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Traditional Tales Quotes

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Traditional Tales Quotes

“so that it isn't upsetting to anybody. It's something we've always known about fairy tales – they talk about incest, the Oedipus complex, about psychotic mothers, like those of Snow White and Hansel and Gretel, who throw their children out. They tell things about life which children know instinctively, and the pleasure and relief lie in finding these things expressed in language that children can live with. You can't eradicate these feelings – they exist and they're a great source of creative inspiration.”

“An hour later, a group of men from the funeral home arrived. With my grandfather's help, they cleaned my grandmother's body and marinated it in rice alcohol. When the wine had straightened her limbs, which had stiffened from rigor mortis, they dressed her in new clothes. Using a thick red thread, they tied her two big toes together to prevent her spirit from wandering. A cheap red lacquered coffin was brought into my grandparents' bedroom. A layer of sand was spread at the bottom to cushion the body. Rich families would use tea leaves instead of sand. The more expensive the tea, the richer and higher in status the dead were. We covered the sand with coarse, loosely woven cotton gauze. After my grandmother's body was laid inside the coffin, a small dish filled with burning oil was placed on the ground beneath it to keep her spirit warm. Incense in a large urn perfumed the air. It was time for friends and relatives to pay their respects.”