ISBN 0-394-54618-0

The expectations for Yiddish Folktales by Wolf and Weinreich require some adjusting. If you believe you will be reading about Elijah against various mythical backdrops, you will be right. On the other hand, if you are not expecting elves, ghosts, witches, and sorcerers, you will not be prepared for what you will find in the pages.

These tales are culled from people who were Yiddish from around the 1910’s and 1920’s. Many of them are Russian in origin. There are also smatterings of stories that have distinctly Germanic origins. Between all of them exists a type of story-telling that is as rich as any other culture when it comes to creatures that are relegated to the fantasy genre in the modern era of reading.

Some historical figures are present too whose influence and exertion of will is still felt during the storytelling time in which this book was composed and based. Tsar Nicholas the First shows up sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Napoleon also obtains some billing although it seems that many of his tales are cautionary.

There are several accounts that are classed as “Purim Tales” in that they court nonsense or have no ending that makes logical sense. Many of these stories are acknowledged as being these kinds of yarns by a certain kind of Yiddish rhyme that indicates somebody was drinking alcohol, but not the storyteller. (The teller of stories is, after all, the arbiter of truth)

In addition to many of these oral traditions, there are explanations as to how the storytelling was done, and what the climate was like around people who told tales. The primary source of entertainment during the early 20th and late 19th centuries were people who could tell stories and they had an elevated position among their social strata because people wanted to hear what they had to relate. Often, the storyteller appears near a stove, probably because many of these events happened more often when it was cold than when the weather was warm and people would be more active outside.

Satan shows up more frequently than perhaps he ought to, but usually he only makes an appearance to remind the listener that Satan is constantly pulling some manner of tricky trick. There are also prods that one ought to develop their character instead of their bank account, and that sometimes people who are foolish seeming are not inferior to those who are considered smart or wise. (indeed, they often get the better of the deal since being foolish they have no reason to use their intellect in malignant ways)

If there is a latent desire to understand what Yiddish culture developed, this book is an excellent work to give the reader insight into the oral story traditions it commanded. Be prepared, however, to understand the world not through the stereotypical Hebrew lens, but more like Lord of the Rings and the Hebrew Bible had some strange offspring. By the time you are done, you will probably wonder why these traditions have so few cinematic representations, whereas other cultures and their folktales have so many as to be nearly synonymous with some of these accounts. It isn’t appropriation, after all, when you have spent hundreds of years in a place and developed your own unique experiences with entities that show up in other traditions. By that point, it is the lens your culture uses to parse experiences in those places with its own unique fingerprints. Weinreich and Wolf are as good of a place as any to begin that exploration.

Original review over at thebooklight.