Annielogue

Banana

Hi,

Actually, reviewing your contributions I think I was hasty in my choice of welcome template. The most relevant thing to review is WP:EL - if you think that the link can be included based on what should be linked or considered, then consider re-inserting the link. Fruit pages are weird, it's hard to find content that really applies for the EL section. Basically, there would be a case to be made if the link discusses bananas extensively about pretty much all aspects of bananas. If it only focuses on one area, it might be better footnoted as a source to verify some of the body text. I've replaced the template (which is actually a combination of a {{welcome}} template and a warning template) with a straight-up welcome. My apologies, I should have checked more extensively. WLU (talk) 15:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking at it a bit more the page is a combination of a blog and a page to promote his book. Those are two pages that WP:ELNO cautions against linking to. Also, there's already a link to Dan Koeppel's work [1]. My opinion is that the best way to deal with Koeppel's work is to cite his book in the body. WLU (talk) 15:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

World Tales

You could do with more material for World Tales. Maybe try googling "world tales" "idries shah" and looking for reviews?

For example this at Uncommon Knowledge.

If you're still in need, try a yahoo! search -- it sometimes brings up items missed by google. It may not be appropriate in this article, but there's also the google book search and the google scholar search.

Regards, EricT (talk) 10:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

This Amazon result may provide you with leads, too. EricT (talk) 10:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Or have a look at The Sufis and Idries Shah by Doris Lessing, who always has good things to say about Shah. EricT (talk) 10:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Jacobs is the author

And we thus go by the actual title, not what title you believe is more correct in English. Enigma ^message 08:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help here Enigmaman. I am, as you can see, fairly new to this.

My thinking was that, because the story appears to be over two thousand years old and has gone through so many editions and versions before and since the one that appears in Jacobs' collection, and since the folktale is often told rahter than written, the entry should be about the tale, rather than one particular recension.

The wiki entry on Brahman specifically mentions the problem:

"Note that "Brahman" is different from "Brahmin", the priests/holy men. In fact "Brahmin" is derived from "Brahman" in the sense that a 'Brahmin is the one who knows Brahman'. The confusion between the terms can be dated back to the translation of the Upanishads into modern English."

More modern published versions of the tale, the two I refer to in notes 4 and 5, have the modern accepted spelling.

Parallels might be the Grimm's Fairy Tales where we do not feel we need to use the original German titles of the tales, as we would with other German literature, or One Thousand and One Nights, which in its first English version were called The Thousand and One Days: Persian Tales. Folktales have such a vitality that the collectors at one time or another do not own them in the same way they would with other works. Perhaps I should make this clearer in the introduction.--Annielogue (talk) 11:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In fact I have.--Annielogue (talk) 12:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"Anansi"

Hallo. Do you know who started the "Anansi" page? The reason why I ask is because it is full of spelling errors. I have not yet checked the content but my mother is Asante and as such, has encylopaedic knowledge of the tales and more importantly, the language. I have noticed comments regarding the lack of citation; as the stories were handed down via the oral tradition, there is little written evidence in the West to verify any of the tales, certainly in their original form; for this, you need to go to the Asante nation, in Ghana, or to somebody from that region, who is Asante. I will let my mother view the page and see what is what but I have spotted spelling errors already. I hope that I have done this right, as it has been more than a year since I entered a discussion here! ([[2]] (talk) 00:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC))

Thanks, Zippstar. Well, of course, the stories are the thing. An encyclopaedia entry is just a shadow at best. I envy you having a mother with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the tales, and would love to hear her tell some! The main thing is to hear them and enjoy them, ponder them.

The page has many authors. You can look at the "history" tab, as all the contributions are conserved.

I added citations in my contribution to the page and there are some studies of the stories "on the ground" in Ghana.

Actually too, though the oral is the primary, Anansi has had an amazing life in literature. Just search him in amazon or another bookshop and you will see. He is possibly the most published folk-character in children's literature! Also, of course he has had a life in the Caribbean.

Good luck with your researches, Zippstar!--Annielogue (talk) 08:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject Children't Literature

Hello, Annielogue, and Welcome to WikiProject Children's literature. Go to the To-Do list of this WikiProject to see the list of open tasks. I hope that you enjoy being part of this project. Again welcome!

I hope you enjoy being part of the project. strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 11:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, Stardust! --Annielogue (talk) 13:02, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Writing page

Thanks for your kind words! Tony (talk) 04:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for fixing my edit here, I didn't notice that I'd changed the letters throughout the whole page. EuroPride (talk) 11:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Help uploading images

Thanks for adding an image to one of the articles I was working on a while back ("Lion's share"). Would you be kind enough to help me upload some more onto another article? I can't make head nor tail of the so-called explanation. If you could describe how it can be done simply and quickly, I'd very much appreciate that.

