@@MM-mr2xh Hi, and thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated. And yes, I have a few stories that some of the viewers have asked me to comment on, so I'll cover this too in a video I'll release in a the next couple of weeks if all goes well :)
Thank you or an amazing channel. I've just started watching and I will watch all of your content. I'm fascinated by the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" since the classic -"Why are your hands so big?" (ans so on) is found in the Norse myths when Thor has to steal back Mjolnir from the giant and disguises as a woman and the giants asks him why his hands are so big (and so on).
Your lectures are terrific. I majored in History at Uni and seldom find channels which discuss our past without fear of dates; stating that Humans have been creating and communicating in marvelous ways long before us makes the things of Now so much clearer. History is so, so, comforting and the way in which you deliver your talks are just refreshing. Thank you.
Fascinating. The whole "magical shoe" element of Cinderella goes all the way back to ancient Egypt. But that one has no mention of transforming animals. Amazing how clearly the elements the tale picked up on it's long journey to western Europe can be traced.
Hello... Sir... I am from India... I have personally found many similarities between folks in India and Europe... These are remnants of Proto-Indo-European cultures. Could you make a video exclusively on parallelism between Indian and European myths? For example.... I'm taking this from Wikipedia..... Scholars internationally have also drawn parallels with various European mythologies. Karna's kawach (breastplate armour) has been compared with that of Achilles's Styx-coated body and with Irish warrior Ferdiad's skin that could not be pierced. He has been compared to the Greek mythological part divine, part human character Achilles on various occasions as they both have divine powers but lack corresponding status.... By the way great video.
Hi yes, I do touch on this in my Greek Epics video showing links between the Mahabharata and Homer. But will work on a video showing other analogs. Thanks for watching and your feedback :)
Slavic and indian has many similarities. Ofc india has indo European similarities they all used to speak Sanskrit which was a indo European language family. I personally found most similarity between description of God indran and thor Both love to drink and fight. Indran origin is so similar to Zeus who is also god of thunder. Veda description of indran are so beautiful.
I agree, wish Ocean’s subscribers would also subscribe here. The overlap between each creator’s content provides rich context for a deeper understanding of these stories
Dear Sir, Thank you for your efforts in exploring one of the oldest cultures. I really would like to hear your opinion about the german fairy tale "Frau Holle". In this tale two sisters encounter a woman by jumping in a well. This woman is in charge of the weather, especially making snow. She asks both girls for help (as did an apple tree and an oven before). The hard working sister then gets rewarded, the lazy one gets punished with tar. Okay, so far it's a story about the value of hard work. But the name "Holle" reminded me of a certain goddess of death, "Hel". Also, the realm of the dead is called "Hölle" or "Hell". And we know that early europeans thought that wells or ponds or other watery spots were a portal to the gods, where they put offerings or sacrifices into. And it reminded me to a greek myth, "The golden fleece". In this story, two kids have to flee from greece to the east on a flying golden ram. The girl named "Helle" falls down and drowns in the water, wich is called the "Hellespont" from then on. Now we have the names Holle, Hel, Hölle/Hell and Helle, and we have water and death. Are these connected? And if so, how old may this connection be? Thanks in advance.
Frau Holle is often seen as an aspect of the Norse goddess Frigg, and as such lends her name to Holland, the land of Holle. As well as her more beneficent aspect,she has a darker, more frightening one that usually is celebrated at Midwinter. I'd love to see Jon take a look at this, and how it relates to some of those older stories, or indeed, the PIE culture itself.
@@charly996 It may be interesting to know that if you put a sheep skin in a gold-bearing stream overnight, by morning the skin will sparkle in the sun because of gold particles entangled in the wool. This is a low-productive way of prospecting gold from the ancient world, but it can still be used today.
I'm my family's storyteller. I love hearing about the origins of the tales I tell, as the more I know about them, the more meaning I can infuse into my telling. So I loved, loved this video. I would like anymore videos about the oldest tales that you care to upload. Thanks!
I really like the deep research you have obviously done, your sticking to the 'science' rather than 'emotion' or 'opinion' and your multi-layered thinking. All rare on RU-vid ... have subscribed and watching many of your videos.... thanks!
I get as a historian, timing is everything ... to me, as a philosopher, humanist and one that love to hear stories. I could care less about when it happened, and more about the morality and lessons told. Or how entertaining :) this was good.
May have to make you a list of folktales to double check for me now 😂 great video brother 👍 👌 actually opened my eyes to a subject o thought i knew about . Thank you
Let me know Jas, I do have another video of some almost as old folktales, and their meanings are really interesting which is why they have endured through time.
