Reviews and Comments

When reading Italian-language books, my progress is still very slow. For one thing, I am still a beginner (I've had two years' worth of evening classes so far). For another, I take note of any words I don't know yet and write them down on index cards for further memorization.

Still, I managed to finish the Introduction ("Introduzione") this morning, so soon I will begin with the actual entries of folkloric creatures...

I am trying to learn Italian, I am trying to expand my knowledge of folklore, so this encyclopedia of Italian "Gnomes, Fairies, and Kobolds" was an obvious choice for me.

Da hatte ich in einem öffentlichen Bücherschrank einen echten Glücksgriff. Irgendwann will ich mal ein Buch über Sagen und Legenden zum Thema "Räuber und Gesetzlose" schreiben, und solche Sekundärliteratur kommt mir da gerade recht.

The third volume of Kühnau's massive collection of Silesian folk tales focuses on tales of "magic, miracles, and treasures", and it fully delivers. All tales are neatly arranged by topic, starting with tales of witches and witchcraft, and ending with tales of miners and my personal favorite the "Wahles" - or, as I like to call them, "Ultraterrestrial Venetians". Furthermore, each tale clearly lists its source, which is sadly not something that should be taken for granted with folk tale collections - but it is greatly appreciated by researchers like me.

Kühnau erred on the side of comprehensiveness, which means that many of the tales will start feeling a bit repetitive the longer each chapter goes on. But that, too, is something that works in my favor, since I can pick the best variants for further translation.

All in all, this public domain work - which is available for download at Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa - is a great boon to anyone who wants to research German-language folk tales!

Der ewige Kampf:

"Ich sollte keine Bücher mehr von öffentlichen Bücherschränken mitnehmen - ich habe sowieso zu viele Bücher!"

vs.

"Hey, eine elfbändige Bildbandserie über Kunst aus verschiedenen Epochen und Kulturen!"

This book has far too many poems for my liking - they are far too much of a hassle for me to translate. However, they are easily skippable.

Other than that, a major focus of the folk tales in this book seem to be religious stories - the founding of churches and monasteries, stories behind church ornaments and relics, and so forth. I'm not sure if this is was the planned focus for the first book in this series (there are two further volumes), or if this continues throughout of the collection.

I could easily fill an entire book with tales about churches and monasteries from all over Germany. However, I'm not sure how popular such a collection would be - presumably, most fans of folk tales are more interested in tales of supernatural creatures, magic and the like. Thus, it's probably best if I tackle this kind of topic later, once I have already made a name for myself.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..."

#dnd #ttrpg

I do like the elderly lady I have as a tenant a lot.

But every time I visit her, she gifts me more books which I don't really have the time to read. 😅

There are an awful lot of German folk tale collections which focus on "heroic knights".

Which only makes me more motivated to publish a folk tale collection focusing on wicked nobles as an antidote.

I wish all those books about the Third Reich weren't so terribly, terribly relevant these days.

#ThirdReich #history #fascism #racism #Nazis

Long before #DnD was a gleam in Dave Arneson's eye, there were German folk tales of treasure hunters delving into ancient dungeons - and this book has dozens of such tales!