What I want to do is transfer a couple of images to the article "The Ant and the Grasshopper" from WP Free Commons. So far I have links to these in the text but the article really needs breaking up with some more pics. I'd like the Lefebvre painting at [3] to appear in the Later adaptations section and the Doré print at [4] to appear on or abut into The moral debate page.

I'll be very grateful for the help you can give me with this. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 13:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mzilikazi1939,

I'll certainly do what I can. First of all though, well done for all your hard work on those fables! You are the ant (in the best possible sense)! I should also say that I'm no expert - I just muddle through.

So, looking at The Ant and the Grasshopper, if you go into edit, the first thing you see is

[[File:The Ant and the Grasshopper - Project Gutenberg etext 19994.jpg|300px|thumb|1919 illustration by [[Milo Winter]]]]

which is the picture that's already at the top. I usually just copy and paste one that's already there, like that one, and replace things with the new details. So, if the image you want to put in is File:La cigale et la fourmi illustration dore.jpg you just need to substitute it in, and change the caption, which is the last bit

So

[[File:The Ant and the Grasshopper - Project Gutenberg etext 19994.jpg|300px|thumb|1919 illustration by [[Milo Winter]]]]

becomes

[[File:La cigale et la fourmi illustration dore.jpg|300px|thumb|Gustave Doré illustration of La Fontaine's The Ant and the Grasshopper]]

Gustave Doré illustration of La Fontaine's The Ant and the Grasshopper

which will look like this:

If you want it to be a bit smaller, so it doesn't dominate too much, just change that 300px into 200px.

You just need to put that in in the right place. I could do it for you, but you need to know how to do it.

Does that help? If that explanation doesn't help, I can try again. Or if I can help in any other way, do let me know - these fables are important!--Annielogue (talk) 14:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Annielogue, when I put in the file you created it worked perfectly but when I did like you said and substituted the name of the file I wanted it just wouldn't show on the page. I'm sorry to be such a helpless pest, but what have I done wrong? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

No worries. You were nearly there. It's just a small thing.

The image is called File:La Cigale.jpg

You've put in

[[File:La cigale.jpg|300px|thumb|Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, The Grasshopper, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia]]

The difference is just a capital letter C for Cigale! I've fixed it.--Annielogue (talk) 07:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow! I checked everything but that. Thanks for being so helpful (I noticed you edited out the link too). I'll experiment with putting in a few more pics elsewhere soon. I really am very grateful for your tutorial. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 08:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Article on anthropomorphic fiction?

Hi Annielogue, I've noticed your work on literature, while I was editing Panchatantra, etc. I think Wikipedia is lacking a good article (and categories) on anthropomorphic fiction in general... do you think we should create one? We already have articles on overlapping topics of it: Talking animals in fiction, Beast fable, Stereotypes of animals, etc, so it would be good to have a "parent" article for them (or maybe one of the first two can be rewritten for that purpose). What do you think? I've left a note at Talk:Anthropomorphism#Separate article for Anthropomorphism in fiction?. Also, we ought to have a category into which articles like The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal, The Blue Jackal, Blind men and an elephant, The Tortoise and the Geese, The Brahmin and the Mongoose, etc. could go. (I'm more familiar with Indian stories, but I'm sure you can think of other examples as well.) We already have Category:Literature featuring anthropomorphic characters, but a category specifically for individual well-travelled stories with a history of oral storytelling may be good. Best regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 03:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

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WikiProject Children's literature has been invited by the Wikipedia Signpost to feature in the WikiProject Report in the July 19 issue. Please contribute to this report by answering the interview questions here. strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 10:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Internal links to foreign language WP

Hi there again! There's probably a perfectly simple answer to this question which I'm hoping you'll be able to help me with. In constructing or restructuring pages I notice there are articles in French (Breton, Welsh, Basque, Walloon dialect, blah blah) versions of WP but not in English. How do I link to these from Eng-lang articles?

I saw you added an image to "The Crane & The Wolf" this morning...but only when I went there with another pic I'd discovered. I've substituted that, it's 20th century, which is rare in Aesop illustrations. Thanks for your helpfulness though. Please don't think the student imagines himself more proficient than the teacher! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I have just checked the answer. It's worth knowing how to search for answers to questions like this (though I don't mind you asking me at all). I just do a search, like this, clicking on the "Help and Project Pages" tab:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=other%20language%20wikipedias&fulltext=Search&ns4=1&ns12=1&redirs=0

Then I follow a few things through until I come to:

Help:Interlanguage links#Inline interlanguage links

I liked "my" picture, maybe because it's architectural rather than book-based. But I will "let go"! You are doing lots of great work with these fables; keep it up!--Annielogue (talk) 21:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, I'll follow up what you suggest. Actually 'your' example was a sketch of a 12/13th century pillar of which there is a more detailed photo in Wiki Commons. I liked it for its hand-drawn quality which, I agree with you, is a relief from so much illustration-based stuff for Aesopic articles. I'm meditating a big section on applied-art use of the Fables and might slip it in there.

