Pluzhnikov Artem
Objectives: To get acquainted with the life of a hare in nature, with its characteristic features; find out how it affected characteristics in the tales of the peoples of the North.
Objectives: Learn to select required material about the hare in different sources information; work with the text of fairy tales; characterize the hero of fairy tales - the hare; compare, draw conclusions.
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RESEARCH WORK. THE HARE IN THE TALES OF THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
Supervisor : Anufrieva Svetlana Romanovna, teacher primary classes Municipal educational institution "Sociocultural Center" p. Lophari, el. address:[email protected]
Why did I choose this topic?
I love listening to fairy tales. We were introduced to kindergarten With different fairy tales, riddles, with nursery rhymes that were invented by different peoples.
I live in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, this is the northern region. Recently we had events at our school, dedicated to the day birth of our district. The teacher introduced us to the Mansi fairy tale “Why does the hare long ears"and the Khanty fairy tale "Bunny". I became interested in finding out why there are many fairy tales about the hare, and why the northern peoples - the Khanty and Mansi - write fairy tales about it. What is it like in nature? And what did he do to deserve such attention?
Goals and objectives.
Objectives: To get acquainted with the life of a hare in nature, with its characteristic features; find out how its characteristic features were reflected in the fairy tales of the peoples of the North.
Objectives: Learn to select the necessary material about the hare from different sources of information; work with the text of fairy tales; characterize the hero of fairy tales - the hare; compare, draw conclusions.
The main idea, the problem of work.
Why do the northern peoples: Khanty and Mansi, mention the hare as a negative hero in their fairy tales?
Work plan.
- Re-read the fairy tales “Why does the hare have long ears” and “Bunny”. Describe the hero of fairy tales - the hare.
- Find information in a reference book for schoolchildren, encyclopedias about this animal.
- Draw a picture of a hare - an illustration for a fairy tale.
- Ask local residents Have you ever met a hare, and what is it like in nature?
- Draw a conclusion about the work done.
Description of the work progress and its results (drawings and photos are possible).
1. Visited librariesto find tales of the peoples of the North about the hare. I read two fairy tales. Concluded that in Mansi fairy tale“Why does a hare have long ears?” the hero hare is cowardly, cunning, loves to eavesdrop, so Elk (the king of animals) gave him long ears instead of horns. In the Khanty fairy tale “The Bunny,” the hare turned out to be greedy, envious and vindictive. Because he cut his lip with grass, he decided to burn it, attracting other heroes of the fairy tale to the evil intent.
2. Looked at children's encyclopedias. I learned that the hare is a wild animal. In spring and summer, the hare's coat is gray with reddish-brown markings. In autumn, he changes his summer gray fur coat to a snow-white, warm and fluffy one.The body of the hare is slender, slightly compressed from the sides, its length in some species reaches 68-70 cm. The weight of the hare can exceed 7 kg. The tail is short and bushy. Characteristic feature lagomorphs have long wedge-shaped ears, reaching a length of 9 to 15 cm. Thanks to the ears, the hare’s hearing is much better developed than the sense of smell and vision. The hind limbs of these mammals have long feet and are more developed than the forelimbs. When a threat arises, the hare's speed can reach 80 km/h. And the ability to suddenly change the direction of running and suddenly jump to the side allows these animals to get rid of the pursuit of enemies:wolf , foxes , owls , marten, hawk. Hares run well up slopes, but they have to go downhill head over heels. People call the hare oblique because its eyes are not in the center of its muzzle, but are located on the sides, so it can see what is happening from the side, back and front.
I also found out interesting information. Hares can be found in any country on earth, because... they live all over to the globe. Hares are territorial animals. Even when this animal runs away from a hunter or predator, it moves within its territory. When it rains, hares bend their ears so that water does not get into them and they do not get sick. A hare's teeth grow throughout its life. They wear off when the hares chew their food, but they never stop growing. To communicate between relatives, hares use " drum roll", which they knock out with spatulas. Hares stomp their feet on the ground, warning other animals that the territory is occupied. In winter, the fur on the hare's belly lengthens by a couple of millimeters so that the animals do not freeze their tummy. Hair also grows around the nose, protecting it from frost. Hares live no more than 9 years, and males live even less - about 5 years. However, cases have been recorded when a hare lived up to 13.5 years.
3. Found pictures, illustrations of a hare. I myself drew a hare for the fairy tales “Why does the hare have long ears” and “The Bunny”. This is how I imagine the hero of northern fairy tales.
