@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

Interesting! I might check out the original German text at some point - it's available online as digital scans.

Emily Ruete – Wikisource

(de.wikisource.org)

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

I have to admit that I don't know many cases like that - my focus is on 19th century folk tales of the rural peasantry, not the merchant classes, and while there are occasional folk tales featuring foreign wives, their provenance tends to be... dubious.

@juergen_hubert @mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons Oh, it's in Fraktur (of course, but I hadn't expected that for some weird reason), but it seems I can still read that without trouble.

I guess there's no modern paper edition in German that I can order?

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons It's smth I've recently been looking into. Like another case is the japanese Mitsuko Aoyama (1874-1941), who became the German-Austrian Countess Coudenhove-Kalergi.

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

Huh, interesting. Though didn't the same thing also happen with husbands from other European nations?

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons A lot of them never took them as legal wives back home. Like the French had systems where they had a wife back home and a family abroad in the colonies. The German cases are significant because the women were the only wives of these German men.

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

Well, there's at least one German folk tale featuring bigamy of a German count with both a German and an Arab wife... but like I said, the provenance is dubious.

The Double Marriage of the Gleichens

Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles Wiki (wiki.sunkencastles.com)

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons Thank you for sharing. Yeah, I do wonder even if it is dubious if the pricing is people hearing about it from elsewhere and then embellishing the tale. Such speculations however are better left for fiction cause there's no way to pr9ve them.

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

Most likely people saw the gravestone of the count with an engraving of two women next to him. In reality, one of them was likely his daughter - but that explanation was _boring_, so they came up with the more interesting story of pope-sanctioned bigamy.

What can I say? People back then were as horny as we are today.

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons Yeah, I was reading a book translating medeival Arabic erotica from the Book of Songs and can confirm they were just as freaky, if not more so than we are! Like this is not to mention all the untranslated erotic materials from the pre-modern world.

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

Most German folk tales were told in mixed company of all ages, and thus weren't _too_ raunchy.

Still, there were exceptions like the following one.

And I will publish a story about a dwarven sex party in February.

The Treasures of the Isholz

Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles Wiki (wiki.sunkencastles.com)

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons Nice, yeah I think Arabic folktales are similar. Since poetry was for adults, the poetry was not so censored.

@mariam_al_masri_author @bookstodon @histodons

By the way, can you recommend any good collections of _Arabic_ folktales? (I.e. not Persian, like "1001 Nights").

It's been my impression that there are few of these because of cultural biases by Arabic scholars against "Old Wives' Tales".

@juergen_hubert @bookstodon @histodons There are actually a lot of them. When I get to my laptop (likely tomorrow cause its late), I'll make a big post and tag you.