Carrick - The Crab and the Jaguar - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

When technology works it's great, but when something goes wrong it can be disastrous!  In the middle of last month I discovered my website went down and even claimed it didn't have the security certificate scheduled to run through this week.  I've been with the same webhost for many years, so I gave them the benefit of extra time to correct the problem.  Eventually it became necessary to change webhosts.  That, too, took a while, but now once again https://www.Lois-sez.com is up and running properly.

I've no idea when this problem started, but am grateful that, once again, my website is up.  It was particularly ill-timed as this is the time when I started sending out my Summer Reading Program publicity.  I'm planning on a Storytelling Cruise Around the World.  This program has long been a favorite for schools, libraries, and even at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  

I also bring my puppy puppet sidekick, Buzz, dressed in his lifeguard shirt to help me with added audience participation. Buzz helps me by drawing the raffle-style tickets of audience attendees.  Together we have fun with water-related jokes and riddles.  (I freely confess to having roughly fourth grade humor.  For my international readers, that's roughly nine years old.)

The stories in the program travel from Alaska to Hawaii, Japan, Liberia, and then either Ireland for a mermaid tale or a form of the following South American story first found in English in Valery Carrick's Picture Folk-Tales.  (He also illustrated the story.)  I'll give a bit more about the story later.

Carrick doesn't give the source for this tale, but it is a variant of a South American type of story also often told by our own Native Americans.  I asked a Brazilian storytelling friend about the story and she recognized it, saying the jaguar is known for being very cruel.  She also said in Brazil it is called Onca (pronounced Own-suh).  I use that name when I tell it and confess my telling is closer to the version called "Little Crab and His Magic Eyes" (including having the vulture find blue berries) found in Margaret Read MacDonald's Twenty Tellable Tales.  I recommend the book highly.  

Both Carrick and MacDonald give some fish names that trip well on the tongue, but aren't accurate.  I'm going to switch to Trahira.  This is after following Carrick's information that the fish is the father of the Trahira fish. Trahira grow to approximately a yard long.  Additionally Trahira is one of the names of the Erythrindae family of Central and South American fish known for preying on other fish.  Holding my hands a yard apart and calling them the vicious Trahira fish seems to follow the story's intent.

Right now or in the summer, I'm sure we'd all love to take a warm water cruise around the world. 

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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

 

 

Carrick - The Crane and the Heron - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

"Storyteller Sorepaw" here, bringing a story from my own field and that of my neighbors, yet it reaches out from here in Michigan to Utah and possibly back into the dawn of time.  Every year at this time we are visited by a few Sandhill Cranes.  It's like watching something from the age of the dinosaurs.  In fact this article from The Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, Utah may interest those of us who have wondered "Are Birds Really Dinosaurs?"  That article is from the controversial author, Stephen Czerkas.  He died in 2015 and Wikipedia at this point has yet to do an article on him, but as of last month the self-taught paleontologist's work attempting to trace the link from prehistoric raptors to modern birds fills up most of the 62 citations under the name of Czerkas including several from May 2017.  I'm certainly not a paleontologist, and don't know if past mistakes like his National Geographic accidental hoax about Archaeoraptor prove anything beyond curiosity will always leave us wondering.

Fortunately I do have the ability to find stories, including many in the Public Domain which can be published for our enjoyment without restriction.  The stories are not necessarily about this particular type of Crane as Sandhill Cranes are one of 15 living species of a bird with a record that continues to fascinate paleontologists and the public alike.  That fascination includes stories wherever any cranes have appeared, Asia, Europe, and here in North America.