The white snake / love of a man and a female animal motif is also known in the Chinese fairy tale canon (usually combined with younger contexts such as Buddhist monks), so it may be even older than the PIE context we are certain of, or it may be a signal of cultural interchange (e.g. the Tocharians come to mind).
Jonathan: I think your videos are very strong. I'm a Joseph Campbell nut but Joseph did not necessarily validate the dates and veracity of the stories he used in his books with research and data. I enjoy how you use modern validation research techniques. This research helps to more deeply link us to ancient stories. They really are invisible cords forging human past, present and future.
can’t forget about the basque! the basque were some of the oldest people in europe, and they’re still here today. the origins of the basque are still unknown. they reside in northern spain and into a small part of southern france. their language is the only isolate in europe, and was banned many times over history due to the spanish government. maite dut euskara, bizi euskaldunak!
basque are r1b on the fathers side. they're similar to their western euro neighbors except in language. maybe the steppe warriors decided to speak their wives' language.
There's really only so many ways to say what you offer us is incredibly fascinating, Crecganford! Still, here's a comment for the algorithm! And what do I want to learn? All of it! All the things! 😄
Thank you, the channel has grown hugely in the last month, and it is so encouraging hearing comments from people like yourself who are enjoying the content I produce and research.
I have recently discovered your channel, and I am enjoying it. I really wish that I could find books that contain these stories. I love myths and fairytales. I also like to be able to take them down and read them.
There is a book that contains contemporary versions of these which I think is called Folktales in the Indo-European Tradition, by Imperium Press. I can't vouch for how good it is, but it may be what you are looking for.
Sorry for commenting this again, but I would soooo sooo soo LOOOOOVEEE to see you make an overview of the Rig Veda !! I find it SO interesting, and along with a general overview, the way in which other myths/stories of different cultures and civilizations overlap with the stores recounted in the Rig Veda. (I do realize this must be a colossal work though, which I am very appreciative of all that you put in !! As being only still a student, I don't quite have the budget to support you financially, but I wish I could ! Keep up the good work !! :P )
Well strangely enough I had just finished listening to the audio book "The Horse The Wheel The Langue" and stumbled upon your channel information seems solid and well presented also pleasant to hear and English voice as well no offence to the yanks but they do destroy the queen's
I learned about the ATU Index in library school because of its importance in research, but I thought it was unique. I would be very interested in hearing about other tools that index story motifs and how they approach this complex task in alternate ways.
Fascinating that aspects of The Smith and The Devil can even be found in modern superhero movies - Doctor Strange features a man trapping an evil entity in order to reach a bargain.
looking into ancient tasmanians i heard that their stories mention descriptions of explosion of one volcano. scientific data dated the last eruption to about 30.000 years ago. so that's one candidate for the oldest story... tho 6.000 years is nothing to scoff at, too! back then smelting was difficul af!
Love the video. If you keep your microphone on (turn off voice activated recording) I think your production would be significantly improved. I also really appreciate your citations
Tales of animal helpers were always my favorites. I would also like to hear the origin of the tales where someone or a set of siblings is turned into animals, like The Children of Lir.
I think it'd be great to do a short series where we look at the origin of common RPG subplots and side quests. This became especially interesting to me after learning that the first Final Fantasy game was written and coded by an Iranian immigrant.
Such good content and delivered so well, always a must listen! The opening illustration did irritate me though, it is very dated, our story telling ancestors were also very good at making clothing and tools!
Imagine, just sitting down and telling a story you made up to entertain some kids, and it's still being told by your descendants 6000 years later. Who knows how many of these tales did not survive.
Yes, it took most archaeologists by surprise when they actually discovered evidence of this to match the age. And it probably helps enforce such an important story about such important technological progress.
