. Batten and Henry Justice Ford are nice examples from the 19th century. Warwick Goble from the 20th. (just to name a few). Please try to find also very old illustrations from medieval times (there’s a lot on early medieval legends like the Swan Knight for example). Please focus on North-Western Europe, and in particular The Netherlands and Denmark, but there’s room for some excursions as a lot of very nice quality imagery comes from elsewhere. You could comment on how foreign works differ from Dutch and Danish works.
(some examples, but clearly not all there is out there)
https://medium.com/@creativecommons/10-fairies-in-the-public-domain-7af3168e2dbf
Illustrated initials from a German fairytale book (1919 edition)