On 'letting go', it's a phrase I'm used to in the Theravadin tradition of Buddhism. Were you inspired to use it because of the Jataka context of that section, or is it something out of WP's voluminous acreage of advice? Mzilikazi1939 (talk 17:11, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

a fable in stone

Interesting. A person only has to be slightly self-observant here to notice themself getting proprietory about their contributions. Just on the level of one's reaction to having them edited or even removed. Or, if there's no self-observation, the talk pages will do fine: they're full of this sort of territoriality. There must be a WP page on it, but I must confess I don't know all the policy and advice pages very well. There's probably an Aesop's fable too, though I can't think of it now! (It's obviously The Boy and the Filberts! --Annielogue (talk) 17:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC))

As for that image, yes, the idea of a fable as something that you carve into a building, as something that will be seen again and again, rather than to put back on the shelf having read the moral, that seems to speak of a time when people were more willing to turn these micro-stories round in their heads, to revisit them and see different facets to them. Perhaps even the valuing of tales as a technology of self-recognition... Anyway, don't get me started...--Annielogue (talk) 20:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Cumulative theme

Hi, once more. I notice you've introduced a section on this subject into the "Mouse who turned into a maid" article but it appears to me disruptively off-topic since most of it has nothing to do with the fable. A mere reference to the "Cumulative Tale" article would have been enough and you could have built that up with your material where it has most relevance. Could I suggest you do something like that? By all means take the Midrash reference there too. Now I think of it, the connection is tangential at best and the transition to the "Venus and the Cat" section would be smoother without it. What do you think? [[User:Mzilikazi1939|Mzi--Annielogue (talk) 06:21, 21 June 2010 (UTC)likazi1939]] (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Mzilikazi1939, always a pleasure to see you here. I've been watching the progress of the Aesop's fable articles you've been working on with admiration. Your surveys of the fables in the arts in particular are impressive. And, needless to say, I value your ideas on this, not least as creator of the The Mouse Turned into a Maid article. Here's my thinking:

I read the pdf of the Panchatantra chapter you give in note 1, and was really struck by the cumulative theme. I must declare an interest here: I had created that Cumulative èpleased when I read this fable to discover it again, and perhaps earlier in history. It could be the first occurance of this widespread form.

It seems to me then that there are two parts to the Panchatantra version, the metamorphosis and de-metamorphosis part and the marriage part. And what makes me think that it's not just my interest in cumulative tales that gives me this angle on it is that in the four pages of the tale, it's the marriage element takes up most of the space.

I'll take out the poem, as that takes up a lot of lines, but my feeling is that this is part of the fable that needs its own section too. What do you think? (I'll copy this to the article's talk page in case anyone else passes by and has any thoughts.)--Annielogue (talk) 09:49, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a great improvement. My suggestion is to do with presentation now. We're supposed to avoid 'original research', so you need to delete the word 'perhaps' and substitute something along the lines of your penultimate para, which is well argued. If you can find a supporting reference to the inclusion of cumulative elements in folk tales, that would be good. The Jataka of The sound the hare heard and its connection with The story of Henny Penny is another example; if it would amuse you, take a look at a version of the former on p.8 here: http://www.bbvt.org.uk/lotus_arch/Lotus5.pdf. And just to amuse you, here's a rhyme I learned in my childhood:

Jeremaiah/piddled in the fire,

The fire was too hot/so he piddled in the pot,

The pot was too round/so he piddled on the ground,

The ground was too flat/so he piddled on the cat

And the cat ran away/with the piddle on its back.

I suspected that you wrote that article on cumulative tales. My first intrusion was the expansion to twice its length of the Fungi from Yuggoth article. You'll notice that I'm as much a coloniser as a pioneer! In fact, I've picked up quite a bit of subeditorial experience over time, which is an expertise some of the articles on WP lack. Giving articles a particular focus is something else I'm trying to do with the Aesop material, but the trouble here is that it leads to ruffled feelings of ownership when additions arrive!

I'm glad you appreciate the work on use of the fables in the arts. It certainly need surveying; I was impressed and joyful that you discovered the Millet print, which is a very atypical work. As you may have guessed, it's not enough to mention that such a painting or musical setting exists; it has to be given context and meaning within the theme of the article. I rather cheated with the Kuniyoshi print; there are Japanese analogues to the eastern story, but I've no idea whether this really refers to one. I may substitute one of the thumbs that you turned up. I'm very impressed by the way you find stuff like that from sources outside the WP files; my technical expertise doesn't stretch to uploading such material. Care to give me a tutorial?

