Reviews for World tales

The average rating for World tales based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-02-15 00:00:00 Patricia Elerick An ancient Inca tale is mentioned in Shakespeare's 'King Lear', provides the title of a poem by Robert Browning and the plot of Milton's 'Comus'. Christian missionaries to Polynesia are astounded when told a story with a striking resemblance to the Old Testament's 'Joseph and his Brothers'. Variants of this story are also found among the Maoris, the Zulus and Inuit peoples, and in Sudan. A spiritual romance written in the seventh century by a monk named John of Damascus turns out to be related to the life of the Buddha. The Talmudic parable of the 'Desolate Island' is found in the same book, but scholars believe it was composed in pre-Islamic Egypt. It looks as if stories form an invisible web, begun thousands of years ago, if not longer, and linking humans all over the Earth regardless of culture and status. The insights or revelations we gained during past ages live on in World Tales. We associate the discovery of the specialisation and complementarity of our two brain hemispheres with the twentieth century, but the 'Mastermaid' from Norse mythology suggests a much earlier awareness. There is a strong female presence throughout World Tales. Shah mentions in his introduction to 'The Maiden Wiser than the Tsar' how this story may be regarded as an example of the feminine use of non-linear thinking in problem solving. But World Tales goes beyond the discoveries of present day psychology. 'The content of folklore is metaphysics', Shah quotes A K Coomaraswamy as saying. Elsewhere in the book he writes, 'If I were to be asked, "What are World tales actually about?" the answer would have to be, "They are about fate or destiny". It's interesting that, in a blog he wrote for the Idries Shah Foundation website, Richard Hamilton, collector of Moroccan tales, states that stories allowed him to see a 'golden thread' running through his life. In his book 'In Arabian Nights' Tahir Shah describes one of the stories from this book, 'The Happiest Man in the World', as the story in his heart. There is at least one other aspect to World Tales. As well as being a collection of entertaining, enchanting, sometimes deeply moving stories, this is a teaching book. From it you can learn how to recognise the essence of a story, and how its presentation can maintain or diminish the vital force within. Seeing World Tales as a guide in no way lessens the pleasure of reading the stories. Which moves me more deeply - the Cinderella of the Brothers Grimm, or the Cinderella of the Algonquin Americans? I have no hesitation in answering, 'The latter'.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-12-22 00:00:00 Michael Pierce A store house of Tales from Around the World. Tales that make the World go Round. A bed-rock of Tales. Meet these stories at a young age and have treasure under your belt for the rest of your life. Don't know what to give someone for a present. Here (this book) is the perfect present, (gift).