4. We analyzed the fairy tale.I learned that in northern fairy tales the hare is described as a cowardly, cunning, greedy animal that eavesdrops on other people's conversations, which is why it has long ears. Many animals in fairy tales are depicted as scary, funny, sometimes stupid, cowardly, such as the hare. Each character in fairy tales about animals that have come down to us has become a bearer of both positive and negative qualities, inherent themes or other people.
Why did the Khanty people create fairy tales in which the heroes are animals: bear, partridge, fox, wolf, and hare?
I concluded that these animals live in the northern region, and people make up fairy tales about exactly what they see on their land.
Fairy tales ridicule human vices, such as cunning, greed, cowardice, so they endow the animals in the fairy tale with human shortcomings. This is done in order to teach good deeds to the people around them. Also, people previously could not explain some phenomena, for example, why the hare has long ears. To explain this, they came up with a fairy tale, which explains that the elk gave the hare long ears because he eavesdropped. In fact, in the encyclopedia, I learned that a hare needs long ears to hear enemies well, and most importantly,In the hare's ears there are a lot of capillaries in which blood circulates. Because of large area The ears of the oblique do not overheat the body, which gives it an advantage when hiding from pursuers. In cold weather, on the contrary, he presses his ears to his body, saving heat loss.
5. Interviewed several people. I learned from them that in our region people hunt. They also hunt hares. They set nooses, traps, and hunt with a gun. Previously, a lot of hares were hunted, in last years there are fewer of them. Rabbit meat is tasty, tender, and you can prepare various dishes from hare meat.
The main conclusions of the work, its purpose and application.
We can conclude that the hare is mentioned in this type of folklore, like in fairy tales. If people write about a hare, then they know this animal, saw it in their area, hunted it. Northern peoples through the hero of the fairy tale - the hare, they ridiculed human vices so that people would not do this again. Also, in their fairy tales, people explained some phenomena that they could not explain scientifically in the old days. In nature, the hare is found in all corners of our country. This is an amazing animal, you can find out interesting information about it..
The tales of the peoples of the North are very interesting, instructive, you learn a lot about the life of the people, about animals.
Reflection.
December 13th, 2014The hare is a largely unsolved character in world folklore. In Russian fairy tales, he is often a defenseless character who has a rather modest mythological rank. (Although, beliefs with a negative sign remained: it was believed that a hare crossing the road like a black cat signifies trouble.)
This is not the case in the legends of other peoples, where the hare sometimes acts as a cosmos-creating creature. In the beliefs of the North American Iroquois, he creates a world out of water; in the legends of another Indian tribe - the Winnebago - he competes with the sun and catches it in a snare. Among Eurasian peoples, on the contrary, the hare is associated with the moon.
*** The symbolism of the sun and moon has turned into the mythologies of “gold” and “silver” in world folklore. In the popular worldview, they, as a rule, were coupled, coexisting as part of some integral unity. Thus, numerous cosmic heroes and heroines of Russian fairy tales, whose legs are “knee-deep in gold, arms in silver up to the elbow,” symbolize precisely such symbolized solar and lunar symbolism. Perhaps, in the distant Hyperborean past, the bearers of these qualities were ordinary solar-lunar deities.
The pagan Lithuanians even had a hare god until the introduction of Christianity, which is mentioned in the Ipatiev Chronicle. We also cannot discount the fact that the hare is the only character in oral folk art to which the name of the Russian people itself was transferred: we're talking about about the brown hare.
In Russian folklore image The hare also retained vague memories of even more distant times - the Hyperborean. Thus, the innocent children's rhyme, which many probably know, originally contained a vital ideological meaning.
- The gray [or white] hare, where did it run?
- Into the green forest...
- What were you doing there?
- Lyko tore...
- Where did you put it?
- Under the deck...
- Who stole it?
- Rodion *...
- Get out!...
*** Rodion is both an understandable and incomprehensible name. Although it is included in the Christian calendar, its origin is clearly non-Christian and pre-Christian. In the Slavic pagan pantheon there was both the god Rod and the goddesses of the woman in labor - the patroness of women in labor and newborn babies. An attempt to derive Russian from the Greek rodon - “rose” is acceptable only if a single lexical and semantic source of both concepts is recognized.
