Mouths of babes

Nini asks me what PJ's 'Down By The Water' means, and I'm trying to explain, in- adequate - ly, the roles of folk tales, songs and myth. Sometimes so uselessly it's all I can do to get by, far less explain the universe and history of philosophy to a 10 yr old, to whom it could be so simple if only I had the words.

My copies of Graves' 'White Goddess' and Frazer's 'Golden Bough' disappeared somewhere down the line, so these need to be added to the Wanna list, else how can the bairns be taught. Kids are never so quiet as when a folk-tale is being read.

Meanwhile, I'm subsiding contendedly into semi-grannyhood, which I can't recommend highly enough. Very soon (since the years fly by now) those kiddos will be grown-up and granting me the grandkids I so look forward to. Just not too soon.

In folklore circles, it's largely recognised that the Grimm Bros transcribed existing oral tales, while the same is not true of HChA, whose imagination ran away with him in the Little Match Girl, the Red Shoes or the Wild Swans.