description: First published a century ago, these stories are lively and fast-paced, taking the reader on adventures through ancient castles and villages, painting a picture of Provencal life and scenery.Translations by Brun of Languedoc folk tales for the entertainment of "the juvenile mind." Framed as a narrative of Brun's grandfather's tour of France, during which tales are told. Full of talking animals, miraculous events, heroism, and triumphs of good over evil in the end. Of particular and surprising interest is "A Blind Man's Story, or The Miraculous Tree," a fairy tale of partial mastectomy, in which the hero is tipped off by a friendly animal that the girl of his dreams has a malignant lump under her left breast that is sucking her life away, and that if someone with a scalpel removed it, then she would be healed. So our hero pretends to be a physician, and is promised the girl's hand in marriage by her desperate father if he can cure her. "When he had consent to treat her, he unfastened the girl's dressing-gown, so as to expose the left breast, and with a lancet, concealed in his hand, he dexterously removed at a stroke the lump which, according to the fox, was the cause of all the poor girl's suffering" (p. 184). "The work was popular on the west coast, although the reviewers were uncertain if these Provençal folktales handed down to the author from his grandfather were intended for children or adults." - Harlan, At the Sign of the Lark 26b.
language: English
title: Tales of Languedoc from the South of France
titlecomplete: Tales of Languedoc from the South of France (Library of Folklore)
ratings_count: 6
publisher: Hippocrene Books