However, in more archaic versions of this children's rhyme, recorded by folklorists back in the 19th century, it is often not “gray hare”, but “Hare-Moon”! What does this mean? Here's what: this mythology, identifying the hare and the month (moon), is contained in the most ancient layers of culture different nations peace. According to archaic cosmogonic ideas, spots on the moon represent a hare, which God revived after self-immolation. According to the Vedic-Hindu tradition, this primal god and ruler of the Vedic pantheon is Indra. Observing the laws of hospitality, the hare, in order to feed the divine thunderer who came to him, prepared a roast from himself. God Indra appreciated the act of self-sacrifice and placed the hare on the lunar disk. That’s why one of the names of the moon in Sanskrit is “shashanka,” that is, “having the sign of a hare.”
The same legends existed in Mongolia and China. Thus, Chinese Taoists said that lunar spots are “a hare that tramples a potion in a mortar to prepare a drink of immortality, and whoever wants to taste the divine drink can go to the moon even now.”
The belief about the “moon” hare was so widespread in China that it became the most popular pictorial subject. Even on the robes of high dignitaries and Bogdykhans, a month with a hare sitting under a tree was embroidered in silk.
Moreover, the tree was nothing more than the universal “tree of life”, and symbolized longevity and immortality. This ancient pictorial tradition has been preserved to this day: the scene of preparing the drink of the gods and the lunar hare is depicted on special bread or gingerbread cookies that are baked during the annual lunar holidays (baked products are called “lunniki”). By the way, the culture of Russian and Chinese gingerbread (even down to the creation of carved gingerbread boards), apparently, has a common source of origin.
Buddhism adopted and developed the most ancient Vedic and Taoist beliefs. The legend of the self-immolation of the hare has acquired additional details. A Buddhist parable tells how one day the Lord of the Sky himself came to visit a fox, a monkey and a hare who lived together, disguised as an old man, and asked to feed him. The fox quickly caught a fish, the monkey picked sweet fruits from the tree, and only the hare could not find anything. That's when he threw himself into the oven so that the old man could eat him fried. The old man (and it turned out to be Buddha himself in the form of one of his many incarnations!), touched by such self-sacrifice, took the hare out of the oven and placed it on the moon so that it would forever serve as a symbol of hospitality and mercy.
So this is where it comes from - a Russian counting rhyme with the Moon Hare...
The cosmic functions of the hare and its former power are also visible in the ancient Indo-Aryan collection of fables and parables, known under the Sanskrit name “Panchatantra” (literally “Pentateuch”; almost like in the Old Testament, only about something completely different).
For example, throughout the world and among different nations there is a fairy tale-parable about the Lion, whom the wiser Hare forced to jump into a well in order to deal with his own reflection in the water. Although the earliest surviving written version of the famous literary monument dates back no earlier than the 3rd century AD*, it is, without a doubt, based on oral histories, which existed in the Aryan environment for many millennia, starting from the Hyperborean era, when the Aryans still lived in the North.
*** “Panchatantra” was translated first into Persian and then into Arabic under the name “Kalila and Dimna” (named after the jackals acting in the book). The literal translation of the names of these jackals - Straightforward and Crafty - served as the basis for subsequent translations into other languages and, in particular, into Greek. Byzantine lists ancient monument under the name "Stephanit and Ikhnilat" received circulation throughout the Orthodox world, including Old Russian translations, thanks to which the book became one of the favorite readings of our ancestors. The fables of the ancient Aryans were translated into European languages indirectly - through Hebrew translation from Arabic. Many plots of the “Panchatantra” have inspired poets and fabulists over the centuries, and one of them has turned almost into a Russian folk tale: this is the parable about the frog traveler, processed by Vsevolod Garshin (with the difference, however, that in the ancient Indian source it does not work a frog, and a turtle).
This naturally suggests some assumptions and analogies. They specifically relate to the “moon hare” - a mythology included as a fairy tale in the Panchatantra.
The ancient Indian parable about the “moon hare” is quite long. Its essence lies in the fact that the cunning hare Vijaya (which means Winner in Sanskrit) decided to teach a lesson to the elephants, who went to the Moon Lake to drink and constantly trampled many hares and destroyed their homes. Vijaya went to the King of the Elephants and announced that he had been sent by the Moon itself and was its authorized representative. The night luminary is offended by the behavior of the elephants and tells them to leave the Moon Lake alone. To prove his omnipotence, the hare asked the King of the Elephants to move his trunk along the surface of the lake.
