The migration of folktales, fables, myths, and The Doors of Midnight. I've talked about his following piece of work before - Panchatantra
Pronounced (cuz romanizing Sanskrit adds weird ass fake A's to things) Panch (or pah-nch, meaning FIVE) Tantr (thun-trr) Treatises.
It is a collection of folk tales (and I talked about this in my true origin of "fairy tales" and even what inspired the Grimm Brothers thread) fables, particularly focusing on talking animal fables from India. The written text is about 200 BCE (before common era) but the stories themselves are agreed upon by folklorists and experts to be far older given Sanskrit's long oral traditional history and the fact India has a history of oral performers by caste passing down these tales these tales are as old as we can possibly imagine. It is arguably one of, if not the most, translated piece of work out of India, with copies of it having reached Europe by the 11th century CE - yes, that old. Old enough to influence many European stories - particularly folk/fairy tales, and we'll get into that, because believe it or not, some famous fabulist writers even credited the collection of tales/author as their direct inspiration. Wild, right?
Panchatantra has been translated in nearly every major language with nearly 200 versions in 50 languages over the world. Before even the 1600s it had been translated into: Czech, Old Slavonic, Spanish, Italian, German, English, Greek, Latin, and more.
The earliest known translation was 550 CE into Middle Persian (and we'll get into why this is important in Tales of Tremaine as it's a commentary/meta referential and analysis, and love letter about migration of stories as well as storytelling) -- by the 12th century it was really spreading through Europe based off the Hebrew translation by Rabbi Joel, which then went on to be translated in German by Anton von Pforr in 1480 -- nearly 40 years before the 1812 publication of The Grimm brothers tales. Yep.
Now, to 1001 Nights - a collection of tales compiled by Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, which yes, includes stories from India that were translated as discussed above, and Syria and other parts of the Middle East as well obviously.
Panchatantra has been influential in both 1001 Nights as well in Sinbad. The particular inspirations were the usage of frame narrative, first recorded in India, and also the inclusion of specific styles of talking animal fables within the collection, and most specifically the motif of the wise young woman who delays and finally removes an impending danger by telling stories - if you've read The Doors of Midnight, you'll get now where I'm going with this.
Since the series is a mix of many things, including addressing/commentary on fantasy/myth-storytelling tropes, motifs, themes, history, origins, replying/referencing them in meta ways, as well as a discussion about western fantasy novels because there's a history in/with them also using tropes for exoticization and kind of fetishy exoticization at times without nodding to, offering, showcasing a lens to/of the cultures those techniques, stories, tropes come from, I wanted ot be able to talk about that in the context of the work (which does happen), critique, reference all of it. Book two is no different.
In where if you've read it, you'll see a genderbent take on the particular motif above, and if you're only understanding of stories is 1001 Nights, you might get it confused for ONLY referencing one story. Not true. While there are many overt and subtle references to that because this is a love letter and commentary on the migration of stories (which that is literally mentioned in the story itself), so it tries to include and nod to all the wonderful stories from all the cultures I can include along the Golden Road in this world.
The take in here not only references both Indian and Middle Eastern culture, but also dismantles and in fact comments on a toxic trope that has had previous positive iterations as well - namely: meeting the goddess/the temptress (two pieces of storytelling that often get lumped into one of a dude character bumps into smoking hot goddess who can't resist him, they boink (A LOT a lot a lot) he leaves or threatens to and she's upset, boink continues, then he gets a gift from her. This goes backs to the oldest epics, it's not western or even fairytale original, but it did become UBER popular in the west. Young bardic boy meets fae, they boink a lot. He leaves. Usually tragedy, not always. The end. Some magical gifts.
But the idea behind the trope was never supposed to be this reductionist. It was supposed to (go back to this word I've used about) evoke SENSE OF WONDER. Meeting a powerful character in possession of knowledge (see power), and magic (also power but sense of wonder), and to learn from her, gain some wisdom for your own betterment and evolving into a better kind of hero, and then use your gifts she gives you to that end. See, Frodo meeting Galadriel, no hanky panky, much wisdom, both were offered different temptations (not of the body) and in the end helpful gifts for the quest. :)
So, if you like or want to learn more about comparative mythology, storytelling, seeing the origins of such and dismantling your ideas of: structures, plot, tropes, motifs, beats, so on - check out The First Binding and The Doors of Midnight (recently released by @torbooks and @gollancz (US/UK).
Back to more about this. I've shared before the assertions of Max Muller and others on the influence that 30-50 percent of western fairy tales/ballads/nursery rhymes owe their origins/inspiration to Indian tales -- but Jean de La Fontaine, a french fabulist and poet - one of the most read poet of that time, directly credits Indian stories and the Indian sage Pilpay for his source of inspiration in his works --
"This is a second book of fables that I present to the public... I have to acknowledge that the greatest part is inspired from Pilpay, an Indian Sage" - Jean de La Fontaine.
He's also not the only post medieval era author to specifically credit Indian stories and the sage Pilpay and others who contributed to the many other epics, collection of tales, individual tales, and more.
Now, IMPORTANT NOTE - inspiration here does not mean a direct 1-1.
Yes, many are complete rewrites, translations which is obvy a translations, and others are using the motif and overall theme but converted to and through their cultural lens and time of place. That's how storytelling traveleled, evolved, and become coopted, adopted, and accessible to local masses in w.e. country/empire.
And that's obviously a massive theme in my work but using a central heroic figure or villainous to be a focal point for that to see how that happens around one figure as it's an easier way to do that in fiction rather than a freak ton of povs which would make it harder for readers to continue to track and grok all those changes within the frame narrative aspect.