I'll transfer some of the reply above to the discussion page. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 11:42, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your very full reply, Mzilikazi1939. I liked the rhyme. Looking back at that Cumulative tales article, it can be expanded a bit now, and maybe renamed "Chain tales" to be more inclusive. I've found a reference for the transmission of the cumulative tale from our fable, but it still looks like "perhaps" in this source, so I've left it as that for now. I was pleased to find D. L. Ashliman's site, some of these eastern variants could be mentioned in the article.

Thanks, A/L, I'll also look forward to your expansion of the Cumulative Tale article. You may have noticed I worked through the artistic material for the Venus and the Cat section and was excited to find that the Kuniyoshi print does fit into the context after all. I also looked up Faivre; he might deserve an article, there's a biography of him on a Marseilles site (where he came from) and his work seems to be selling well in auctions right now. The sexual ambiguity of the statue also interested me, as does the sexuality of the whole fable. I'd missed it as first; I have a bowdlerised La Fontaine that says that the mice troublèrent le repos des nouveaux mariés and only realised later the the original word was plaisir.

I looked at the Ashliman site as soon as I noticed it at the foot of the article. What bothers me is that it doesn't give dates for the material it translates and without that there's no critical context in which to place the variants. The North African one I recognised immediately as taken from Kalila wa Dimna, the Arabic translation that is important to the transition of Indian material westwards. (In the past I'd been resposible for englishing a Persian variant). The location of Korean and Japanese versions is interesting but without an idea of how they got there, nothing can be made of them. It is the Romanian variant that has most possibilities simply because it reflects Marie de France's class-based interpretation of the story. That has been lost in later versions, so it was intriguing to rediscover it. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 11:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Funny you should mention Kalila and Dimna - I was just looking at this image

http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Daguerre&O=7815250&E=JPEG&NavigationSimplifiee=ok&typeFonds=noir on the BnF's image collection (good selection of K & D images) and wondering if it would do for The Dog and the Bone. I got stuck because, though it looks like the same story, I couldn't find the story itself. I know K & D from Ramsay Wood's excellent book, but I don't recall that one being in there...--Annielogue (talk) 16:54, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Kalila wa Dimna stories are usually versions of 'Bidpai' (there are Persian locations in the versions I've been reading lately), which is one of the stages in the transference of Indian tales westwards. Interestingly, though, it seems to be emphasising the reflection, so I don't think it can be illustrating "The Fox and the piece of meat". I suppose a solution might be that the western and the eastern fables have started coalescing. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Uploading Images

As for uploading pictures to wp, it's not too hard. Obviously there has to be an acceptable copyright status for the image, but with the old pictures where the author / artist has been dead for more than 70 years there seems to be no problem.

Ideally you'll want to upload to wikimedia commons, so the image can be used on all the wp projects. If you've set up your "Global account status" you'll have an account there (if not, go to "my preferences" at the top of any wikipedia page and you can set it up).

On the wikimedia commons page on the left you'll see "upload file". Click this. You'll come to some options for upload. Probably none of them apply, so click "main upload form" below.

Clicking the "browse" button, browse to your image on your computer. Then fill in the other fields: "Original source": the web page where you got the image, etc. Most important is the licensing further down (where it says "none selected..." in the drop-down menu). For old pictures, I often pick "author died more than 70 years ago", or "reproduction of a painting that is in the public domain because of its age" - and there doesn't seem to be a problem with these so far.

Then click "Upload file" and wait for the satisfying moment when the image becomes part of wp!

Hope that helps. If you need further pointers, just say.

Initially I had trouble but I've got a file uploaded now. Unfortunately I originally uploaded it from the Ferdinand Faivre page that I added (without going via Commons) and got a bot threatening to delete. I've put up a protest and will see what happens next. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:40, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Help! I got some unhelpful reply that I can't make head nor tail of here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions#File_copyright_problem_with_File:Faivre_jardiniere_2.jpg Just what do they mean? The page where I found the image said copyright is with the artist or asignees and since the artist died in 1937 it should be out of copyright. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:06, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm no expert at this but... if you look at an image page like this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rodin_The_bronze_age.jpg

it's got licensing information half way down, which

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Faivre_jardiniere_2.jpg

doesn't. I suspect you didn't select a licensing option from the drop down menu, but only filled in teh permissions section on the upload page.

If you fix this, another problem may arise. Even if the art work is Public Domain, I get the impression that the photographer of a 3D work of art has copyright to their image. See for instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions/Archive/2007/August#The_problem_of_coins.2C_and_PD-Art

(which concerns coins, which barely make it into being 3D!)

It looks to me in this case that the photographer has copyright and so it is not really PD.