Your video was entertaining and interesting. To be honest, I would have preferred more exposure to the actual stories. It seemed to me that you spent a great deal of time describing why you and the others you mentioned believe that these are the oldest tales in what I will refer to as western culture ( as opposed to Asian, African, N and S. American pre-European, Oceanic, Indonesian etal cultures ) . Given what we have learned so far about migration of the humanoid species it seems logical to assume that there would be a high degree of coherence in the tales that survive from early times. So while I understand that it would surpass the time most people would spend watching a video, for me it would have been much more intriguing to find what, if any, common threads run through all cultures (or at least those on my admittedly incomplete listing above). It has been my experience that a great many people understand, read, study and teach others based on an unstated set of assumptions that they make. There are good reasons for this and many of them are what bind a particular culture together. However, we need to remember they are assumptions and sometimes our assumptions are wrong or incomplete or typically , based on incomplete and insufficient data. This is particularly true in reference to history I think. Written material may reflect the best thinking at the time or may reflect the predominant assumptions of the time in which written or it may be a result of what survived and wasn't lost or intentionally destroyed by those who had a different view. In the case of "folk tales" (a term I applaud you using rather than fairy tale which for some has a reputation for fantastical and therefore to ignored). Many come from an oral tradition and of course the written versions always has differences from oral versions. Oral versions change over time and oral presentation from a single presenter changes from one telling to another and is somewhat dependent on audience response as well as the emotional state and level of imagination, and tendency to elaborate of the presenter as well as any level of inebriation/intoxication 😄 Sorry, I digress. Oral traditions are , despite their variation, important especially when there is little else to rely on. But it is also a assumption to assert that the story remained unchanged for more than a generation or two. Likewise we are very reliant on supposition in linguistics. I am not saying that the suppositions are incorrect only that I do not believe we have the data to say whether they are absolutely true. While I recognize the amount of work being done in the past and currently it is not "end game" material and likely never will be. Given the foregoing, I would have preferred to hear/see the stories and what you believed were the common threads among them and how they may or may not coincide with stories from other cultures. We, in the western culture have certain ideas about some very fundamental concepts (sanctity of life, importance of "blood relations", and more) which may or may not be shared by other cultures. It seems to me that our folk tales can be shared worldwide for perhaps the first time in human history by a single generation. That seems to me to be a very worthwhile goal.
My qualifications are in Indo-European culture, and so going outside this requires lots more work for me. And although I have produced such work (such as my dragon, flood, and creation videos) these are less common on my channel. I am pondering creating a story based channel, where I read the stories, as there seems to be some demand for this.
The white snake story is like the Irish/celtic/welsh story in which the boy sticks his thumb in the wizard's cauldron of brewing goop/soup/broth/stew and sucks/bites on it and thereby develops the power to communicate with (to understand and perhaps also to talk to) animals. There is some connection with salmon there too.
@@themasterexploder Also in the story of Siegfried, he's cooking Fafnir's heart and touch it to know if it's cooked, he scorches himself and he put his finger in his mouth, and in doing so he understands the birds' language.
As someone with Iranian heritage I was always baffled on how the themes of stories that I've heard as a child in Germany resemble the ones told in Iran. Even the language has strange similarities that can barely be explained with coincidence.
Perhaps the Jack and the Beanstalk tale reflects on the early farmers overcoming the herder, hunter folk and claiming the treasure of the future development of history?
If, of course, that narrative of human history is at all accurate or real. If you read Wengrow and Graeber's book, the Dawn of Everything they present a well researched and evidenced argument that a transition from a foraging to an agricultural lifestyle was not nearly as clear or uniform as we think. Even as a child in the mid 20th century foraging for food was a regular part of my family life - in England!
I see many parallels to Norwegian fairy tales, which surprised me, but probably shouldn't have. I assumed Norwegian fairy tales were new, say, from the late middle ages. Why? Because the country is so small and has a relatively speaking short recorded history. I mean, we have a few "helleristninger" (petroglyphs) mostly from the bronze age, but some allegedly up to 11.000 years old - among them possibly the oldest depiction of a boat ever found. But aside from that we know little until the vikings appear in foreign literature in the 8th c. And after that Norway's golden age in the high middle ages was cut short by the plague which killed up to 3/4ths of the population. Very typically the Norwegian fairy tales feature a character called Askeladden (Ash lad). He's clever and a trickster - the "Jack" (& the beanstalk) or "David" (& Goliath) figure. He often appears with his two older brothers, both of whom often fail a task that Askeladden completes successfully because of his wit and kindness to others. He also outwits a troll on multiple occasions - most famously perhaps he kills a poor troll that had literally done nothing wrong by tricking it into an eating contest
This video reminds me of one documentary. i saw long a year ago about this scholar group lead by a director collecting fairy tales or folklore in northern Europe and reconstruct it with actors. I was looking for it for long time now but couldn’t find it , I think it was in some Nordic language it was impossible to find it for me. do you know the documentary , who the guy is or the link to the video … anything is welcome. All is because I saw same pattern story and chants in some other tribe far away and I wonder if they share same essence. thank you.
Rumpelstiltskin - "you must give me your first baby". As a young child I was terrified of this story as I intuitively knew he was going to eat it/ kill it. Is this an ancient story, about the rare practise of child sacrifice?
