FOREWORD to book “The tales of Europe”, 2007.
It is the European folklore the thread of these twenty tales coming from four different corners of the old continent. We find a mingling of stories, a comparison of images and words, symbols and myths which return in a large jigsaw, without any distinction between North and South, East and West of Europe. It doesn’t matter that every piece of this patchwork has a different colour, what is important is the ability to draw, beyond different shades, the same picture. We can recognize this one picture by reading the stories of this volume “The tales of Europe”, told by Italian, French, Polish, Lithuanian students, coordinated by the headmaster of liceo classico in Pietradefusi, Virgilio Iandiorio e by the teacher Malwina Cichoń. Each group has chosen a colour, trying to put their tradition down in writing. They have selected the most beautiful and representative five tales of their culture, in some cases listened to from their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, yesterdays’ s true storytellers. In these tales which tell about shrewd and speaking animals, fairies and elves, wonderlands, in the taste for the fantastic which characterizes them, always accompanied by a moral purpose, there is the attempt to understand the values which have marked and still mark a large piece of our Europe. So, in looking through the pages, what is astonishing is the analogy between the spaces and characters of the European tales, Lituanian, French, Polish and Italian. They are universes in which we can find similar myths, as it is evident in the intelligence and cunning of the protagonists which is frequent throughout the stories, quality which only can guarantee them to survive. Even if this cunning, as it was in the so called popular wisdom, is measured through the ability to make fool each of the other… The overall sensation we get from the collection is that we can discover ourselves as European citizens also in front of simple tales, we can understand the roots of a common culture and at the same time that universe of popular memory these tales represent. Congratulations to the students who have carried the difficult task to collect the wide material but also to translate all tales in five languages, Lituanian, Polish, French and English, to allow everyone the reading. Each of them has discovered in the tales of their colleagues of other European countries common themes and symbols, so they have learned to feel very close. Actually, there is no doubt that school needs just that, going beyond differences and commonplaces and teaching respect which passes through the discovery of alterity, not so alien as it could appear at a first glance. The Library of Corriere has chosen to start again from the most authentic traditions and does it through the eyes of the students both from Irpinia and the rest of Europe.
Gianni Festa
Direttore CORRIERE
Quotidiano dell’Irpinia