Don't know if that's any help...--Annielogue (talk) 10:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Beneath the image on the page that I got it from appears the notice "Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee". No mention of the photographer there. However, there is a copyright notice for the whole AskArt site, in which case what's the point of that notice? It's really frustrating. The photos of Faivre's work that are genuinely out of copyright aren't nearly so recognisably in Art Nouveau style. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

They look quite tight with their copyright

http://www.askart.com/AskART/help/AskART_terms2.aspx

Maybe "Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee" means the photographer?--Annielogue (talk) 05:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The fable and its moral

This is really in connection with the restyle I've given "The Sick Lion", I suppose, but that's connected with yet another section that needs to be added to the "Aesop's Fable" article. Some of the most intriguing are those where various kinds of logic are used - self-interested (The wolf and the lamb), skewed (The woman in childbirth), deduction (The sick lion), ambivalent (The cock and the jewel). I'm not sure I'm the one to write it, my training isn't in Western philosophy and I'm not even sure if there are sources, but someone should take on the task.

Beyond that are the contexts in which you find the fables used and the deductions made from them, which adds a layer of polyvalance. It's from this point of view that I dislike most 19th-20th century English-language retellings: they're self-righteous, judgmental and wordy - in contrast to the lean elegance of Phaedrus. I'm making it part of my mission to purge WP of taking these late and unreliable versions as a primary source. Two of the versions you cite for "The sick lion" therefore came under the axe. It should be our business to look at past interpretations, from Classical and Early Mediaeval sources in particular. I was particularly pleased that you found an early mention of "The sick lion" in a (pseudo-) Platonic dialogue. However, the passage needs quoting so that the meaning given the fable can be made clear. I tried to speed-read the Jowett translation but couldn't find it. Do you know whereabouts it comes?

Lastly, I took out all the fussy section heads; they would only be justified if the article was very long and needed dividing in that way. Otherwise, if there's only a short para under each, to my eyes they give the impression that there isn't much to say on the subject and therefore the article isn't worth reading. They also break up the rhythm of the developing exposition. In my restyling I've focused on interpretations and contexts of the fable.

Very interestingly, by the way, the Jataka that you discovered departs from usual practice and does not give a moral. The need for foresight, as in other monkey-king stories, is the obvious one but that can only be inferred in this case. The moral dilemma over damage to vegetation by the future Buddha is what chiefly bothers the teller of this story. Anyway, thanks for finding primary sources such as this and the Classical instance. We make a good team! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 08:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for counting me as a partner, Mzilikazi1939 - but really it's you that's doing all the hard and good work! What you say about the morals in fables is something I really agree with. That word "polyvalent" is good - a narrative has many dimensions (as in the elephant-and-the-blind-men) and a moral is, at best, just one part that one commentator has thought of or copied. I think we should purge statements that begin "The moral is -". Who is to say what the truth of these tales is? Certainly not wp where it would count as POV. We can survey what others have said the moral is. And I agree with you, the older the better. And we can, as you say, show the context in which the fable is used, as you suggest for The Fox and the Sick Lion.

(Some of the morals you find are delightfully bad or wrong. I suppose that false note creates another dimension to think about!)

My own take on The Fox and the Sick Lion, which is POV and non-WP and mine only, is as a description of cults, in the bad sense. In a time when "teachers" - for adults - were a more common thing, a story like this might be a first lesson in distinguishing a "false teacher": are there footprints away from them?

The Plato-ish quote is:

"and as to gold and silver, there is more of them in Lacedaemon than in all the rest of Hellas, for during many generations gold has been always flowing in to them from the whole Hellenic world, and often from the barbarian also, and never going out, as in the fable of Aesop the fox said to the lion, 'The prints of the feet of those going in are distinct enough;' but who ever saw the trace of money going out of Lacedaemon?" (I'll add it in)

Today's tip: Don't read, search. With Windows, if that's what you have, Control F allows you to search a Web page (Apple must have something similar). PDFs usually have a search box. I just searched "Aesop" in the Jowett.

("My name is Benhjamin Jowett, I'm Master of Baliol College, Whatever is knowledge I know it, And what I don't know aint knowledge.")

Anyway, I'm very pleased to work on this with someone so conscientious, who has a high regard for the fables and their sources, and with a strong sense of how to write the articles. Thank you!--Annielogue (talk) 10:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Progress Report, June 2010

Hi, partner! I've been busy here and there and I'm not sure how closely you keep tabs on what I'm up to. I've only just discovered your discussion point at The Wolf and the Crane and left an answer. I prefer the source I cite there (http://www.archive.org/stream/jatakatales00fran#page/n7/mode/2up) for a couple of reasons. One is that the context of the story is also translated, so we have a guide to its original application. The other is that the contents page gives a short summary of each Jataka, which is very useful; it also gives the Pali name there, which is a good guide when one is looking for other instances, discussions and (if one is lucky) the Pali original.

I've been looking for a reliable source for the Panchatantra. The trouble is that it's largely a reconstruction from other sources. I'm wary of using anything labeled as Panchatantra unless I know its original context. It's the same with 'Bidpai' in its many recensions, although I've just come across a complete French translation of one of these at [5] (you find the contents via the menu at top left). It's useful as the source from which La Fontaine drew some of his versions. Or rather he apparently used an abridged version; this one is terribly wordy, as is Franklin Edgerton's reconstruction of the Panchatantra (which I have on my shelves).

