Gaal György magyar népmese-gyűjteménye

György Gaal (Georg von Gaal)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2

Word count: 285K words
Chapters: 29

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. Gaal György magyar népmese-gyűjteménye (3. kötet) by György Gaal. Author: Gaal, György, 1783-1855. Language: Hungarian. Class: PH: Language and Literatures: Finno-Ugrian and Basque languages and literatures. Release Date: Apr 2, 2012.

Editor's review

This collection of Hungarian folktales, compiled and edited by György Gaal, is the third volume of his work and an important product of nineteenth-century Hungarian folklore collecting and the preservation of the national language and culture. Its value lies not only in the tales themselves but in the direct material it offers for observing Hungarian folk narrative tradition, motif types and the flavour of oral language. As part of a public-domain ebook project, it presents the original text in a convenient form; it is suitable as a basic reader for scholars of folklore, folk literature and Finno-Ugric philology, and for readers curious about Central and Eastern European folk culture as further reading. Note that the book is in Hungarian and bears the marks of early collecting and editing; it is best read as a historical source and research text rather than a modern retelling to be enjoyed for smooth entertainment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers engaged in folk literature or folklore studies who need original tale texts for analysis
Students of Hungarian or Finno-Ugric philology seeking nineteenth-century folk narrative texts
Readers interested in Central and Eastern European folk culture who are willing to read the tales with language support
Comparative literature researchers collecting samples of Hungarian folktale motifs and types

Not a good fit for

General readers with no Hungarian reading ability and no translation at hand
Young readers expecting modern retellings and light, entertaining fairy tales
Beginners seeking a systematic scholarly introduction and detailed annotations

Reading tips

Start with Gaal György's editorial background and the nineteenth-century Hungarian folklore-collecting movement before moving on to the individual tales.
As you read, record tale types and motifs in the order they appear in the volume, to make comparison with other European folktale collections easier.
Where archaic spellings or dialect expressions appear, consult a modern Hungarian dictionary or a translation for support.
Read selected tales alongside the Grimms or similar East European stories to observe differences in narration.

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.

FAQ

Is this a Hungarian-language collection of folktales or an English translation?

According to the available information, the book is in Hungarian and is the third volume of Gaal György's Hungarian folktale collection. It is not an English translation; readers need a reading knowledge of Hungarian or should work with a dictionary or a translation alongside it.

Is this suitable as a bedtime storybook for children?

Not really. It is a collection of original folktale texts gathered and edited in the nineteenth century, in Hungarian, and bears the marks of early editorial practice; it is not a modern, child-friendly retelling. Young readers without translation support will find it distinctly difficult.

What are the practical features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This edition is released by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain ebook, easy to search, copy and download. It can serve as a basic text for research, but note that such electronic editions usually lack modern scholarly notes or introductions, so background material must be supplied by the reader.

How should this collection be used in folklore research?

Treat it as primary material for nineteenth-century Hungarian oral narrative: record tale types, motifs, narrative structure and features of oral language, and compare with other European folktale collections. Since modern annotation is absent, use folklore reference works and type indexes alongside it.

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

György Gaal (Georg von Gaal) Author · Hungarian · 1783–1855

György Gaal (1783–1855) was a Hungarian collector of folk tales, born in Pozsony (present-day Bratislava), who long served in the imperial government in Vienna. Inspired by the Brothers Grimm, he gathered folk tales over more than two decades from Hungarian soldiers stationed in Vienna and others, publishing a German edition, Märchen der Magyaren, in Vienna in 1822. His Hungarian-language legacy was published in 1857–1860, constituting the first systematic Hungarian collection of folk tales and preserving valuable material for later Hungarian folklore and folk-literature studies. Three of his works are held in this collection, all connected with his folk-tale collection; public information is limited, and details of his life and scholarly assessment await further research.