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My Ten Favourite Jewish Folktales
I was reading through A Treasury of Jewish Folklore. It was first published in 1948 and has since gone out of print. If you can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend running away with it. For your health, of course.
The book has many, many different Jewish folktales, parables and legends. These are my ten favourites.
Read MoreThe Difference Between Fables & Parables
Fables and parables are both ways of telling stories that convey moral lessons. They’re similar enough that the two words are often used interchangeably. Still, they sometimes differ in their characters, storytelling approach, and cultural origins.
Read MoreHow to Write a Fable
A fable is a short story that teaches a moral lesson. The characters in a fable are usually animals who act like humans, embodying certain characteristics. The lion represents power, the crocodile ferociousness, and the fox cunning. These animals act according to their nature, suffering the consequences of their behaviour, thus teaching us how to act properly.
For example, in “The Tortoise and the Hare,” the slow but steady tortoise wins a race against the fast but lazy hare, teaching us that “slow and steady wins the race.”
Here’s how to write your own fable in three steps.
Read MoreThe Myth of Aesop & His Fables
Almost three thousand years ago, in the land of Samos, there lived a respected philosopher named Xanthus. He had a slave, as was common then, but this slave was not a common man. He had a hunched back, a large nose, and an unusual talent for telling stories.
One day, Xanthus was invited to a banquet held by another wealthy man from Samos. Xanthus sought to impress his host, so he asked his clever slave to devise some witty riddles for him to use at the banquet.
His slave, Aesop, gladly provided Xanthus with many riddles. At the banquet, Xanthus posed the riddles to the guests, none of whom could figure out the answers. They started asking Xanthus for help, but Aesop hadn’t given him the answers. Realizing that his master was in trouble, Aesop stepped forward and solved the riddles himself, astonishing the guests with his intelligence.
The wealthy host was so impressed by Aesop’s abilities that he bought and freed him. Aesop then travelled the world, recounting clever fables and advising kings. Then, one day, he recounted such a controversial tale that he was put to death.
Or so the story goes.
Read MoreThe Difference Between Fables & Fairy Tales
Both fables and fairy tales are magical children’s stories that are popular in many different cultures around the world. They’re often short, feature talking animals, and serve to impart moral lessons. Despite all this, they actually aren’t very similar at all. They have completely different purposes, themes, and tones.
Read MoreThe Art of NM Kochergin, The Russian Fairy Tale Illustrator
Whenever I would go looking for fairy tale art, I would find this artist’s work, always accompanied by Cyrillic text, and so I never knew who he was or what it meant. But the art was beautiful and magical. I’d never seen anything like it before.
After a little digging, it turns out that the artist is Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin (1897-1974), a Soviet-era Russian artist. Kochergin is considered part of the golden age of children’s illustration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, along with artists like Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, Beatrix Potter, and E. H. Shepard.
Read MoreCortés Didn’t Burn His Ships
There is an old legend that Hernán Cortés, the infamous Spanish conquistador, burned his fleet of ships to prevent his men from retreating. That isn’t quite what happened.
Read MoreThe Best Fantasy Books Like the Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is the most influential fantasy novel of all time. It’s not the most popular. It’s not the most mainstream. For that, look to Harry Potter or Brandon Sanderson. Their fantasy books sell far more copies.
What sets the Lord of the Rings apart is that it’s serious and profound. It confronts mature themes, delves into great detail, and roots itself in a deeply imagined history. It’s timeless quest through a fantasy world that feels real and meaningful.
Few other writers rival Tolkien. But there are indeed a few.
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