I mention all this because I've just done a wordy reconstruction of my own at The Two Pigeons. Originally it dealt solely with the two ballets of that name but I added consideration of the La Fontaine fable on which they drew and other musical interpretations. It took me about 3 days checking on this and that. I found a fuller account of the French ballet in a work on Mallarmé (who commented on it) and of the English ballet in a German source (through a very garbled translation function). You might know of something that needs adding, so please take a took.

Incidentally, I found a Jataka version of The Wolf and the Lamb which I've added - and put that article in the Jataka category.

I think that brings you up to date now except for a couple of other discoveries. There's a Danish site which has the complete Fables of John Gay (http://www.kalliope.org/vaerktoc.pl?vid=gay/1727). They're entirely original and unlikely to be of much use except as examples of political applications of animal stories. There might be a variation on an Aesopic theme, I haven't read them all yet. Then there's an Italian fabulist called Lorenzo Pignotti (there's a biog on It. WP) who wrote original fables and several versions of La Fontaine. My Italian is sketchy, I miss the finer points, but in general he doesn't appear to have anything original to add in those I've glanced at. Google Books have complete 19th century editions of his work. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:47, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Mzilikazi1939, my sincere thanks for your update. Having worked on one or two other things on WP pretty much on my own, it's much more motivating to work alongside someone else! (Always acknowledging that I'm standing leaning on my spade watching you do most of it!)

Having said that, I'm about to go off on holiday for a while to a couple of islands on the far side of Europe from one another, so I won't be doing anything here for that time. So I wish you in the meantime more discoveries, and strength to your elbow. And try not to get sucked into any image copyright swamps!--Annielogue (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Have a good holiday! I wish I was going on one but my partner is laid up with a bad back and my diary for July is filling at an appalling rate. However, the bright side is that they've let me keep my Ferdinand Faivre pic. I looked at the page's copyright information and it wasn't nearly as all-encompassing as you made out. Finally, though, they agreed that a work created in 1900 was fair use and bugger the photographer.

Thanks for adding the pic and various other bits and pieces to the "Fox and Grapes" article. You were still going strong when I last looked so I decided to leave you to it. I need to add a bit about the Rorem operas but I'll do that when you've finished. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Happiness Hypotheses

Thanks for writing the "Happiness Hypotheses" article. I had been meaning to get to it, but never did. I guess it's for the best that I didn't around to it, considering that I'm not an expert.--Dark Charles (talk) 05:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Roald Dahl task

Hello, Annielogue, We are wondering if you would like to join the Roald Dahl task force as you have contributed a lot to the articles in our scope. We hope you can join! Please feel free to add to this list. If you feel a task has been completed feel free to remove it and start a new one! Become a member of the task force and encourage others to do so. Tag articles for the task force. Improve: George's Marvellous Medicine. Improve: Going Solo. Work on all Roald Dahl related articles mainly focusing on stubs. Assess articles on class and importance. Get Roald Dahl to FA or GA

sillybillypiggy^{talk to me sign!} 16:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Henny Penny

Please take a look at the discussion on the title of the Henny Penny article and maybe leave an opinion. Quoth31, who raised the subject, suggested that I invite in other fabulist pals but you're about the only one I know! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 21:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Lion's Share

Hi, Annielogue. I've been getting a lot of POV from Dream Focus and Annyong (who, for all I know, might be the same person), deleting the Jataka reference in the article on The Lion's Share. I think we jointly worked on expanding that. Could you take a look at the discussion page and see what you think? Thanks Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Mzilikazi1939, thanks for writing to me about this, and well done again for all your work on this and many other Aesop articles. Wikipedia is not a particularly sociable place and you don't necessarily get the much-deserved praise you ought! It's great to see a historical and cross-curltural dimension reflected in these articles, something that there needs to be more of in wikipedia.

As you have reworked the article, it looks pretty good. To me the article should be mainly about the fable; the scope for an article on a proverbial saying per se is pretty limited and more appropriate for a dictionary entry. I agree, too, that animals often change from one culture to another while the story itself stays the same - this is true for all sorts of details in fairy tales too. As for the similarities and differences between Lion's Share and The Lion, the Bear and the Fox, it's a hard one to call. In the first it is the more powerful partner that can demand everything, while only giving the illusion of choice. In the second the claimants are so engaged in their battle that they allow a third person to come along and, either by arbitration or otherwise, take the thing they're arguing over. The Jataka tale of the jackal does seem to be closer to the second case, but as they are similar I see no harm in leaving it in the Lion's Share article.

I wonder if all wikipedians could benefit by some thought on the second story. They very commendably put a lot of work into gathering information and making it available in a clear, comprehensible and comprehensive form and they very naturally get attached to their work. It's very easy because of this to get embroiled in debate. Bizarrely the debates can take away from the "meat", the initial impulse - to gather, source and share information.