Some other time I may add other crane stories, but today prefer a story that includes a cousin of the Crane, the Heron, who also is here in Michigan.  The Sandhill Crane and our own Blue Heron may not be the specific species in this Russian tale, but the story is a delightful look at the contrariness of courting.  I prefer it to television's attempt with The Bachelor.  Earlier on this blog we've had another article and three stories by or about Valery Carrick .  Those stories and today's tale come from his trio of Picture Tales from the Russian.  Today's offering is from the first volume and was translated by Nevill Forbes with Carrick's own humorous drawings.  Don't get hung up on the inter-species behavior, just enjoy this look at "true love" and its difficulties.  Oh heck, here's a site with lots of quotes about True Love and, if that's too sappy for you, let your cursor hover over the Topics button at the top of the page and go to others on love you prefer.

Fortunately my own "local" cranes each year seem to match this Wikipedia claim, "Cranes are perennially monogamous breeders, establishing long-term pair bonds that may last the lifetime of the birds." I can't tell the male from the female, but they clearly are more motivated in their search for food in the fields than by whose turn it is to be in charge.
*************
Here's my closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain. 
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 
Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.

Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

• The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            
             - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html
             - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain
             - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html
             - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales
         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at http://web.archive.org and put in http://www.story-lovers.com/ in the search box.  I recommend using the latest "snapshot" on November 2016
             - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html
  
             -  World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/
  
  
  You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  For an example of using the "Wayback Machine", list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is gone, but using the Wayback Machine you can still see it.  At the Wayback Machine I put in his site's address, then chose 2006 since it was a later year and clicked until I reached the Library at http://www.pjtss.net/library/.  
  
  Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Valery Carrick

Have you ever wondered about the adult success of children of important people?  Author, illustrator, caricaturist, Valery Carrick is an example of what may happen.  His father, William Carrick, came to Russia when only a few weeks old, but left his mark on Russian history and photography by his pioneering photographs of 19th century Russian peasants and workers on the streets of St. Petersburg. The blog, Masters of Photography, also shows many of those photos, such as

and

 

 

 

Three other blogs, Art of the Russias, House of Mirth Photos and Ephemera, and the Facebook blog, Wistorical, tell still more about William Carrick and his work and show further examples of his work.  (Wistorical mistakenly identifies Valery as a female.)  The oft repeated paragraph about the Carrick family says:
Carrick died of pneumonia, at St Petersburg, on 11 November 1878. William Carrick was noted in Russia for his height, which was 6 foot and 4 inches. He had married once, to one Aleksandra Grigorievna Markelova (1832–1916), fathering by her two sons, Dmitry and Valery, whilst adopting her son Grigory from an earlier marriage. He trained Grigory as a photographer, while Valery went on to become a famous caricaturist. His wife Aleksandra, nicknamed Sashura, was a liberal and a nihilist, and for a time the only female journalist at the Peterburskie Vedomosti ("St Petersburg Times").

All articles on William Carrick point out, not only his royal connections, but his work photographing peasants.  No doubt this was where Valery had the opportunity to learn so many Russian peasant tales.  I was surprised to learn that he was part of a Scottish community in Russia.

Back home in Great Britain, Valery's cousin, Oxford professor of Russian and Other Slavonic Languages, Nevill Forbes, produced, among other publications, several elementary Russian readers and translated Valery's first three books, Picture Tales from the Russian (1913), More Russian Picture Tales (1914), and Still More Russian Picture Tales (1915). 

To find actual information on Valery himself, in English online information, we discover he illustrated Rose Fyleman's Widdy-Widdy-Wurkey: Nursery Rhymes from Many Lands, published in England in 1934, then re-published as Picture Rhymes from Foreign Lands, in the U.S. in 1935, and later (1971) as Nursery Rhymes from Many Lands.  He's also included in No. 3 Joy Street.  That and the sentence listing him as the son of William Carrick are all I could find online in English.

Russian author, Maxim Gorky

Only Wikipedia articles originating in his adopted land of Norway and homeland of Russia tell us about him. 