As a result, the water in the lake stirred, the reflected disk of the moon moved back and forth in the disturbed water, and in the waves, instead of one reflection of the moon, at least a thousand appeared. The king of the elephants was seriously frightened. As it is further narrated in the Panchatantra:
“And turning to him [the hare], the King of the elephants, with drooping ears and head bowed to the ground, propitiated the blessed Moon with bows and then again said to Vijaya: “Dear! Fulfill my request and always incline the blessed Moon to my mercy, and I I won't come here again."
The question arises whether such a tale could have appeared long before the Indo-Aryans, in their long and arduous advance from North to South, finally reached the Hindustan Peninsula (this happened no earlier than the 3rd millennium BC), and finally settled here ? After all, elephants have never been found in the North! How to say - there were no elephants, but there were mammoths! Weren't they the ones that were discussed in the most ancient and original version of the fairy tale?
By the way, in world folklore, many stories of a sexual nature are associated with the hare (which in itself testifies to the antiquity of such texts or ritual traditions, because with the adoption of Christianity, all pagan freethinking was mercilessly eradicated and cruelly punished). Russian oral is no exception. folk art. This is evidenced by such a girl’s song, in which the totemic hare is called to intercourse:
Zainka, gray one,
Don't walk in the hallway
Don't stomp your foot.
I'll lie with you...
And here is the result:
- Zayushka, who did you sleep with and spend the night with?
- I was sleeping, I was sleeping, my sir,
I slept, I slept, my heart [sic!]
Katyukha has it on her hand,
Maryukha has it on her breasts,
And Dunka has a widow - all over her stomach...
In Slavic ritual folklore Many wedding and post-wedding songs about the hare are associated with the loss of virginity by the bride. Folklorists have scrupulously collected, systematized and generalized a fairly diverse “hare” erotic theme and symbolism. Particularly popular in Rus' was the obscene tale, written down in many versions, about the participation of a hare (though mostly as a passive observer) in a mating between a bear and a woman. In some areas, it was generally believed that a stork brings newborn babies in the summer, and a hare in the winter.
In this regard, one cannot help but note the indisputable fact that in a number of Russian fairy tales the hare acts as a symbol and personification of the victory of patriarchy over matriarchy. For example, the famous folklore text from the collection " Treasured fairy tales"A.N. Afanasyeva. In the original, the text is so replete with obscenities and obscene language that one simply cannot raise one’s hand to reproduce it. However, most Russian readers (in this particular case, viewers) know it from an episode from Sergei Eisenstein’s film “Alexander Nevsky.” In the film, this tale about the fox and the hare is told to Prince Alexander and other warriors by the chainmail master Ignat just before Battle on the ice. The plot of the parable is that the hare, fleeing from the fox, showed Russian ingenuity and jumped so that the fox got stuck tightly between two birch trees. Having mocked the fox to his heart's content in words, the hare carried out a ritual act of retribution - “violated her maiden honor” (as it is modestly said in the film and for which in the original fairy tale the people did not spare either rich colors or strong expressions). Thus (if we consider the entire episode from a symbolic point of view) the triumph of patriarchy over matriarchy was demonstrated.
Another famous Russian fairy tale about a fox who drove a hare out of a bast hut also contains an unambiguous hint of the struggle between matriarchy and patriarchy.
Here, the bearer of matriarchal ideology initially wins - the fox. However, her arrogant triumph and confidence in permissiveness are temporary. The hare - the bearer of patriarchal ideology - tries to defend his rights and achieve justice with the help of other (male!) totems - the bull, the wolf and the bear, but to no avail. Only the bearer of the new sun-worshipping ideology - the rooster - was able to turn the situation around in favor of patriarchal values and finally establish the triumph of patriarchy over matriarchy.
Here, the traditional female cunning, personified by the fox, is opposed by the patriarchal male brotherhood represented by totems, which ultimately wins.
In Indo-European mythology, the rooster represents the sun. The braid on his shoulder in the archaic worldview was an attribute of time and death. Suffice it to recall the allegorical images of the god Saturn with a scythe on his shoulder, symbolizing time.
Ilyicheva Olga
GCD "Hare in Russians" folk tales»
Summary of direct educational activities
(senior preschool age)
Subject: « The hare in Russian folk tales» .
Program content:
1. Continue introducing children to Russian folk tales.
2. Improve children’s ability to characterize characters fairy tales.
3. Form an assessment of such moral concepts as "hard work", "courage", "gullibility", "boasting".
4. Exercise in the formation of words of the same root, enrich children’s speech with adjectives, teach them to understand the figurative meaning of words and phrases.