Anyway, that's just my take on it. I'm sure there are lots of debates that have to be had otherwise some awfully biased account of important facts is left to stand. Maybe I should try joining in one one of these days!

Let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy new year, Mzilikazi1939!

--Annielogue (talk) 14:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The cock & the fox

Thank you, yes, the item from an Indian encyclopaedia is a nice find, but I wonder whether we might be getting drawn into The Great Indian Archaeological Propaganda War. I didn't check first whether Ghosh was on the extreme nationalist wing of this. The argument runs that there is now ample evidence that the Saraswati River existed until about 4,000 years ago and that many of the thriving Indus Valley Civilisation towns were in fact ports along it. BUT, since people only knew where to look for the course of the river because it is mentioned in the Vedas, that must mean that the authors were living in India at that time (when conventional history says they had yet to arrive, if they came via Afghanistan or Central Asia). Therefore the 'Aryans' were of Indian origin, and the linguistic base (and associated folklore) must have spread westwards from there. I'm sure there's a gap in the reasoning somewhere but I can't really put my finger on it.

Thanks too for the kind words and wishes in the item above. Let me reciprocate both. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Isopsephy

I removed one paragraph for the moment, since it's extremely hard to understand how "isopsephy" would have worked in the non-alphabetic cuneiform writing system used for the Akkadian languages. There should be some type of basic explanation of that point, so that the reader can understand that this really falls under isopsephy... AnonMoos (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know directly about your reasoning, AnonMoos. I too find it hard to understand, and I can't find out who does. There is of course a non-isopsephic system of numbers in cuneiform. As far as I can ascertain, the cuneiform of the time was a mixture of syllabary and ideogram, but how numerical values were assigned I can't discover. Bowever it does seem to be attested with references that there is this inscription claiming isopsephy, so my leaning is to include it in history as the earliest reference we have to it. Let me put th paragraph here so I can find it more easily, perhaps when I've found out a little more:

A system of isopsephy appears to have existed among the Babylonians and Assyrians. There is a single example from the time of Sargon II. An enscription on a clay tablet states that the king built the walls of Dur-Sharrukin, present day Khorsabad, then the Assyrian capital, "according to the value of his name", 16280 Assyrian units.:::

I think too, I should copy this to the talk page in case anyone else has thoughts on this. Thanks again.--Annielogue (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

---

If scholars have no idea how it worked, then we can just say that in the article with no problem. What I was worried about is that if there was no explanation of the method used, and no statement that the method used was unknown, then it would leave many obvious questions hanging... It might be better to say "a system of reducing cuneiform signs to a numerical value appears to have existed among...", since whatever that system was, it's likely to have been different in many ways from alphabetic isopsephy.... AnonMoos (talk) 23:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The mountain in labour

I was surprised you hadn't heard of this one, but maybe it's because it's not really an animal fable. In fact, I suspect it was always a proverb and that Phaedrus expanded it into a fable in his short poem. Have you heard of "The Oak and the Reed", which is also non-animal? I'm thinking of making that the next article. Anyway, thanks for your additions to "The Mountain in Labour" in a very good pastiche of my general approach. As a reward, had you noticed that I have reused the drawing of an Autun capital that you once placed in the article on The Fox and the Stork? I've also used a carving from Seville cathedral in the Chanticleer and the Fox article. I took my inspiration from your wanting to vary illustrations and wouldn't have been able to do it without your showing me how. I'm getting sick of so many illustrations from Milo Winter. They're attractive, yes, but there are many others. Take a look at the amazing laurakgibbs pages on Flickr; she seems to have hunted down everything from the 1400s to the early 1900s, but you have to know the Latin title to be able to group them by fable. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Mzilikazi1939 - thank you for my reward - I was really just poking my head round the door.

You've done lots on The Wolf and the Crane - and the Autun capital has some text that makes it belong now! (I like the meaning given - it seems to have the subtlety of the story.)

The oak and the reed seems very familiar, well, the reed bit anyway; but I can't think from where. I don't know it as a fable really. I like it.

Keep up the good work, always remembering that wikipedia is a wolf - you take the bone out of its throat, but...

Oh and yes, http://www.flickr.com/photos/38299630@N05/ is wonderful - and a useful resource for wikipedia.--Annielogue (talk) 22:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at the discussion of the original page at The Nun's Priest's Tale, where the reasons for the radical change are given (and a picture of the book). What possible justification is there for an article on a purely derivative work? Should we then (for eg) have a separate page for every individual retelling of Henny Penny from the 19th century on? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I entirely approve of what you've done, and I agree that the fable is the thing, not any particular retelling. And of course Chanticleer and the Fox is looking great as it is now. I've just read through the talk page on the The Nun's Priest's Tale and again the logic for what's been done is great. Most of Knulclunk's Caldecott Medal winner articles have stayed as stubs.