Just as Wikipedia exists in English, it also exists in other languages.  The Russian language Wikipedia has great illustrations from Carrick's Russian Picture Tales, two of his cartoons and this caricature

, 





 It also tells this about Valery Villiamovich Carrick:

Valery Vilyamovich Carrick
Date of Birth:October 30 (November 11) 1869 
Place of Birth:Saint Petersburg 
Date of death:February 27, 1943 (73 years) 
Place of death:Valsta
Citizenship: United KingdomCommons

Valery Vilyamovich Carrick (1869-1943) - Russian children's writer, journalist, illustrator and cartoonist. Son of interpreter AG Carrick and photographer of Scottish descent VA Carrick. (Lois: William is translated Vilyam and that's why what seems to be Valery's middle name is actually his patronymic, Vilyamovich, meaning Son of William.)  Was a British subject, but most of his life in Russia.  He studied at the Academy of Arts from 1882 to 1886.  As a painter and graphic artist came to prominence during the second half of the 1890s.  He exhibited his works at exhibitions since 1903 (Society of Russian watercolors).  In 1905-1906 years worked in the satirical magazine "bogey" and "Goblin", and then was a correspondent for "Bulletin of finance."  Known gallery of cartoons on the Russian writers, politicians, public figures: Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Bryusov, Andrei Bely, V.Korolenko, A.Kuprin, S. Witte, Stolypin, V. Kokovtsoff, Miliukov , P. Struve, I. Tsereteli, F. Plevako and many others. World renown came with his caricature, "The Tsar and Tolstoy," published in the British newspaper, "Manchester Guardian"  September 5, 1908 (for the cartoon, he spent ten weeks under arrest).  He was engaged in the collection, writing, illustration and publishing tales of different nations of the world, especially Russian. Since 1909, Russia began to appear in his "Picture-Tales."  His caricature of Maxim Gorky was in the magazine "Goblin", 1906.  He made postcards at the beginning of the 20th century caricaturing bureaucracy and another 1900 card encouraged the February revolution, but he reacted negatively to the usurping of power by the Bolsheviks. In December 1917, he emigrated to Norway, he lived in a small town Valsta (Norwegian) not far from Oslo. He actively participated in the life of the Russian diaspora and worked with immigrant publications. He wrote articles with socio-political content and continued to work as a cartoonist.  He was the initiator of the campaign "Help a friend" in favor of hungry people in Russia. In 1920, at the request of Gorky, he was involved in raising funds for Russian scientists. In 1920 he published a collection of fairy tales with his own illustrations. In 1930 - he was the author and editor of the newsletter "Contact". He also had a conversation with Russian emigrants around the world, among its recipients A.Kuprin, Rachmaninov, I. Shakhovskoy, F. Stepun Struve and many others. In 1933 and 1936, he made several trips to Europe to collect folklore and reading the lecture series "Life stories".  He was buried in the cemetery in Asker.

