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Author
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Comment
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(1/17/05 11:59 am)
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Italian folklore question
A friend of mine, a musician, wrote to me with the following question:
"I've recently found some 14th century Italian music about "Iguane" or "Euguane," apparently nymphs who lived in the hills above Padua. I'd like to find out more about them. Have you any idea where I can find out more about Italian folklore and fairy lore?"
Any suggestions, aside from Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales?
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Heidi Anne Heiner
ezOP
(1/17/05 12:11 pm)
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Re: Italian folklore question
Terri,
I actually have a list on Amazon of my favorite titles here: Italian Fairy Tales. The Thomas Crane collection tends to have many helpful notes despite its age, however, a quick look didn't produce any references to the nymphs you name.
Heidi
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/17/05 2:10 pm)
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Re: Italian folklore question
I assume your friend already knows that the Euganei Hills are above Padua, Terri?
people.cs.uchicago.edu/~e...002/3.html
www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/MM...064008.HTM
My Italian is almost non-existant but could Euguane be a pun meaning both "women of Euganei" and possibly also "women who say brava!". I imagine that a musician singing to an audience of women from the Euganei hills might want to flatter them by calling them delightful nymphs and encouraging them to say "Brava!" to his performance.
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(1/18/05 8:03 am)
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Re: Italian folklore question
Thanks, Heidi and Black Sheep. That's helpful.
Does anyone know a source for Italian fairy lore?
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/18/05 2:12 pm)
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Re: Italian folklore question
Having given my brain 24 hours to tick over I've decided that a more accurate version of my suggested second translation of Euguane would be "women who celebrate/cheer/say bravo!".
There's a page on music which looks interesting and mentions the Iguane in passing (in the fifth paragraph) here:
www.hoasm.org/IIIA/ArsNovaItaly.html
Charles Godfrey Leland's fakelore collection mentions the Euguane. I can't recommend it for historical accuracy but it is an unignorable curiosity of the elephant-in-the-room variety. It's available online and the single name check for the Euguane is in chapter 6 (second link):
www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/
www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gsft/gsft06.htm
If the Euguane are, as their Latinate name suggests, proper old fashioned Roman nymphs then they would presumably behave much the same as other groups of wood/hill nymphs in the old Pagan myths so you might be better served by a book on Roman mythology Terri?
Google's advanced search doesn't include a Latin language preference so it's not much use in searching for Latin texts and I don't know of a truly searchable online index.
Most Roman wood/hill nymphs seem to behave similarly. They keep company with their sisters, run around without many clothes on, have orgies with their male counterparts, are spied on by mortal men while bathing naked outdoors, are occasionally wooed (or raped) by immortal males of varying types, and... well, the list is endless, common knowledge, and mostly consists of the sort of fantasies dreamed up by male poets (or musicians) who spend too much time indoors with only their quill & scroll (or lute/mandolin/etc) for company!
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Jess
Unregistered User
(1/18/05 2:19 pm)
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14th C Italian Music
Your friend may want to look at secular poetry. According to Grout, "History of Western Music", states that the Italian 14th c secular musical repetoire "consists almost entirely of settings of secular poetry". Is your friend talking about a particular madrigal?
He/she might be able to trace the history of that particular madrigal.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/19/05 4:03 am)
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Music...
Black Sheep, this isn't really a reply connected to the Italian Folklore question, but as you are very knowledgable about music history websites, i wondered if you could point me in the direction of some links on music of the Scottish Enlightenment?
best
alison
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/19/05 1:53 pm)
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Re: Music...
Alison, I know almost nothing about music except in the general context of history and the usual I-know-what-I-like-when-I-hear-it. All I know about Scottish enlightenment music is Burns' songs.
The reason that I'm good at finding appropriate information on the web is that I've been a professional researcher so I know how to "power search" and find the info first go. Unfortunately your keywords ("Scottish music"+enlightenment) are too general to use as the basis for a specific search. Google throws up results like these:
www.music.gla.ac.uk/~tfow...otmus.html
(essay)
www.cyberscotia.com/ancie...index.html
(click the music link, left, then on the music page click the links
for the essay or the bibliography)
www.nls.uk/catalogues/links/
(exactly what it says on the tin)
If you can narrow down your search with additional keywords then it'd be easier to find appropriate material. So try the above search with added words such as: Burns, classical, folk, gaelic, traditional...
If you get too many similar inappropriate results then - (minus) out the wrong keywords and search again (use Google's advanced search!! And read Google's help FAQ too).
If you need anything else then please ask me (I know a brilliant method for searching through long web articles to find the one paragraph which contains what you're actually looking for!).
:)
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/20/05 6:23 am)
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Re: Music...
Thank you very much, Black Sheep. That has been extremely helpful!
Best
Alison
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/20/05 1:09 pm)
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Re: Music...
And try minusing out -buy -ticket -booking to get rid of some of the inappropriate links.
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lmallozzi
Registered User
(1/20/05 5:16 pm)
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perhaps this might help?
I found this on a website about Italian witchcraft or "stregheria". I realize that the spelling is a little different, but I thought it might somehow be related. I found it interesting that the red cap, something I thought strictly a British/Celtic fairy attribute, appears here.
AGUANE
This is a race of female spirits. They are the spirits of the mountains and hills, and the streams and rivers. They love to wear the color red and usually have a magic cap of red to provide invisibility. Their associated element is Water.
Luciana
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(1/23/05 6:22 am)
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Re: perhaps this might help?
Thank you, Luciana! Those may indeed be the nymphs my friend is looking for.
Italian folklore seems to be full of fairy-type creatures, but I haven't been able to find a single book or web site about them; just brief mentions here and there. I recall reading somewhere or other -- back in the days when I was editing Brian Froud's fairy books -- about Italian woodland creatures called the Silvani whose offspring were the Foletti, a race of high-spirited fairies. (Now if only I could remember where I ran across that....) And the island of Sardinia seems to be particularly thick in fairy lore.
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 1/23/05 6:28 am
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/23/05 10:03 am)
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Re: perhaps this might help?
The google genii says, "Your wish Terri is my command".
Dante mentioned them.
"The first known Italian forest ghosts were the Fauni and the Silvani. Fields and forests were under their reign, and under their reign they either died or throve. By mingling the Fauni with the Faunae or Fatuae the Incubi were born. These were originally ghosts watching over flocks of animals, said to bring them bad dreams.
On the other hand, the Silvani mingled with the Silvane ( or forest women ) and brought forth the Folletti. In the Medieval Ages, Incubi and Folletti were often mistaken for each other, but today most Italien elves are named 'Folletti'".
And they're in one of Leland's works of fakelore:
www.sacred-texts.com/pag/err/
(index page)
www.sacred-texts.com/pag/err/err10.htm
(mention)
www.sacred-texts.com/pag/err/err13.htm
(mention)
Edited by: Black Sheep at: 1/23/05 10:10 am
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