I have no expert credentials in this, but I think Rumplestiltskin was an example of a fairy stealing a child. There are plenty of stories about this, usually about leaving a changeling in place of the child so the parents don't realize the theft. Rumplestiltskin takes a different route. But "fairies steal children" is an old and widespread theme. If the story says *why* they steal children, it's generally because they have so few children of their own, or so few healthy ones. So on that theory Rumplestiltskin would take the baby to make it into a fairy/goblin/whatsit like himself. This is the motive for Jareth the Goblin King (played by David Bowie with cute little fangs) in the movie "Labyrinth": he steals the heroine's baby brother with the intent of turning him into a goblin.
@@earlwajenberg A changeling wasn't on the agenda. Her first baby was on the agenda and she had to hand it over. For what exactly? I was terrified as I had a very active imagination and even very young assumed it was to0 kill or to kill and eat. This was a deal that saved her life, and it's a life for a life. The thing about a great story is, that there's no 1 perfect interpretation. We bring ourselves to a story.
The blacksmith storyline, do all versions refer to a soul? Irving Finkle translated cuneiform tablets that refer to spirit’s, so if the story refer to souls that pushes the date back. 😊
...and in related news, it turns out that "Bohnanza" is much older than chess, having been financed by primitive storytellers/bean merchants as yet another way to promote their goods...
Just a note, in aboriginal Australian culture the closer you get to the northern and western part of the country the more their stories involve water.. some even telling stories about their ancestors being seafarers. Not very much of this has been studied, but I believe these stories to be from a time nearly 70000 years ago , which aligns when these people may have had naval knowledge
Was the concept of selling the soul to a demon part of the proto-indo-european version of the Smith and the Devil? Did the Jack's beanstalk and the ogre's sky castle exist in the erliest version? I would love to know more about ancient folktales. I'm especially interested in the changeling motif: it became famous in medieval times, but it's present in so many indoeuropean cultures (celtic, norse, slavic, italian, spanish, even persian and indian) that i'm really curious to know if it's possible that proto-indo-europeans had child substitution in their mythology
The tales as we know them are quite different to as they were told, although it is the motifs within them that allows us to recognize them. You only need to look at Jacob Grimm's original versions of the fairy tales to see how different they were. I am trying to arrange a professional story teller to tell some of these, and so watch this space.
😁 To ancient people, specially the transition from stone to bronze age, the dude who figured out metallurgy is something of a magician. Like one would ask how did he figure out that bringing together fire, earth, and some rocks will make a new material? The wily old Smith will likely answered that the idea came to him in a dream after eating some weird mushrooms laying around.😆
Around Ukraine were maybe the oldest known high cultures and civilizations, but they found human evidences which were dated back for more than 30000 years, nearly the same time the Elasmotherium was maybe still living there. I just want to know, if the unicorn stories and this creature are connected, cause first domesticated horses are also out of this region. I think that could be really possible, if they would have connected old stories about giant unicorns with their domesticated horses... especially to take the fear of some people from domeszicated horses, cause humans were hunting way bigger horselike giants after all, thousands of years ago ^^ I love thinking about stuff like that ^^
Where is Little Red Riding Hood on the scale? It has variants in Zulu and Khoisan, starring an evil Elephant. Original story, or borrowed from European settlers?
Great question. Now Little Red Riding Hood may seem similar to other tales on other continents, but the ATU (the story index we use to classify tales) specifically separates the European and Asia/African tales as these later ones are often called "Wolf and the Kids" tales. But to answer your question, I know the earliest recorded version of LRR is around 1,000 years old, but I'm not sure if we have data to show if it is any older, which it probably is. And back then the wolf was probably a werewolf just to add a twist :) I hope that helps
PIE is a hypothetical language, but we often refer to people who we think spoke PIE, as Proto Indo-Europeans, but these people covered multiple cultures and beliefs.
Just out of curiosity, can you trace back your own personal lineage and find out who your ancestors were ? And if you already have this, would you be interested in double-checking through doing DNA tests to really know the truth of your ancestry? Could be interesting haha. It might influence your interests in various cultures and myths though haha
It doesn't bother me, to me, my ancestry is the culmination of every human before me, all their rich cultures have made me and the society I am in, what it is.
