G. A. Megas, Anna Angelopoulos, Aigli Brouskou, Marianthi Kaplanoglou, Emmanouela Katrinaki:
Catalogue of Greek Magic Folktales
Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia Scientiarum Fennica). 2012. 350 pp.
ISBN 978-951-41-1089-4
40 euros
The Catalogue of Greek Magic Folktales comprises an epitome in the English language of the ‘Greek Catalogue of Magic Tales’ published originally in five volumes in the Greek language. The collected texts cover a period of more than a century of recordings (from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the mid-1970s) and geographically cover not only the entire Greek territory and Cyprus but also other areas where Greek populations live(d) and Greek cultures thrive(d) (Asia Minor, Pontus, Cappadocia, Southern Italy). It was Georgios A. Megas, the eminent folklorist, who drafted the first (unpublished) catalogue, gathering and indexing all published and unpublished Greek folktale versions, so that the number of texts finally exceeded 23 000. A group of specialists continued for nearly 30 years carrying this project, consulting, classifying, and commenting G. Megas’ handwritten card indexes, and finally editing this rich material, scattered in public and private archives.
May this Catalogue of Greek Magic Folktales, in its English edition, serve as a useful tool for future comparative research.
The editing team presenting the Catalogue of Greek Magic Folktales comprises G. A. Megas (1889–1976), Professor of Folklore in the School of Philosophy of the University of Athens and member of the Academy of Athens; Anna Angelopoulos, PhD in Social Anthropology (EHESS), Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle; Aigli Brouskou, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the American College of Thessaloniki; Marianthi Kaplanoglou, Assistant Professor of Folklore Studies in the Department of Philology in the University of Athens; and Emmanouela Katrinaki, philologist, PhD in Social Anthropology (EHESS).
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