OR  yet another Russian arts source (that refuses to reappear!) said:
Carrick Valery V. (William Vilyamovich) 19 (11?) November 1869 (St. Petersburg) - February 27, 1943 (Valsta, Norway).
Cartoonist, book illustrator and writer.  Son of St. Petersburg photographer and watercolorist William (Basil) A. Carrick (1827-1878), a native of Scotland.  Like his father, had British citizenship, but considered himself a Russian.  He graduated from the Teachers' Institute in St. Petersburg.  He studied at the Academy of Arts in 1882-1886.  Was an acquaintance of Gorky (since 1899).  From 1902 published caricatures of Russian culture and cartoons on the socio-political issues in the journals "Sparks", "bogey", "goblin", "Journal of magazines", "Dragonfly", the newspaper "Russian rumor."  Signed work: VK or V. C.  Performed caricatures of  VGKorolenko (1905), Gorky (1906), SG Wanderer (1906), DV Filosofova (1916), Merezhkovsky (1916), VV Rozanov (1916), a cartoon, "The State Duma.  Freestyle imitation of Raphael "(1907).  Author of the satirical cartoon watercolor postcards: "Zemsky Sobor", "The Constitution as the Constitution", etc.  Postcards and cartoons of V. Carrick enjoyed great success with collectors.  In 1908, for the publication of sensitive political cartoons "L. Tolstoy and Nikolai II »and« Cholera and hangin' in the British newspaper «The Manchester Guardian» (September 5, 1908) was subjected to ten-week detention in Moscow.  A correspondent of "Bulletin of Finance."  He was engaged in the collection and processing of literary fairy tales. Illustrated and designed children's books, among which the most famous series "Fairy Pictures" (33 issues), which was published in 1909 and reprinted many times in Russia up to 1923 (printed, usually in the printing BM Wolf in St. Petersburg and Moscow book publishing "Zadruga"), "Dictionary Assistant" (Pg. 1917), "Drawings by Ivan Krylov's fables" (Wiley, 1923), etc.  In 1914, his book of fairy tales, translated into English ("More Russian Picture Tales "), was published in the United States.  He took part in the exhibitions: «Blanc et Noir» (1903), the Society of Russian watercolors (1903), drawings and prints in the halls of the IAH (1915, 1916).  Read the report "illustration" at the 1st All-Russian Congress on Family Education (1914).  Since December 1917, with his wife Olga Mikhailovna, lived in Norway - first in Halingdal (Hallingdal), then Brandbu.  Later the couple settled in the small town of Valsta (Valstad) near Oslo.  Actively participated in the life of the Russian Diaspora, worked with immigrant publications. Wrote articles with socio-political content in the newspaper "Rudder" (Berlin) and "Revival" (Paris), continued to work as a cartoonist.  Member of the Russian emigre circles (1927-1931), one of the organizers of the first Days of Russian Culture in Norway.  The initiator of the campaign "Help a friend" in favor of hungry people in Russia.  At the request of M. Gorky was involved in raising funds for Russian scientists.  In 1933-1936 - the author and editor of the newsletter "Contact".  Corresponded with Russian emigrants around the world, among its recipients were AIKuprin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, FA Stepun Struve, John Shakhovskoy etc.  Produced the 12 caricatures of the leaders I and II State Dumas and Ministers of the Russian Empire for a book by the English historian B. Peyrsa «Russian memoirs» and illustrations for the book "Puss in Boots" for the Paris edition Siyalskoy E. (1930).  In the early 1920s, prepared new editions of "Tales-images" with his own illustrations ("Snow Maiden", "Gingerbread Man," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Straw bull", etc.), the circulation of which was distributed by countries of the Russian diaspora.  With a series of lectures, "Life stories" for Russian emigrants made tours to cities in France and the United Kingdom (1932), Germany and Switzerland (1933), Finland and the Baltic States (1936).  Continued to produce on a rotator (Lois: mimeograph?) cheap black-and-white books for children.  Buried at the cemetery in Asker (Norway).  Ink drawings and watercolors from the collection of director of publishing house "Knowledge" KP Pyatnitskiy stored in the Archives of Gorky in Moscow. 
Bibliography:* XH USSR 4/2/273; HRZ.VV Rozanov Among the artists. St. Petersburg., 1914. S. 419-420.Shaposhnikov F. History of a cartoon / / Spark. 1958. Number 17. S. 19.Leonid Andreyev and Gorky: Unpublished correspondence. Moscow, 1965. S. 611 (op.cit.) (Letter inheritance. T. 72.)Boris Grigoriev Funny portraits of writers / / Evening Leningrad. 1969. July 1 (№ 152). C. 3.Diveev M. Funny portraits / / Evening Leningrad. 1976. Sep 16. (№ 219). C. 3.Caricatures William Carrick / / Neutral: Portraits, sketches, historical narratives and essays. Voronezh, 1973. S. 180-181 (from Portree.) Silt.
Art materials Museum of AM Gorky's description. Moscow, 1986. S. 72, 203-204.Teterevleva TP Vilyamovich Valery Carrick (1869-1943): The St. Petersburg emigrant Norway / / St. Petersburg and the Nordic countries.Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference (St. Petersburg, 25-26 April 2003). Russian Christian Academy of the Humanities.T. Teterevleva (Arkhangelsk). Building the author's children's book illustrations in the post-revolutionary Russian abroad / / Illustrators Russian and foreign children's literature: Sat articles. St. Petersburg., 2011. [Online Edition].VV Carrick / / Wikipedia.Compositions:Russian in Norway / / Rudder. 1924. June 28 (№ 2305).Three good deeds: Eastern fairy tale / / Rudder. 1931. March 22 (№ 3138).Shadows of the Past: Memories / / Rudder (Berlin). 1931. August 29. (№ 3270).Valery Carrick. More Russian Picture Tales. N.Y., 1914 / / The Project Gutenberg EBook   

