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Cuento is a Spanish word meaning literally "story" or "tale". Cuento may specifically refer to folk tales, a category of folklore that includes stories passed down through oral tradition. The word cuento may also be used as a verb to say "tell", as if you are "telling" a story ("Cuento").
Cuentos are more common to be told to children at bedtime or just to entertain them. Many times cuentos are a good way to teach children to read at an early age and open their mind to imagination. [1]
Idioms using this word, translated into English, include:
Ralph S. Boggs, a folklorist who studied Spanish and other European folktales, also compiled an index of tales across ten nations, one of these nations Spain. [2] Hansen notes that in Boggs' A Comparative Survey of the Folktales of Ten Peoples, Spain also had a large number of animal tales, pointing out the "marked interest in such tales in Spain and in Spanish America"; however, he indicates that Boggs' study showed Spain with a much lower percent of magic tales. After several such comparisons showing very close similarities as well as almost-opposite differences, he concluded that the index-analysis should be conducted for the other Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas before any explicit conclusions can be made about folktales in Latin America. Whether or not Latin American folktales should be compared to Spanish folktales as if they were a subcategory was not mentioned in the article; however, with differences in religion, tradition, history and other such elements that can turn a story into an entirely new direction, it is possible that folklorists will regard Latin American tales unique to Spanish tales in the future.
According to Spanish folklorist Julio Camarena , among the Magic Tales of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, the following types are some of the most popular found in Spain, in the following order: [3]
Scholar James M. Taggart stated that tale type 425, "Search for the Lost Husband", was more popular in Spanish tradition than type 400, "Quest for the Lost Wife", which he noted to be more rarely collected. [4] Hispanist Ralph S. Boggs also remarked on the popularity of types 313 ("The Magic Flight"), 408 ("The Three Oranges"), 425 ("The Search for the Lost Husband"), 706 ("The Maiden Without Hands") and 707 ("The Three Golden Sons"). [5]
Latin American tales are unique in that they may represent a time before European invasion, and they may combine those traditions with the history and culture that arrived post-conquest. When the Spaniards came to Latin America in the 16th century, the indigenous people were forced to assimilate their culture with the Europeans'. Likewise, the content of the stories differed between the ages. However, there are few resources on cuentos for pre-conquest indigenous peoples in South America. A folklorist specializing in Spain and Spanish-originated folklore, Aurelio M. Espinosa discovered that "most of the Spanish folklore which is found today in the Spanish-speaking countries of America is of traditional Spanish origin". [6] Pre-conquest information can only be found in what is left behind; this includes archaeological artifacts, sculpture and pottery, stories engraved in bone, shell, and stones, and codices. Only seventeen codices are intact, "fifteen of which are known to predate the Colonial era, and two of which originated either before the Conquest or very soon after". [7]
With the knowledge that the natives in Latin America were made to blend culturally with the Spaniards when they arrived, the similarity of Latin American stories to Spanish stories must be considered. Terrence L. Hansen, a Latin American folklorist, attempted to index 1,747 folktales into 659 indexes such as "animal tales", "magic tales", "religious tales", and "jokes and anecdotes". The purpose of the study was to make "accessible to folklorists both the individual types and the broad picture of the folktale in a large part of Spanish America". [8]
Folklorist Yolando Pino Saavedra compiled two volumes of Chilean folktales. According to his observations, the trickster figure Pedro Urdemales is very popular, and, among the tales of magic, the most common tale types in his country, in descending order, were: [9]
Saavedra also located other tale types that "sporadically" appear in Chilean collections: [10]
Jean de l'Ours or John the Bear, John of the Bear, John-of-the-Bear, John Bear, is the leading character in the French folktale Jean de l'Ours classed as Type 301B in the Aarne–Thompson system; it can also denote any tale of this type.
"The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It falls under Aarne–Thompson classification types 461, and 930.
The Vain Little Mouse is a folktale about a little mouse and her many suitors.
The Bird of Truth is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Cecilia Böhl de Faber in her Cuentos de encantamiento. Andrew Lang included it in The Orange Fairy Book.
The Water of Life is a Catalan fairy tale collected by D. Francisco de S. Maspons y Labros (1840–1901), in Cuentos Populars Catalans (1885). Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book (1897).
The Knights of the Fish is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Fernán Caballero in Cuentos. Oraciones y Adivinas. Andrew Lang included it in The Brown Fairy Book. A translation was published in Golden Rod Fairy Book. Another version of the tale appears in A Book of Enchantments and Curses by Ruth Manning-Sanders.
Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa or Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair is a Greek fairy tale collected by Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece. Other variants were collected by Michalis Meraklis and Anna Angelopoulou.
The Young Slave is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.
The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead is a Portuguese fairy tale collected by Consiglieri Pedroso in Portuguese Folk-Tales.
Grateful dead is both a motif and a group of related folktales present in many cultures throughout the world.
Folklore of Spain encompasses the folklore, folktales, oral traditions, and (urban) legends of Spain. They span the whole region of the Iberian Peninsula. The origins of these tales date back as far as the 8th century when the Arabs brought their ideas and concepts of national fairytales (Cuento) and folklore to Spain.
Ballet Folklórico de Honduras Oro Lenca is a Honduran folkloric ballet troupe in La Esperanza. It was founded in 2008 and presents dances and costumes that reflect the traditional culture of Honduras. This dance troupe hosts an annual folk dance festival, El Grande de Grandes, and represents Honduran culture internationally. It also mentors nascent dance groups in villages, towns, and cities of Honduras. In November 2015, the National Congress of Honduras designated Ballet Folklórico Oro Lenca Patrimonio Cultural de la Nación, and subsequently designated Ambassadors of Art and Culture by executive decree.
Luis Nicanor Pablo Díaz González-Viana, is a Spanish anthropologist, philologist and writer. He is considered a pioneer of Spanish anthropology specializing in popular culture, ethnology and identities. He is a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council.
Edna Garrido Ramírez, also known as Edna Garrido de Boggs, was a Dominican educator, researcher and folklorist. She is considered a pioneer in the studies of Dominican folklore, for her field research on dances, sayings, riddles, oral tales, popular songs, children's games and other manifestations of folklore and ethnomusicology. She founded the first Dominican Folklore Society in 1946 in Santo Domingo.
The Calumniated Wife is a motif in traditional narratives, numbered K2110.1 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. It entails a wife being falsely accused of, and often punished for, some crime or sin. This motif is at the centre of a number of traditional plots, being associated with tale-types 705–712 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of tale-types.
La Fada Morgana is a Catalan fairy tale or rondalla, first collected by Majorcan priest and author Antoni Maria Alcover. It is related to the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom and distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, in that the heroine is forced to perform difficult tasks for a witch.
The Bird that Spoke the Truth is a New Mexican folktale. It is related to the motif of the calumniated wife and classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
Las barbas de plata is a Spanish fairy tale from Cádiz, published by Spanish scholars Julio Camarena and Maxime Chevalier. It is about the marriage between a human maiden and the Devil disguised as a suitor, but a talking mule rescues the maiden to another kingdom, where she marries a human prince. Spanish and Portuguese scholars locate similar tales in Iberian Peninsula.
María, manos blancas is a Spanish fairy tale from Extremadura, collected by Spanish author Marciano Curiel Merchán. The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom as a subtype, with few variants reported across Europe and in Spain. In it, the heroine is delivered to a cursed or enchanted prince, but breaks a taboo and loses him; later, she finds work elsewhere and wards off the unwanted advances of male suitors with the magical object her enchanted husband gave her.