5. Practice the ability to convey the mood of characters fairy tales using a variety of means of expression.
6. Develop children's creative imagination
Material: illustrations for Russian folk tales« Hare - boasting» , "Zayushkina's hut", "Kolobok".
Propaedeutic work: getting to know fairy tales"Kolobok", "Zayushkina's hut", « Hare - boasting» ; looking at drawings different artists- illustrators.
Progress of activities:
The teacher sets out illustrations for the fairy tales"Kolobok", "Zayushkina's hut", « Hare - boasting» with the image of a hare.
IN:Look how many hares came to visit us today.
Are you familiar with them?
Which ones are they from? fairy tales?
Why these fairy tales are called Russian folk tales?
What helps us better understand heroes? fairy tales?
D:Answer questions
IN:Children, let’s look at illustrations of a hare and tell you which one the hare in these fairy tales?
D:Weak, small, timid, cowardly...
IN: What could have happened if the bun had not met the fox?
D: Answer
IN: What if the hare didn't meet the rooster, who would help him?
D: They answer.
IN: Now let's come up with the longest word about a hare from fairy tales"Zayushkina's hut"
A game is played to form new adjectives.
D: short-tailed, long-eared, cowardly, long-legged...
Say some kind words about the bunny from fairy tales"Zayushkina's hut"
D:Answer
Physical education minute
Zainka - bunny - children jump with their hands clasped, imitating a hare.
Little bunny - squat down, showing an inch from the floor with his hand.
Long ears - put palms to the head.
Fast legs - they run in place.
Bunny - bunny - same thing.
The little bunny is the same.
They are afraid of children - they wrap their arms around themselves,
The bunny is a coward - they pretend to be afraid and tremble.
IN: Guys, let's look at the illustration for fairy tale« Hare - boasting»
Describe this hare. What is he doing? Remember how you boasted hare? Is it possible name: mischievous, naughty, bully?
D: They answer.
IN: To draw such a hare, the artist observed the animals and studied their habits. Are there any such boastful people among you?
Is it good to brag?
D: Answer
IN: What proverbs about boasting do you know?
D: - don’t be brave on the stove, and don’t be cowardly in the field;
Afraid like a timid crow;
Scared like hare tambourine;
Hiding like a frog in the reeds.
IN: And now I suggest you play a game "Say it differently"
“My soul has sunk into my heels”- I got scared.
“I asked the shooter”- ran away.
"Exhausted"- tired.
"He turned his nose up"- got arrogant.
IN: Next game called “What does it look like?”
The teacher invites one child to pretend to be boastful hare: the child must express the image with facial expressions and gestures, and the rest of the children must guess who it is?
IN: Which of these hares would you like to be friends with and why?
D: They answer.
IN: Summarizes the activity.
All over the world, people tell stories to entertain each other. Sometimes fairy tales help to understand what is bad and what is good in life. Fairy tales appeared long before the invention of books, and even writing.
Scientists have interpreted the tale in different ways. A number of folklore researchers called everything that was “told” a fairy tale. The famous fairytale expert E.V. Pomerantseva accepted this point of view: “A folk tale is an epic oral piece of art, predominantly prosaic, magical or everyday in nature with a focus on fiction.”
Tales about animals differ significantly from other types fairy tale genre. The appearance of fairy tales about animals was preceded by stories directly related to beliefs about animals. The Russian fairy tale epic about animals is not very rich: according to N.P. Andreev (ethnographer, art critic), there are 67 types of fairy tales about animals. They make up less than 10% of the entire Russian fairy-tale repertoire, but at the same time this material is distinguished by its great originality. In fairy tales about animals, animals implausibly argue, talk, quarrel, love, make friends, and quarrel: the cunning “fox is beautiful in conversation,” the stupid and greedy “wolf-wolf—grabbing from under a bush,” “gnawing mouse,” “cowardly The little bastard is bow-legged and jumps up the hill.” All this is implausible, fantastic.
The appearance of various characters in Russian fairy tales about animals is initially determined by the range of representatives of the animal world that is characteristic of our territory. Therefore, it is natural that in fairy tales about animals we meet the inhabitants of forests, fields, steppes (bear, wolf, fox, wild boar, hare, hedgehog, etc.). In fairy tales about animals, the animals themselves are the main ones. heroes-characters, and the relationship between them determines the nature of the fairy-tale conflict.
My goal research work– compare images of wild animals from Russian folk tales with the habits of real animals.
