Folkeeventyr og shamanisme

Abstract

What is the origin of the folk tales, their esthetics being so strange to the literary codex of the 1700s when they obtained recognition? Their almost global extension has been explained by wanderings from one culture to another or by constancy of the unconsciousness of the mental life. But the substantial question behind has not been reflected on: What is the origin altogether of the folk tale as a genre?

This article proposes the hypothesis, that the folk tale has its origin in Shamanism. Among others Mircea Eliade has shown the global extension of its several thousand old roots. Consequently Shamanism and folk tales share their global extension. They also share central traits of their idea of man and of their idea of the universe. What then stands more to reason than the hypothesis that the folk tales, especially the fairy tales, have grown up in Shamanism and have survived and developed among the common people, while the mother-culture of their roots today only lives in outlying places of the world?