Tale
Croatian Tales of Long Ago
Priče iz davnine
Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić · 1916
Synopsis
Tales built on the gods and spirits of the Slavs before Christianity: the forest of Stribor, where a man finds himself caught between his mother and his wife; a giant who guards a dam and a little girl who comes to fetch him; two lost children who bear the names of plants; a fisherman who asks of the sea more than it gives.
Context
The book appeared in 1916 in Zagreb with the Matica hrvatska, with six tales and illustrations by Petar Orlić; a third edition, in 1926, added two and carried those by Vladimir Kirin, which have fixed the book in the memory of the country. Nothing in it is taken from folklore except the names of the gods and spirits: the stories are new, which has led to comparisons with Andersen, then with Tolkien. Academic research shows that she drew less on oral tradition than on scholarly works on Slavic mythology kept in her family's library, notably a study on the ancient faith of the Serbs and Croats. An English version appeared in New York in 1922 and in London in 1924, and the book has since passed into many other languages, as far as Japanese.
Who it is for
Short tales, readable from childhood, whose proper names come from a pantheon the French reader does not know. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the masterpiece of its author, and as the most widely read book of Croatian literature for young people.