A hypothesis is my conjectural judgment that the images of wild animals, their characters correspond to the habits of their prototypes.
1. Characters in the animal epic.
Observing the composition of animals acting as acting characters in the animal epic, I note the predominance of wild, forest animals. These are fox, wolf, bear, hare, and birds: crane, heron, thrush, woodpecker, crow. Pets appear in conjunction with forest animals, and not as independent or leading characters. Examples: cat, rooster and fox; sheep, fox and wolf; dog and woodpecker and others. The leading characters, as a rule, are forest animals, while domestic animals play a supporting role.
Tales about animals are based on elementary actions. Fairy tales are built on an ending that is unexpected for the partner, but expected by the listeners. Hence the humorous nature of fairy tales about animals and the need for a cunning and insidious character, such as the fox, and a stupid and fooled one, which we usually have the wolf. So, by animal tales we will mean those tales in which the animal is the main object. Characters there are only one animals.
The fox has become a favorite hero of Russian fairy tales: Fox Patrikeevna, Fox is a beauty, fox is an oil sponger, fox is a godmother, Lisafya. Here she lies on the road with glassy eyes. She was numb, the man decided, he kicked her, she wouldn’t wake up. The man was delighted, took the fox, put it in the cart with fish: “The old woman will have a collar for her fur coat,” and he touched the horse, he himself went ahead. The fox threw away all the fish and left. When the fox began to have dinner, the wolf came running. Why would a fox give a treat to a wolf? Let him catch it himself. The fox instantly has an idea: “You, little kuman, go to the river, lower your tail into the hole - the fish itself attaches to the tail, sit and say: “Catch it, fish.”
The proposal is absurd, wild, and the stranger it is, the more readily one believes in it. But the wolf obeyed. The fox feels complete superiority over his gullible and stupid godfather. Other fairy tales complete the image of the fox. Infinitely deceitful, she takes advantage of gullibility, plays on the weak strings of friends and foes. The fox has a lot of tricks and pranks in his memory. She chases a hare out of a bast hut, carries away a rooster, luring him out with a song, by deception she exchanges a rolling pin for a goose, a goose for a turkey, etc. up to a bull. The fox is a pretender, a thief, a deceiver, evil, flattering, dexterous, cunning, calculating. In fairy tales, she is faithful to these traits of her character throughout. Her cunning is conveyed in the proverb: “When you look for a fox in front, it is behind.” She is resourceful and lies recklessly until the time when it is no longer possible to lie, but even in this case she often indulges in the most incredible invention. The fox thinks only about his own benefit.
If the deal does not promise her acquisitions, she will not sacrifice anything of hers. The fox is vindictive and vindictive.
In fairy tales about animals, one of the main characters is the wolf. This is the exact opposite of the fox image. In fairy tales, the wolf is stupid and easy to deceive. There seems to be no such trouble, no matter what this unlucky, always beaten beast finds himself in. So, the fox advises the wolf to catch fish by lowering his tail into the hole. The goat invites the wolf to open his mouth and stand downhill so that he can jump into the mouth. The goat knocks over the wolf and runs away (fairy tale “The Fool Wolf”). The image of a wolf in fairy tales is always hungry and lonely. He always finds himself in a funny, absurd situation.
In numerous fairy tales, a bear is also depicted: “A Man, a Bear and a Fox”, “A Bear, a Dog and a Cat” and others. The image of the bear, while still remaining the main figure of the forest kingdom, appears before us as a slow, gullible loser, often stupid and clumsy, with club feet. He constantly boasts of his exorbitant strength, although he cannot always use it effectively. He crushes everything that comes under his feet. The fragile little mansion, a house in which a variety of forest animals lived peacefully, could not withstand its weight. In fairy tales, the bear is not smart, but stupid; it embodies great, but not smart, strength.
Fairy tales in which small animals (hare, frog, mouse, hedgehog) act are predominantly humorous. The hare in fairy tales is quick on his feet, stupid, cowardly and fearful. The hedgehog is slow, but reasonable, and does not fall for the most ingenious tricks of his opponents.
Thought fairy tales about animals turns into proverbs. The fox, with its fabulous features of a cheat, a cunning rogue, appeared in proverbs: “A fox does not dirty its tail,” “A fox was hired to keep a poultry yard from the kite and the hawk.” The stupid and greedy wolf also passed from fairy tales into proverbs: “Don’t put your finger in a wolf’s mouth,” “Be a wolf for your sheepish simplicity.” And here are the proverbs about the bear: “The bear is strong, but he lies in the swamp,” “The bear has a lot of thoughts, but he doesn’t go anywhere.” And here the bear is endowed with enormous, but unreasonable strength.
