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Folktales Quotes

Browse 37 quotes about Folktales.

Folktales Quotes

“Among curious rubbish you will find sound sense if you look for it. You will find the creed of the people, as shewn in their stories, to be, that wisdom and courage, though weak, may overcome strength, and ignorance, and pride: that the most despised is often the most worthy; that small beginnings lead to great results. You will find perseverance, frugality, and filial piety rewarded; pride, greed and laziness punished... That you may go on acquiring knowledge, selecting the good, and rejecting the evil; that you, like Conal in the story, may gather gold, and escape unharmed from the giant's land, is the earnest wish of your affectionate Kinsman.”

WisdomEvilCouragePridePerseveranceGreedGoodSenseFolktalesConal
Book:Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Volume 1
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“As a girl, she’d lived on folktales. They were the water to her family’s roots, and she’d grown up on stories of bargains and broken hearts. Even Dad’s stories often ended in tragedy. When she was young, Eva thought it terribly romantic to love what you were destined to lose. Now she called bullshit. It was easy to say that you’d die for someone, but what Eva really wanted was the kind of love that stood its ground when things got difficult, the kind of love that chose to live. For years, she’d fed her anger to survive, picturing her heart like a garden made to wither in the cold, and she’d blamed Arthur for killing the part of her that had believed in their story. But his touch awakened something in her again. As Arthur moaned into the skin of her neck, pressing his lips to her body and making goose bumps erupt down her arms, Eva wondered if maybe she’d been wrong all this time. Gardens never really die, after all. Seeds lie dormant, and soil goes fallow, all in the faith that one day, when the conditions are right, it will bloom again.”

HeartGardenRenewalYoung Adult RomanceRomantasyFolktales
Book:Honey in Her Veins
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“It wasn’t like this in the stories. In the old tales, when a young man went forth to have adventures, he endured his trials and came forth triumphant. He became a leader, or acquired a magical skill, or at the very least wed a princess. Maybe all three. There was never any question, not even in the darkest moment, that the hero would conquer both his enemies and his self-doubt. Perhaps that was why I had been angry with Simon, because I wanted the ending of his story to be the good one he deserved.”

HeroHeroesFairytalesHappy EndingFolktalesDaughter Of The Forest
Book:Daughter of the Forest
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“SELKIE Alone, the cold body of the selkie man lay upon the sand, so like the drowned one the widow had called for. For her longing, he was hauled upon the sand, exposed to the moonlight. The selkie strained in fraught movements and human form broke from the gleaming seal fur. Undeniably he bore the image of the widow’s lost husband and spoke with the sounds of the dead man’s voice. She hailed back from the rocks. Shadows accumulating beyond the moon’s ability to reform. Colours were washed from sight and silver crashed through her, colder than snow dreams of being. In the dark, the ocean became the rolling flanks of a great beast drifting back across the horizon. Out deep soon, the land’s drop sharp.”

OceanMythologyDark FantasyShort StoriesFolkloreMythical CreaturesFolktalesSelkieSelkiesSelkie Man
Book:Mystical Tides
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“In the end, one detail is unarguable: There will always be those searching for treasure. Never forget: We are a country founded on legends and myths. We love them, especially legends of treasure. Looking for treasure isn't just part of being an American, it is America.”

AmericaMysteryMythTreasureLegendsConspiracyAmerican DreamAmerican HistoryDream BigDreamingAmerican CultureLegendaryConspiracy TheoryConspiracy TheoriesMysteriesSeeking TruthFolktalesDetective WorkTreasure HuntingConspiracy TheoristsBeing American
Book:History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
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“Folk-tales and ballads conceive of Elfland with a different notion of time to our own. Its people mirror the activities of our world as if to mock or distort them, and to our eyes seem immortal. They affect our world, bringing benefit or harm, but these results are not consonant with our rules, and may resemble the arbitrary operation of luck or chance. Although men may interact with these folk, they can neither understand nor trust them. The Border Ballads in general are ready to accommodate similtaneously a theology of expiation, reward and punishment, and an Elfland which has no moral imperatives, and interpenetrates our own in unpredictable ways, even inserting off-spring among us by means of the changeling.”

BalladsFolktalesChangelingElflandBorder Ballads
Book:The Great Shadow House: Essays on the Metaphysical Tradition in Scottish Fiction
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“Ha!’ cackled the fiend, ‘I expect you’d like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn’t go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you’d be so kind as to lend me your body, I’ll set him dancing to my tune.’ The wife’s spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman’s pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap. It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips. When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered”

HorrorMurderRevengeDemonsGothicFolktalesBlack HumourBawdy
Book:Cautionary Tales: darkly delicious folktales inspired by the ancient lore of Eastern Europe
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“Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie. The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop. Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast. 'What I would give to suckle at that teat,' thought he. from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales”

HorrorEroticGothicRevenge Tv SeriesFolktalesSlavonic
Book:Cautionary Tales: darkly delicious folktales inspired by the ancient lore of Eastern Europe
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“Folk art is, indeed, the oldest of the aristocracies of thought, and because it refuses what is passing and trivial, the merely clever and pretty, as certainly as the vulgar and insincere, and because it has gathered into itself the simplest and most unforgettable thoughts of the generations, it is the soil where all great art is rooted. Wherever it is spoken by the fireside, or sung by the roadside, or carved into the lintel, appreciation of the arts that a single mind gives unity and design to, spreads quickly when its hour is come.”

CultureStorytellingStoryFairy TaleFairy TalesFolkloreFairiesOral TraditionFolktalesOral Storytelling
Book:The Celtic Twilight
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“If a story does its job, it doesn't ever end. Not really. But it can change. This is the nature of folktales. They shift to fit each teller. Take whatever form suits the bearer best. What begins as a story of sorrow can be acknowledged, held like a sweetheart to the chest, rocked and sung to. And then it can be set down to sleep. It can become an offering. A lantern. An ember to lead you through the dark.”

StorytellingFolkloreFolktalesPogroms
Book:Thistlefoot
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“Then the lion stares at it. It stares at its prey. Like this.' (Old Antonio frowns and fastens his black eyes on me.) 'The poor little animal that is going to die just looks. It looks at the lion, who is staring at him. The little animal no longer sees itself, it sees what the lion sees, it looks at the little animal image in the lion's stare, it sees that the lion sees it as small and weak. The little animal never thought before about whether it was small and weak. It was just an animal, neither big nor small, neither strong nor weak. But now it looks at what the lion is seeing, it looks at fear. And by looking at what the lion is seeing, the little animal convinces itself that it is small and weak. And, by looking at the fear that the lion sees, it feels afraid. And now the little animal does not look at anything. Its bones go numb, just like when water gets hold of us at night in the cold. And then the little animal just surrenders, it lets itself go and the lion gets it. That is how the lion kills. It kills by staring.”

RevolutionFolktalesZapatistas
Author:Subcomandante Marcos
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“After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form?”

IfsWorldWayHumansEndsMightFormUniverseStuffKnownMiddleFitShapesEternalProfoundChaosActiveTinyFamiliarSimplestObserversPhysicistChaoticBendingBeginning Middle And EndFolktales
Book:Otherland 4: Sea of Silver Light
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“While writing Cold Mountain, I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever and opportunistic.”

WorldWritingMindTwoColdMountainCleverVulnerableLandscapeClimbsMapsSouthernGeographyCarolinaNorth CarolinaTwo WorldsAppalachiaFolktalesCold Mountain
Author:Charles Frazier
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