Fairy Tale
The Kolobok, (traditional Russian pie/ small bread), suddenly becomes animated and escapes from "babushka" and "dedushka"s (old wife and man) home. The fairy tale's plot describes Kolobok's repetitive meetings with various animals (rabbit, wolf, and bear) who intend to eat it, but Kolobok cunningly escapes. With each animal Kolobok sings a song in which he explains his escape deductively: "I got away from Grandmother, I got away from Grandfather, and I will certainly get away from you". The fox manages to catch and eat Kolobok through distracting him by praising his singing.
The fairy tale in the Czech language is named O Koblížkovi, where Koblížek is the main character. His name comes from Kobliha, which is the same doughnut as the Polish sweet Paczki or Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian Krafne. In the Slovak language, the story is called O Pampúchovi (About Doughnut), Ako išiel Pampúch na vandrovku (How Doughnut went to wander), or the equivalent using the diminutive Pampúšik. Pampúch is the Slovak word for the same type of Slavic doughnut.
In the German regions a very similar fairy tale was recorded in 1854 by Carl and Theodor Colshorn. In the book Märchen und Sagen aus Hannover the Low German story "Dicke fette Pannekauken, blief stahn, eck will di fräten!" has an identical plot, however at the end the "Pannkauken" (pancake) will meet hungry orphan children and so it lets itself be eaten. The name of the tale was later shortened to Low German "De dicke fette Pannkoken" and Standard German "Der dicke fette Pfannkuchen", which both can be translated to "The thick fat pancake". In the books the pancake is often depicted with little feet contrary to pictures in other variants of the fairy tale. The end of the German tale differs from the Ukrainian. Instead of being eaten by one of the animals, the pancake gives himself to two poor children who have nothing else to eat.
In Norway a similar story was recorded in the 1840s by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and published in the fairy tale book "Norske Folkeeventyr" as the story of the "Pannekaken". In this case the mother of seven children is baking pancakes when one suddenly comes alive. The pancake rolls off ("trillet og trillet") and out of the house. After the pancake encounters several animals, a sly pig manages to win the pancake's confidence and get close enough to eat it.
Read more about this topic: Kolobok
Famous quotes related to fairy tale:
“A parent who from his own childhood experience is convinced of the value of fairy tales will have no difficulty in answering his child’s questions; but an adult who thinks these tales are only a bunch of lies had better not try telling them; he won’t be able to related them in a way which would enrich the child’s life.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because—despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content—these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“... and the next summer she died in childbirth.
That’s all. Of course, there may be some sort of sequel but it is not known to me. In such cases instead of getting bogged down in guesswork, I repeat the words of the merry king in my favorite fairy tale: Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)
“There’s a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)