In fairy tales there is constant struggle and rivalry between animals. The fight, as a rule, ends in cruel reprisals against the enemy or evil ridicule of him. The condemned beast often finds himself in a funny, absurd position.
Prototypes of fairy-tale heroes.
Now we will look at the habits and lifestyle of real animals. I was guided by the book “The Life of Animals” by the German zoologist Alfred Brem. Thanks to his vivid descriptions of the “lifestyle” and “character” of animals, Brem’s work became for many generations the best popular guide to zoology. So he denies the superior cunning of the fox and asserts the exceptional cunning of the wolf. Wolves do not hunt alone, but together. They usually roam in small flocks of 10-15 individuals. The pack maintains a strict hierarchy. The leader of the pack is almost always a male (the “alpha” wolf). In a flock it can be recognized by its raised tail. Females also have their own “alpha” wolf, who usually walks ahead of the leader. In moments of danger or hunting, the leader becomes the head of the pack. Further on the hierarchical ladder are adult members of the pack and lone wolves. The lowest of all are the grown-up wolf cubs, which the pack accepts only in the second year. Adult wolves constantly test the strength of their superior wolves. As a result, young wolves, growing up, rise higher on the hierarchical ladder, and aging wolves fall lower and lower. So developed social structure significantly increases hunting efficiency. Wolves never lie in wait for their prey, they chase it down. When chasing prey, wolves are divided into small groups. The prey is divided among members of the pack according to rank. Old wolves, unable to participate in joint hunting, follow the pack at a distance and are content with the remains of its prey. The wolf buries the remaining food in the snow, and in the summer hides it as a reserve in a secluded place, where it later returns to eat what was left uneaten. Wolves have a very acute sense of smell, detecting scent at a distance of 1.5 km. A wolf is a predatory, cunning, intelligent, resourceful, and evil creature.
When I studied the material about the habits of the fox, I found some similarities with fairy fox. For example, a real fox, like a fairy fox, loves to visit the chicken coop. It avoids deep taiga forests, preferring forests in the area of agricultural land. And he is looking for a ready-made mink for himself. Can occupy the burrow of a badger, arctic fox, or marmot. The fox's tail is also mentioned in fairy tales. Indeed, the fluffy tail can be considered its feature. The fox acts as a steering wheel, making sharp turns during pursuit. She also covers herself with it, curling up into a ball while resting and burying her nose in its base. It turns out that in this place there is a fragrant gland that emits the smell of violets. It is believed that this odorous organ has a beneficial effect on the fox’s charm, but its precise purpose remains unclear.
6 The mother fox guards the cubs and does not let anyone get close. If, for example, a dog or a person appears near the hole, then the fox resorts to “cunning” - she tries to take them away from her home, luring them with her
But the heroes of fairy tales are the crane and the heron. About the non-fairytale, real gray or common crane in A. Brem’s book “The Life of Animals” it is said: “The crane is very sensitive to affection and insult - he can remember the insult for months and even years.” The fairy-tale crane is endowed with the features of a real bird: it is bored and remembers insults. The same book says about the heron that it is evil and greedy. This explains why the heron in the folk tale thinks first of all about what the crane will feed her. She is angry, like a real, not a fairy-tale heron: she accepted the matchmaking unkindly, scolds the wooing groom: “Go away, lanky one!”
In fairy tales and sayings they say “cowardly as a hare.” Meanwhile, hares are not so much cowardly as they are cautious. They need this caution, because it is their salvation. Natural flair and the ability to quickly escape with large leaps, combined with techniques for confusing their tracks, compensate for their defenselessness. However, the hare is capable of fighting back: if it is overtaken by a feathered predator, it lies on its back and fights off with strong kicks. The mother hare feeds not only her cubs, but in general all the discovered hares. When a man appears, the hare leads him away from the hares, pretending to be wounded or sick, trying to attract attention to herself by beating her feet on the ground.
The bear in fairy tales appears to us as slow and clumsy. Meanwhile, the clumsy-looking bear runs extremely fast - at a speed of over 55 km/h, swims excellently and climbs trees well in his youth (in old age he does this reluctantly). And it turns out that the bear is active throughout the day, but more often in the mornings and evenings. They have a well-developed sense of smell, but their vision and hearing are rather weak. In fairy tales, the bear embodies great strength and its prototype is capable of breaking the back of a bull or bison with one blow of its paw.
