Tale
Légendes et contes merveilleux de la Grande Kabylie
Not translated into English
Auguste Mouliéras · 1893
Synopsis
Eighty-five tales and legends dictated by storytellers of Greater Kabylia: marvellous tales in which one marries the sultan's daughter, fables in which one learns why larks like to perch on rocks, stories of the man of omens, of the woman who ate a snake's egg or of the woman buried alive, and tales that tell of the relations between Kabyles, Arabs and Moroccans.
Context
The tales were dictated in 1891 by Kabyles of the Aït Jennad, among them Amor ben Mohammed ou Ali, of Taoudouchth, and transcribed in simple Latin characters. The École des lettres of Algiers published them with Leroux, in Kabyle only, in seven fascicles issued from 1893 to 1898, only the titles being translated. It was not until 1965 that Camille Lacoste gave the French translation, prefaced by Lionel Galand, with for each tale its reference in the international Aarne and Thompson classification. Eighteen forgotten tales from the same collection appeared in 1999, in Kabyle and in French.
Who it is for
Tales in Kabyle transcribed in Latin characters, readable in French in Camille Lacoste's translation. It should be known that the original edition translates only the titles.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first and most important harvest of Kabyle oral literature, opened up to comparative folklore studies by its French translation.