Once again, we've decided to traverse that dark and disorienting wood, Folklore.
And once again, we fully expected to lose our way.
That's the trick of this wilderness, after all.
However well you think you recognize the landmarks, however well-kempt the paths and the signposts
may be, ultimately each tree looks exactly like the next.
Here are myth and tale tangled up in the same copse, and no useful opinions on how to distinguish
them.
We've tried to make our own paths before, but ultimately ended up lost deeper in the
brush than we began.
Luckily, the denizens of this forest have been more than willing to show us the way.
Slavic folklore has been unique in its capacity to illustrate the relationships and the boundaries
between myth and tale.
Of course, that doesn't make the wood entirely safe to travel.
There are also things that live here which have a taste for deception, and blood.
Before I begin my tangent, I do have something else I'd like to share with all of you.
I told you in our recent H.P.
Lovecraft episode about the letters I've been receiving-the ones written by someone inside
the facility just beyond the foundry?
Well, whoever they are, they're still at it, and we'd like to start reading you some of
what they've been sending.
So make sure you stick around until the very end of the video.
Maybe we can finally start to get some answers, here...
But that's for later.
For now, let's get back to mapping out Slavic folklore.
The first thing we were struck by when we started our delving here was the impressive
groundwork that had already been laid out.
It seems there was a big push among Russian folklorists from the 19th century into the
early 20th to collect and analyze their folkloric materials.
Granted, this research isn't going to reflect all the folk stories unique to each and every
Slavic culture, but it provides by far the greatest wealth of academic material pertaining
to any set of folk stories from any of them, which is pretty significant.
What we've found in all of this research is three distinct genres of Slavic folk story
that bleed into each other surprisingly little.
First, we have Bylichki - anecdotes and memorates about personal experiences people have had
with the supernatural.
This is about as close as we're going to get to discussing Slavic religious myth in this
video, as this is the category in which you find the "household spirits", like the Domovoi
and the Bannik; the "wilderness spirits", such as the Leshy and the Rusalka; and a plethora
of "semi-religious beings", like Ded Moroz and the Nav, most of which received or continue
to receive some minor form of reverence.
Second, we have Bylini, or Starini, depending who you ask - bardic tales about epic heroes
called "bogatyr", told in the form of song or poetry, and greatly embellished with both
hyperbole and fantasy.
They're often pseudohistorical, presenting fictionalized versions of real people like
the dragon-slayer Dobrynya Nikitich.
Others, like Ilya Muromets, greatest of the bogatyr, are pure fiction.
Third and finally, we have the most fastidiously-collected of the three, the skazki - essentially Slavic
fairytales.
A lot of work has gone into the categorization and collection of these in particular, and
as a result, they present some of the most well-known tales in all of Slavic folklore,
including The Death of Koschei the Deathless, Vasilisa the Beautiful, and of course, countless
stories that feature the witch of the wilds herself, Baba Yaga.
If you aren't familiar, Baba Yaga is for many the face of Slavic folklore.
Not just because she flies around in a pestle and mortar, sweeping away her tracks with
a broom.
Not because her house stands on a pair of giant chicken legs.
Not because of her taste for Russian blood, her iron teeth, or her hideous visage.
Not for any of her material characteristics, however fascinating they may be.
Baba Yaga is perhaps the most recognizable figure in Slavic folklore because she breaks
the compartmentalization of the stories.
She's one of the few figures that has a presence of some kind within each of the different
genres.
As I said before, Bylichki, Bylini, and Skazki bleed very little into one another, but like
the wild cannibal of the wood that she is, Baba Yaga makes them bleed.
We'll get back to this in a moment.
If we're going to make sense of the role Baba Yaga plays, we first to connect some dots.
I said at the beginning of the video that all of this somehow informed our understanding
of Myth and Tale.
Because the stories have been so successfully gathered into genres, if we can nest those
genres into even broader categories, we can use their interactions to reach some really
interesting, more generalized conclusions.
So that's what we've done.
"Myth", by our reckoning, is any story that originates from or changes through mimetic
circulation-that is, circulation via adaptation or mimicry.
This includes religious myth, supernatural myth, rumor, legend, etc..
Thus, both Bylichki and Bylini are myth.
Bylichki because they're so anecdotal-mostly first-hand accounts from the narrator with
no distinguishable primary source, easily adaptable and mutable by any given storyteller-and
Bylini because they're so performative-largely stories recycled or embellished through bardic
story-telling traditions.
They're both primarily oral, so they're both subject to that "telephone" effect we described
in our H.P.
Lovecraft episode.
"Tale," on the other hand, we consider to be any story with an archplot-that is, a story
which more or less adheres to "classic design," involving a single active protagonist, a linear
time frame, causality, an external conflict, and a closed ending.
