The main tool for cataloguing folk tales is the so-called "Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index" which uses an alphanumeric designation for folk tales.
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The main tool for cataloguing folk tales is the so-called "Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index" which uses an alphanumeric designation for folk tales. These designations have been gradually developed over the decades, and are well-established in the field of #folklore .
But truth to be told, I am not really satisfied with the ATU index - in my opinion folk tales rarely fall neatly into singular narratives. Instead, they are best seen as a collection of narrative tropes - and thus, I feel that the (in)famous TV Tropes Wiki is the best approach for sorting and cataloguing folk tales.
My Tropes index is still fairy bare-bones, which can't be helped since I only have 62 folk tales in the wiki so far. But I hope it will develop into something useful over time.
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The main tool for cataloguing folk tales is the so-called "Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index" which uses an alphanumeric designation for folk tales. These designations have been gradually developed over the decades, and are well-established in the field of #folklore .
But truth to be told, I am not really satisfied with the ATU index - in my opinion folk tales rarely fall neatly into singular narratives. Instead, they are best seen as a collection of narrative tropes - and thus, I feel that the (in)famous TV Tropes Wiki is the best approach for sorting and cataloguing folk tales.
My Tropes index is still fairy bare-bones, which can't be helped since I only have 62 folk tales in the wiki so far. But I hope it will develop into something useful over time.
@juergen_hubert Don't forget the six-volume Motif-Index of Folk Literature, which is like a TV-tropes for folklore.
(ETA: now your page shows content. I was a little impatient, perhaps.)
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@juergen_hubert Don't forget the six-volume Motif-Index of Folk Literature, which is like a TV-tropes for folklore.
(ETA: now your page shows content. I was a little impatient, perhaps.)
As far as I understand, the ATU Index builds on this Motif-Index, although I don't know which one is more comprehensive.
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The main tool for cataloguing folk tales is the so-called "Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index" which uses an alphanumeric designation for folk tales. These designations have been gradually developed over the decades, and are well-established in the field of #folklore .
But truth to be told, I am not really satisfied with the ATU index - in my opinion folk tales rarely fall neatly into singular narratives. Instead, they are best seen as a collection of narrative tropes - and thus, I feel that the (in)famous TV Tropes Wiki is the best approach for sorting and cataloguing folk tales.
My Tropes index is still fairy bare-bones, which can't be helped since I only have 62 folk tales in the wiki so far. But I hope it will develop into something useful over time.
@juergen_hubert I find professional folklorists are so intent on classification schemes they don't look past them to the content's context. This leaves a small stench (smaller than the Monomyth crowd, though) of the classification informing meaning instead of the other way around.
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@juergen_hubert I find professional folklorists are so intent on classification schemes they don't look past them to the content's context. This leaves a small stench (smaller than the Monomyth crowd, though) of the classification informing meaning instead of the other way around.
It doesn't help that the various classification schemes largely seem to have started with European folk tales, which biased the overall structure. And the more folk tales from other cultures are added, the more awkward it gets.
Of course, my own wiki is also going to be very Euro-centric, but I don't make any claims to being universal.
