On 7/6/06, Jon_Lincicum wrote: > > It's also probably pretty common to have certain aspects of folk-tales > (such as a list of tasks that are all but impossible to accomplish) that > are shared between many of them. "Making the River Run Backwards" could be > used almost any time a hero is called upon to do something impossible. Hm. I note that one of the things that Bolk says when Sandor is kicked unconcious is something like "throw him in the River and let him make it run backward". Which is presumably a joke, yet I note that the Mózes story involves the Demon Goddess performing the actual tasks. A hint that such things are indeed possible, with sufficiently advanced sorcery? Perhaps the "clever" prince Miska speaks of was another one who went to Faerie (presumably before the Interregnum, or after the end of the Interregnum) and learned a few things? In a universe where magic works, and where a tree replaces the material of a castle, it might be that "impossible" is not as applicable a term to all the situations that it would be in ours. > > >Who can say? > > Indeed. Precisely.