But the question that’s been on my mind for a while now is how and why we’ve come to recognize certain tales as perennial (and universal) and have relegated others to complete obscurity. Or, to be more exact, how we’ve codified and solidified certain interpretations of certain folk tales as the unalterable classics and neglected the cultural roots that led to their formation.
A.K. Afferez tackles what makes a folk tale rooted in the cultural tradition over at the Ploughshares blog.