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A pourquoi story [a] (French pronunciation: ⓘ; "pourquoi" meaning "why" in French) is a fictional narrative that explains why something is the way it is, for example why snakes have no legs or why tigers have striped coats. Many legends, origin myths and folk tales are pourquoi stories.
The Mwindo epic is an oral tale from the Congo told by the Nyanga people. The origins and creation of the Mwindo epic are mostly unknown since the story is only passed down orally. A version of the story was recorded by Kahombo Mateene and Daniel Biebuyck and published in 1969.
Accounts of the stories have pre-colonial origins, but the name of the hero was Hispanized during the Spanish colonization. The original name of the hero has been lost in time. All versions of the story agree that Bernardo Carpio had a strength that was similar to that of many strong men-heroes in Asian epics, such as Lam-ang.
Scholars Hans-Jörg Uther and Jack Zipes recognized that the tale belonged to the cycle of the "Animal as Bridegroom". [2] [3]In folktales classified as tale type ATU 425A, "The Search for the Lost Husband" or "The Animal as Bridegroom", the maiden breaks a taboo or burns the husband's animal skin and, to atone, she must wear down a numbered pair of metal shoes.
A notable example is the myth of the foundation of Rome—the tale of Romulus and Remus, which Virgil in turn broadens in his Aeneid with the odyssey of Aeneas and his razing of Lavinium, and his son Iulus's later relocation and rule of the famous twins' birthplace Alba Longa, and their descent from his royal line, thus fitting perfectly into ...
A less pejorative term is a pourquoi story, which has been used to describe usually more mythological or otherwise traditional examples of this genre, aimed at children. This phrase is a reference to Rudyard Kipling 's 1902 Just So Stories , containing fictional and deliberately fanciful tales for children, in which the stories pretend to ...
Dawn, Twilight and Midnight or Dawn, Evening, and Midnight [1] (Russian: Зорька, [a] Вечорка и Полуночка, romanized: Zorka, Vechorka i Polunochka) is a Russian fairy tale collected by Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev and published in his compilation Russian Fairy Tales as number 140.
The story has also been considered an oikotype, i.e., a form of the tale that is specific to a certain region (in this case, the Baltic geographical area). [ 23 ] Folklorist Norbertas Vėlius has also developed an academic interest in the narrative and analysed its elements ("the dual nature of Egle, the attributes of the snake, the types of ...