Courage Book Review: Three Little Three Little PigsKnow how you can tell this classic is about physical courage? All the huffing and puffing! Just as The Three Billy Goats Gruff had plenty…
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Pecos BillThis American tall tale – or collection of tales – comes from the great tradition of brag stories from the Wild West. Decades of cowboys…
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Talking Stories with Eleanor, Part 1Last week I had coffee with my friend, Eleanor Stanton, the associate pastor at the Presbyterian- New England Congregational Church in Saratoga Springs. She talked…
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About Stories“The protagonist of folk tale is always, and intensely, a young person moving through ordeals into adult life. When adult state and a suitable partner…
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Surviving the Lion AND the Fox!I found a very interesting story the other day that highlights moral courage in an unusual way. Animal fables typically offer the lion and the…
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Courage Question of the Day“Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historical, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former—the youngest…
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Jean Labadie’s Big Black Dog and Shivering in the BathHere is an old Quebecois story I ran across recently in Kevin Crossley Holland’s The Young Oxford Book of Folk Tales. It’s an easy story…
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Truth to PowerOn this blog we’ve been discussing moral courage quite a lot lately. One sign of a lack of moral courage is hypocrisy. A story the…
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Courage Book Review – Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the BraveImagine putting Cinderella in a blender with Hansel and Gretel, and then adding some voodoo. You will end up with something approaching Baba Yaga and…
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Raising a Good Citizen of the World“I’ve learned that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin, and that every warrior, every humanitarian, every citizen is built to live…
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