I am slowly working my way through the Indian Tales and associated academic papers. So I hope I can do this one day in the future. Thanks for watching :)
Wow! We have the story fir the prince that have to get married for a girl that is not born and the sun gives the prince 3 apples and when he cuts an apple a unbelievably beautiful girl appears but he have to give her a bread to keep her whit him. After that a black woman comes and kills the girl and pretends to be her. But from the bines of the girl grows a tree. The tree tell the prince what happened and then the black woman is banished. The tree gives an aple and from it the girl is reborn. So she becames unborn and reborn.
@@Crecganford No, I like your accent. It's much better than the annoying bland Californian accent. I'd really struggle with some words with a regional accent than listen to someone with a Californian accent
Here's something learned many years ago as a child back in Germany that is very simple to remember. Proto-Indo-Europeans literally means Ancient-Nword-Europeans. Nword, Indo, Indus, Indiërs,...are all the same words. Story telling was a big part of the culture because that was the best way to teach children history. Story and History are also the same words.
No it doesn't PIE is a language not a type of people, and Indo refers to the geographic area we know as India... where this is thought otherwise it is usually by people with an agenda.
@@Crecganford That's the definition of Proto Indo in every damn Germanic dictionary. If you don't like it then file a Federal Lawsuit against every European country in every Indo-language you can think of. Indo, Pagan, Heide, Aboriginal, and Nword are all the same damn words. Hence the reason why pale Europeans used to be called Weiße-Mohren or Witte Mose, Soudame, Hvide Maurer, Albino Negroes in every damn Indo Dictionary!!! Warm regards.
@@junior4900 Nword, Aboriginal, Originie, Mother, Indiër, Wild, Mor, Morian, Multiracial, Blacks, Indien, Pagan, Heide ... Are all the same damn words in different Indo Languages. It means whites and Blacks are one in the same people. Non mixed whites are new humans declared after 1794 and between 1823. They were created in Amerika and not Europe. white negroes who stopped mixing due to Segregation.
Thank you, as for "Out of Africa", my understanding is that it depends when you start measuring from, and what you are measuring. But the core principal based on where a majority of the DNA comes from still supports it based on 70k years ago.
The theory im referring to actually refutes that one, if youre interested, look into the presence of rh- blood types and conspiracies such as the Piltdown Man. Thought i do accept that one cant know the truth for sure, logically it holds more water in mine and many other’s opinions.
Our western mentality does have roots in verbal nordic stories but most of our values and creation myths come directly from ancient Egypt. Look at the ancient Egyptian words like pyramid, paper, the two most important words. Our way of dealing with death is still the design of ancient Egyptian bureaucracy. We still waste precious real estate and resources to bury our dead flesh, a senseless ancient tradition we are compelled to continue. We still build enormous structures to satiate the ego of our leaders. All of this is based on the lies told by the priests. Even though we all know death is permanent we are still living the ancient Egyptian delusion that by though technology and religion we can cheat death.
@@Laurelin70 Yes but what ancient Egypt invented was the bureaucracy of ritual burial. This is very wasteful, imagine if we used these resources on the living, we would be much better off.
15:20 so.... shrek? In Pussy in boots the plot is about jack and the beanstalk too, mostly The whole DreamWorks universe is based on folklore and fairy tales, so I really wouldn't be surprised if they actually have reconstructed these old stories in a version more faithful to the originals for some reason, but if they did it by accident that'd be even more impressive. But honestly tho, the story made me imagine Fiona and Shrek, is the correlation just in my head or is Shrek really based on a similar folk story?
I do talk about Cinderella in a video I've produced on the Kings, as the story is about mutilation to fit in, and the effect of that. Or that is how some have seen it.
I don't know if the story has to be European or Indo-European in origin, but if we're allowed to ask about stories from other cultures, I'd be particularly interested in the origin of this: /watch?v=P-F516eyWJY The reason I'm so curious about it is because the stars have been with us literally for our entire existence and I think every culture has ancient stories about constellations, as you have talked about yourself on this channel. The Pleiades are eminently recognizable and it makes sense that a story about them would persist for so long. Maybe this tale is related to others about the Pleiades; maybe it's a holdover from something in the Ancient North Eurasian past that was lost in Europe. It's one of my favorite folk tales though.
Were there even smiths and kings in Europe 6,000 years ago? I thought Europe entered the Bronze Age 5,000 years ago, and that 6,000 year old Europeans were mostly hunter gatherer tribes and farming communities.
there were probably farmer kings and hunter gatherer chieftains who were like kings. smiths i'm not sure but smith = craftsman in general, not just metal craftsman
The difficulty with African mythology is proving its age, yes the stories maybe old, but could we tell the difference between a 200 year old myth and a 2,000 year old myth. And so whilst the mythology is fascinating, its age is almost always unknown.