from the Norwegian Wikipedia article on Valery Carrick:
Valery Carrick (born 1869, died 27 February 1943) was a Norwegian / Russian illustrator, draftsman and translator.

Carrick was born in St.Petersburg, Russia, but had Scottish citizenship when his ancestors came from Scotland. As a result of the October Revolution, Valery Carrick and his Russian wife Olga Mikhajlovna came to Norway as refugees in 1917. Their first residence was Gol in Hallingdal, then the surrounding area before settling in Nuremburg. At first they rented a small house in Holm Bay, on Hvalstad. In 1926 they moved to Kunstnerdalen and stayed in the same house as Martha and Rasmus Steinsvik had stayed in previously.
 
Artistic career:
Carrick freelanced in 1905 as a cartoonist in the Russian satirical journal as Zupel (sulfur] and Lesij (forest troll). During a stay in England in 1908 he produced his caricatures of authors and British politicians printed in several newspapers. In The Manchester Guardian, he printed a caricature of the czar and Leo Tolstoy which led to him being arrested and imprisoned for 10 weeks.

Carrick is also known as both the reteller and illustrator of folktales. These adventures were first published in 1909 and subsequently translated and published in England, USA, Holland and Germany.

Valery Carrick was also central in the effort to spread the knowledge of Russian culture in Norway. He published, including the self-printed newspaper, Svyaz '(connection, communication), as part of this work.

Carrick - The Hare and the Frog - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Many of the stories in the third and final book of Valery Carrick's Russian Picture Tales series show their influence by or maybe on the folklore of other countries.  In contrast, today's story is interesting for its place in Russian folklore.   Russian literature and songs, especially from the average person or the peasants from whom so much of folklore originated, often seem to reflect a philosophy best expressed as "Life is a dismal swamp!"  Sometimes that is expanded to "Life is a dismal swamp and then you die!"  Sounds depressing, even if you think of the history forming it, but it's often like the Blues.  The Blues has been defined as "A good man feeling bad."  I'd change that to a good person, letting the Blues be available to both genders, but trust you get the idea: even something unhappy can be good if it's done well.

After either a Russian story or song, I might mention that bit of Russian philosophy, then follow it with this brief story.

So life just might not be a Dismal Swamp after all. 

Today's story was extremely brief, but tomorrow I have a bit of research about Valery Carrick as an extra posting.  It's what happens when you follow the rabbit trails that can pop up when telling stories.
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This is part of a series of bi-weekly posting of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

Currently I'm involved in projects taking me out of my usual work of sharing stories with an audience.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  This fall I expect to return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Depending on response, I will decide at that time if "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings.

Carrick - The Goat and the Ram - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I'm uncertain why More Russian Picture Tales is the only Valery Carrick book online when Picture Tales from the Russian (1913) and Still More Russian Picture Tales (1915) are both safely in the public domain.  A more general anthology of his, Valery Carrick's Picture Folk-Tales (1926) may still be under copyright.  Because this is book is the most easily available, I'm going to follow the story of "The Goat and the Ram" with a few other stories worth looking up in that Project Gutenberg edition.