In studying animal epics, we must beware of the very common misconception that animal tales are really stories from the lives of animals. Before researching this topic, I also held this judgment. As a rule, they have very little in common with the actual life and habits of animals. True, to some extent, animals act according to their nature: the horse kicks, the rooster crows, the fox lives in a hole (however, not always), the bear is slow and sleepy, the hare is cowardly, etc. All this gives fairy tales the character of realism.
The depiction of animals in fairy tales is sometimes so convincing that from childhood we are accustomed to subconsciously determine the characters of animals from fairy tales. This includes the idea that the fox is an exceptionally cunning animal. However, every zoologist knows that this opinion is not based on anything. Each animal is cunning in its own way.
Animals enter into a community and keep company, which is impossible in nature.
But still, I want to note that in fairy tales there are many such details in the depiction of animals and birds that people spy on from the lives of real animals.
After reading the literature about fairy tales, about the life and behavior of animals and comparing the images and their prototypes, I came up with two versions. On the one hand, the images of animals are similar to their prototypes (an angry wolf, a clumsy bear, a fox dragging chickens, etc.). On the other hand, having studied the observations of zoologists, I can say that the images and their prototypes have little in common with the actual habits of animals.
The art of folk tales consists of a subtle rethinking of the true habits of birds and animals.
And one more thing: after studying the history of fairy tales about animals, I came to the conclusion: fairy tales about animals most often take the form of stories about people under the guise of animals. The animal epic is widely reflected human life, with its passions, greed, greed, deceit, stupidity and cunning and at the same time with friendship, loyalty, gratitude, i.e. a wide range of human feelings and characters.
Tales about animals are the “encyclopedia of life” of the people. Tales about animals are the childhood of humanity itself!
Is it possible to talk about a hare as a cowardly animal?
Cowardice is rather a human character trait. But animal psychology is a relatively young science, and people tend to attribute to animals what is characteristic of themselves.
How does a hare behave in natural conditions? In order not to get caught in the teeth of a predator, the hare hides, and if the predator does find it, it suddenly takes off and runs. A person who hides from danger may be considered cowardly. An alternative behavior is to meet the danger face to face, “in battle.” These stereotypes can also be discussed and their history can be found out.
But from the point of view of nature, the behavior of a hare is extremely rational. He knows how to camouflage himself well - that's why he hides. And so, by the way, it ensures the survival of its offspring. He runs very fast over short distances, so it makes sense for him to run for his life. Many herbivores behave this way. For example, fallow deer, deer. Remember the cycle of fairy tales by Felix Salten about the fawn Bambi. There are hares and deer in good relations. They consider each other “their own”. Of course, this is a fairy tale, and it ideologizes these relationships: they say, deer and hares are “friends” because neither one nor the other kills anyone.
But in general, a real hare is not such a small and weak animal. The length of his body is 60-70 cm. And if he stands on his hind legs, then his “height” can reach 80 cm. This does not take into account the length of his ears. He has on the front and hind legs has claws, and in some cases it is capable of repelling a predator. If the hare is standing, it will kick with its front paws. If he falls over on his back, he will kick with his hind legs, which are much stronger than his front ones. He can even rip open a fox's belly. Therefore, the fox does not always decide to attack the hare.
The common idea that a hare “constantly trembles with fear” is associated with the peculiarities of its sense of smell. Hares have a very acute sense of smell, and they constantly sniff the air to see if a predator has appeared nearby, or if there is suitable food nearby. When a hare sniffs, he moves his nose very quickly, and this also causes his upper lip to move. From the outside it may look like the hare is trembling.
Another “popular” misconception concerns hare “squint.” A hare's eyes are located not like a person's, but on opposite sides of the head. And the hare looks differently: in a person, the fields of vision of different eyes intersect, and a single image appears in the brain. But a hare’s fields of vision do not intersect. Each eye “sees its own thing.” Horses, sheep, cows, goats, mice, squirrels and many other animals view the world in exactly the same way. They too could be considered “oblique”. In fact, they often say about a horse that it “crosses its eye.”
In general, a hare, like any other animal, is an incredibly interesting creature. Well, the fact that, while reading fairy tales, children sympathize with the hare and feel sorry for him, is good. Perhaps someday they will see a living hare and be very surprised - it will be so different from the fairy-tale hare. But it is useful to be surprised.
