Part One of a new shelf: Jewish fairy tales, in the English retellings of Gerald Friedlander (1871–1923), the London rabbi and scholar who gathered old Jewish stories from many writings and recast them in a modern setting for young readers. The four tales come from his two collections of 1918, Jewish Fairy Tales and Stories (Routledge) and Jewish Fairy Stories (Bloch; Project Gutenberg eBook #72880). Billed by collector and book, as the tales Friedlander gathered; not a survey of all Jewish tradition, and no completeness is claimed. Both books were screened in full, in the order they stand, under this shelf's standing rule — folk tales only, with scripture retellings and sacred legends left aside — and every tale that was set aside stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Head or Tail — an enormous snake lets his tail lead for a day, and the tail leads them into a cistern, a bonfire and a thorn-bush before the head takes charge again. The King's Servants — a king gives each of his servants a spotless new coat, and later invites them all to two banquets; the wise servants, who kept their coats clean and came prepared, fare very differently from the foolish. The Clever Wife — Ada of Sidon, promised that when she and her husband part she may take from the house whatever she likes best, has her sleeping husband carried to her father's house in his own armchair, and keeps him by his own promise. The Fox and the Raven — Master Fox flatters the raven in the fig-tree into singing, and the cheese falls straight to the ground.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:40 Head or Tail
4:50 The King's Servants
15:01 The Clever Wife
23:31 The Fox and the Raven
Gerald Friedlander, Jewish Fairy Tales and Stories (George Routledge & Sons, 1918) and Jewish Fairy Stories (Bloch Publishing Company, 1918) — public domain.
Narrated by Mira. Music: opening and closing theme, "Napoli in Fiamme," also heard as a short separator between the stories — the tales themselves are read dry.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
Jewish folk tales · Jewish fairy tales · Gerald Friedlander · Jewish Fairy Tales and Stories · Jewish Fairy Stories · The Clever Wife · The Fox and the Raven · world folk tales · free audiobook
