Fairy Tales from Brazil: How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore

Elsie Spicer EellsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
111K words
Chapters
12

Tags

English Originals Folk LiteratureChildren's Literature Exotic CultureCultural ChangeFolk CustomsCross-Cultural ViewParent-Child ReadingYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Fairy Tales from Brazil: How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore by Eells Author: Eells, Elsie Spicer, 1880-1963, Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Feb 28, 2008

Editor's review

This is a collection of Brazilian folk fairy tales, with the subtitle indicating that its contents are "how and why" explanatory stories—folk tales that use narrative to answer questions about natural phenomena, animal characteristics, and the origins of things in the world. The author, Elsie Spicer Eells, long devoted attention to Brazilian folklore, and the stories in this book retain the structure and rhythm of oral literature; they are short, with variation within repetition, and are well suited to reading aloud and retelling. For Chinese readers, its significance is twofold: first, as a sample of world folk literature, it can be compared with Grimm's fairy tales and African or Asian folk tales, observing how different cultures use similar story patterns to explain the world; second, as an introductory reader for understanding Brazilian folk imagination and narrative traditions, it fills a gap in the relatively scarce Chinese-language material on Brazilian folklore. The English original is not difficult in language and is strongly story-driven, making it suitable as extensive reading material in English or for parent-child shared reading. When reading, it should be noted that such stories originate in a specific cultural context, and some plots carry the plainness or even roughness of traditional folk narrative; they need not be measured against the standards of cleanliness of modern children's literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read one piece aloud from beginning to end, sensing the rhythm and repeated sentence patterns of oral storytelling.
  2. After reading, try retelling the story and compare its explanatory logic with familiar fairy tales.
  3. For parent-child shared reading, first give the general meaning in Chinese, then read the English original.
  4. Choose two or three pieces to compare with similar stories from other cultures and make brief notes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12

FAQ

Is there a Chinese translation of this book? Project Gutenberg releases the electronic version of the English original and usually does not include a Chinese translation. Chinese readers who need a Chinese version must separately look for a relevant domestic published translation or read it alongside the original themselves. The materials for this book do not mention information about a Chinese edition.
What age of children are the stories suitable for? The stories are short and the plots are clear; upper-primary children with some English foundation can try reading them. However, folk tales may contain plots involving punishment or harm to animals from traditional narrative, so parents should browse first and choose pieces according to the child's level of acceptance, or first explain the general meaning in Chinese.
What do "how and why" stories mean? They refer to a type of explanatory story in folk literature that uses plot to explain why something is the way it is—for example, why an animal has a certain characteristic or why a natural phenomenon occurs. Such stories are common in folk traditions everywhere, and this book centers on this type of narrative from Brazilian oral folk material.
Can it be used as folklore research material? It can serve as introductory material for understanding Brazilian folk story types and narrative patterns, but it is compiled and adapted for general readers and is not a strict folklore field record. If used for academic research, it should be used in comparison with specialized folklore works and original collected materials.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Elsie Spicer Eells Author · American · 1880–1963

Elsie Spicer Eells (1880–1963) was an American folklorist and writer, born in West Winfield, New York, and died in Florida. She lived in Brazil with her husband, who served in a Presbyterian mission there, and later worked for the Hispanic Society of New York, devoting herself to collecting and retelling folk tales and legends from Brazil and the Azores. Three of her works are held here: Fairy Tales from Brazil, Tales of Giants from Brazil, and The Islands of Magic. Drawing on local oral traditions, they preserve the charm and local color of folk tales in clear, readable prose. She also wrote for magazines such as The Outlook of New York. Public information on her life is limited, and existing accounts focus mainly on her folklore collecting and writing.