Abstract

The stories told in this book, like the stories on television, illustrate the triumph of good over evil; the rewards of heroism and virtue; and the endurance of the human spirit when faced with tragedy and catastrophe. In addition, these fairy tales offer the thrills of exotic settings and of exciting adventures. They are spiced with humor, both focused and broad. Like other traditional stories, they provide an interesting mirror of cultural values that indicate western European influence. There is evidence that these tales and their direct ancestors have evolved from the ancient Sanskrit and Persian cultures to the European Middle Ages, from the Age of Enlightenment to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wherever oral cultures had flourished. We held our first interviews in the summer of 1977, after we decided that we would offer that September a free class for anyone who wanted to learn or to relearn the Old Mines French dialect. The purpose of the interviews was to enable us to find material for these lessons. We sought out people who spoke French in the Old Mines area and conversed with them in French, as well as was possible.