Let's hear it for quick thinking and outsmarting those wolves!

Now for the promised brief look at many of the stories in this book.  The first story, "The Cock and the Bean" is a classic cumulative tale where each participant has something wanted before someone can be saved.  "The Goat and the Ram" is next, followed by a Carrick drawing unrelated to the stories.  Those visual bits are scattered throughout his various works.  "The Hungry Wolf" could almost be a companion piece to today's story as a foolish wolf is outsmarted by a ram, a horse, and a pig.  "The Peasant and the Bear" is the tale of two farming, with one always outsmarting the other by correctly choosing the part of the crop either growing above or below the ground, leaving the useless half to the foolish partner.  Knowing that Carrick gathered tales from peasants and the common people on the streets of St. Petersburg, I found it interesting that he includes "King Frost."  It's a Russian tale I love and seems to be found in every significant general Russian folktale collection.  It's always worth comparing different re-tellings.  I enjoy telling "The Bear Paw", but realized I'd created my own form of the chant and how I tell it.  "The Bear and the Old Man's Daughters" is comparable to a Grimm tale.  Which came first?  We'll never know, but it's great to see how stories travel.  Similarly "The Straw Ox" reminds me of the Tar Baby.  "The Fox and the Blackbird" is a Russian telling of an Aesop tale.  That's most of it, but I leave a bit of discovery for you to enjoy.

Next time will be the third and final "Picture Tale" by Carrick here.
**********************
This is part of a series of bi-weekly posting of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

Currently I'm involved in projects taking me out of my usual work of sharing stories with an audience.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  This fall I expect to return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Depending on response, I will decide at that time if "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings.

Carrick - The Dog and the Wolf - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I've long loved Valery Carrick's Picture Tales series of books.  Three are included in my "Russophilia" biography as they are specifically Russian peasant tales.  Those Russian titles are safely in the Public Domain.  His Picture Tales books, including those three and more, were originally published in Russian in 1912-1919 in St. Petersburg and Moscow, then the first three came out in English in 1913-1915.  So why is only the second book, More Russian Picture Tales, available online?  Why, even though he has a fascinating background, is Carrick barely an online English footnote? (He has an article in the Norwegian Wikipedia and in the Russian Wikipedia.)  A bit of mystery also surrounds his later books that don't have Russian in the title.  While published in the mid-1920s and their copyright doesn't seem to be renewed, I can't guarantee they are in Public Domain so I won't post them.  His simple stories are often excellent "nursery tales" as shown by his first book being included in the Waldorf curriculum for Kindergarten, but the text is not given.  Similarly Project Aruna, a Japanese site for learning to read English, uses various stories, but only from More Russian Picture Tales as part of its many free graded readers.

Have I aroused your curiosity?
I'll pass the results of my search about Carrick later in a special post outside my usual schedule after my third and final post of stories from each of the Russian Picture Tales.

This is from the first book, Picture Tales from the Russian, written and illustrated by Valery Carrick and translated by Nevill Forbes.

 

I didn't take one of the simplest stories in the book.  Instead I chose this story in contrast to a sadder legendary Welsh tale, Beth Gelert.  My favorite version of that story is told by Joseph Jacobs.  Two versions, one by Jacobs and another by Horace Scudder, are posted on Professor D.L. Ashliman's excellent site, along with three other versions of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 178A.  (For more about the AT Tale Types, go back to the article here by Wendy Welch, called The AT Numbers Unattached or Researching Your Stories Print Versions.)

Next time I'll choose a trickster tale that reminds me of another story in Picture Tales from the Russian, "Mr. Samson Cat."  Unfortunately, since that book is not online, you'll either have to borrow or buy that book to read about the clever cat who married the Widow Fox.
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This is part of a series of bi-weekly posting of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

Currently I'm involved in projects taking me out of my usual work of sharing stories with an audience.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  This fall I expect to return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Depending on response, I will decide at that time if "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings.