Abstrakt
What is a folktale? Is it just a fictional story meant to entertain its listeners or readers? Is it just a short piece of prose with a single plot line? Maybe we can perceive it as a communication channel through which a narrator, under certain circumstances, using a particular code, passes some message to his addressee.
If a folktale is indeed a communal creation, then changes in the narrators' language and their teleological system also affect the functions and structure of the folktale. If a folktale does not develop according to the new needs and traditions of the community, then it may not find a new narrator or addressee. If this happens, the chain of communication gets broken, and a folktale sinks into oblivion. If these assumptions are correct, a historical (diachronic) study of folktales could reveal how their functions and structure have changed over time. Also, this study could show if and how the language and worldview of the narrators have changed.
This paper focuses on Lithuanian folktales, which were collected in 1852, in Lithuania Minor, by August Schleicher and sent to Prague in his letters to P. J. Šafařík. More specifically, in this paper, I reflect upon nine folktales collected by A. Schleicher and compare them with their later publications from 1857, 1903 and 1993. This paper aims to assess the possible development of these folktales.