Very different from more avant-garde, literary works.
We put Skazki and, yet again, Bylini into this category.
Skazki because of the archetypal, heavily-structured nature of Slavic fairytales, and Bylini because
of the similarly archetypal and very meticulous structure of the bardic tellings.
Of course, you can see simply by the way we place Bylini that these two categories aren't
mutually exclusive.
A myth can have an archplot, and a tale can be subject to mimetic circulation.
Thus, we begin to map out the parts of the wood, and to trace the subtle paths that run
between.
But don't forget, we also warned you of the danger in traversing this wilderness.
Despite any map we might provide, you can never truly escape that hungry old woman and
her gnarled, grasping hands.
I began to say before that Baba Yaga has a place in Bylichki, Bylini, and Skazki each,
and that's true.
Her appearance in Bylichki is that of a vaguely supernatural being-a bogeyman to naughty children;
a sort of deity to others.
In the Bylini, she makes an out-of-place but precedent-setting appearance in at least one
tale as an aid to the hero Ilya Muromets.
But the Skazki are her true home-it is here that she is most frequently depicted, and
in the greatest detail.
It's impossible to determine which of these genres she originates from, but there's an
intrinsic feedback loop here.
Details from all three groups inform and alter one another, creeping inevitably into her
overall character.
Though she can stand alone as either a mythic being or a fairytale figure depending on the
story, she is the promise that myth and tale can never be perfectly separated.
This is one of the reasons mythology is such a confusing topic.
No matter how well-organized the folklore, there will always be these agents of confusion
that cross all boundaries and throw all attempts at categorization into question.
Thus, for us, Slavic folklore has been a brilliant navigational tool.
We can see now where lies the myth, the tale, and the confusing tangle of branches between
them.
Phew.
Okay.
That was... a very dense subject.
Hopefully it wasn't too convoluted in the end.
We'll get more into the fun stuff with our upcoming list video, where we'll cover some
of the specific creatures from Slavic folklore.
After that, of course, another short story.
This time we'll be adapting our own tale from shreds of Slavic myth.
If you're curious about some of the culture and the history attached to this, I can make
no better recommendation than that you go and watch The Animated History of Russia over
on our friend Suibhne's youtube channel.
He's made a good deal of these things, so if this one catches your interest, be sure
to stick around and watch the rest!
And let him know that we said to keep making stuff up!... even though he doesn't... because
his channel is about history...
It's the thought that counts.
And while you're waiting on the rest of our Slavic Folklore series, if you're hankering
for some good fiction that makes use of all this material in the meantime, fret not.
There's plenty available-and by far betters narrators than I am-over at Audible.com.
Sign up for a free one-month trial using the link in the description and you'll get access
to two free audiobooks of your choice from Audible's catalogue of over 100,000 titles.
This time, the Tale Foundry team has to recommend "The Bear and The Nightingale," by Katherine
Arden.
It's a dangerously-beautiful novel-length fairytale about the relationship between folk
belief and organized religion, and the pages are positively flooded with cameos from all
your favorite folklore creatures.
If you like what you heard in this video, you'll have a great time with this book.
And, of course, it definitely doesn't hurt that it's just a free way to support the show.
For a more intimate way to contribute, you can also join us on Patreon, where you'll
have access to votes to help us decide on topics, sneak-peeks, even think-tank sessions
where you'll get to talk to the team about each video before it comes out.
Each pledge brings us that much closer to acquiring the tools we'll need to uncover
the rest of the strange facility beyond the Foundry.
Speaking of which...
Before we end the video, I think it's about time I shared this letter with you.
I have to warn you, though it is a bit bizarre...
Keep in mind as I read that all of the following was in response to the simple question: Who
are you?
"Lo, at last the tide doth return mine query!
But ah, it is tragedy.
I had contrived to bottle a message in hopes that it would return with such revelation
and intrigue!
Instead I receive scrutiny and reduction.
I shall, however, attempt for the sake of the sender to bear all appearance of grace.
If I were to answer this question of who, dear sender, it would be a disservice to you
and to myself and to the whole of worthy experience.
Would you also have me attribute a face to the climbing suspense before the final act?
Shall I give name to that glorious anxiety of secrets withheld?
I shall give you instead a more apt query, then: what?
And this, I have already begun to say."
... I can say very honestly that I have no idea what to do with this.
I will definitely be writing back, but what am I supposed to say to that?
Something to think on, I suppose.
Suggestions are welcome.
At any rate, that's all for this all for this episode!
Thanks for watching, and keep making stuff up! we'll see you... next time!
Dasvidaniya!