Here's why I might consider creating a Chanticleer and the Fox (book) article, or somesuch:

Knulclunk has put a lot of work into creating all those pages, and what they do is celebrate children's books that have been publicly recognised as having some of the very best illustration. OK, so a lot of them are minimal, but they have the potential to grow. Take Where the Wild Things Are or The Invention of Hugo Cabret which are beginning to look quite respectable. Not infrequently these illustrators have devoted their working lives to their craft and some of their creations have reached and influenced thousands if not millions of children (as a primary school teacher, I'm particularly conscious of this). They don't have as much public status perhaps as adult works and so there might be less public domain documentation, but they are sufficiently notable to find a few megabytes on the wikipedia computers. I've worked on some of these a little, for instance A Story a Story, based on a frequently-told folktale about Anansi.

Do illustrations alone justify an article? Cooney's book is dependent on The Nun's Priest's Tale. But then again, Chaucer is dependent on the pre-existing fable. To my mind, if someone has reworked the story in a noteworthy way, linguistically or visually, then a separate article is possible or justified (not all books will of course be noteworthy; prizewinners do, I imagine, get into that category). This book article would then link with the fable article and the Chaucer article and to the author and Caldicott Medal articles. To me, this seems to add to the information available to the reader, and in an easily-navigable way.

As usual, Mzilikazi1939, I value your opinion on this, and also the opportunity to articulate what I think about it. All the best, --Annielogue (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

That's very convincingly argued. I take classes of KS2 kids two or three times a term, so I should be looking out for their interests too. So recreate Knulclunk's page and title it Chanticleer & the Fox (as has been done with "The Mouse & The Lion"). But since you have the book it would be a good idea if you could expand the article by looking at the way the story has been interpreted. The picture above looks mediaeval, but how can that alien period be mediated convincingly for city kids or, for that matter, those arriving from the Commonwealth at the time of its writing? There's lots to discuss.

I noted you'd dropped in on The Lion and the Mouse and slipped in that nice sculpture. You were having difficulty phrasing the introduction to yet another Caldecott winner, though. I've sandpapered it. This evening I've been purging the fable pages of a superfluity of Milo Winter illustrations and have discovered in the Louisa Gibbs Photostream the marvellous Aunt Louisa's Oft Told Tales. Given your interests, I imagine you'll like it too.

Thanks for being so patient and taking the trouble to explain your thinking. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 00:13, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, with the nihil obstat, I went ahead, as you see. Couldn't bring myself to use a & - a small thing I know, but with the other book it does actually seem to be part of the title.--Annielogue (talk) 22:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Just been seing how useful Laura Gibbs photostream is. For example, searching ranae et rex earum:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&w=38299630@N05&q=ranae+et+rex+earum&m=text

results in lots of great images!--Annielogue (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Science fiction

Hi, thanks for your suggestions and additions. & now for removing the work of science fiction from the Chanticleer and the Fox article. Think about placing it in your own article about the book and you'll see how inappropriate it was! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Mzilikazi1939, I put the link back not out of intransigence, but because I'd got the wikilink wrong and thought you'd deleted it because it was another thing altogether. But now, let it be gone, and all speed to your keyboard! --Annielogue (talk) 11:08, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Very mysterious, first it was there, then it was gone, then it was back...and now... Thx for explaining. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 17:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Perry 573

The story you suggested as a variant of The Farmer and the Viper belongs to another category altogether. It has a separate Perry number and appears as a version of Bidpai in La Fontaine's fables (X.2). It's confusing having all these snake stories. There's even a Mahabharata story with elements of "The goose that laid the golden eggs" in it. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this - you've sent me back to the story to look deeper...--Annielogue (talk) 19:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Still waters run deep

Hi, Annielogue, I'm wondering who was responsible for the later Perry numbers in the index. I can't find in your article the Abstemius fable #5 (De rustico amnem transituro) which was subsequently introduced into the Aesopic canon - see here for example. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I seem to have fallen into the number one wiki error of not giving my source for the article! Looking around, there seem now to be a lot of copies to confuse me, but I may have copied the list from

http://aesopus.pbworks.com/w/page/1472520/perry

and in the process copied (at least) one error. According to here:

http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/perry/723.htm

723 involves not rusting but a rustic!

You caught a bit of information decay in the act! I'll change the wording on the Perry Index article, and link.--Annielogue (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Gardens of Versailles

Yes, Annielogue, I believe that the best is not to mention the cost, which means absolutely nothing because of the fluctuation of the pounds/francs/dollars/peanuts throughout the years. And thank you for this [6]. What the article is about is the history of the gardens, their layout, the gardeners & artists who worked on them etc. Besides, who can give an exact amount on something that was built over three centuries ago? Of course, that's my opinion; others may disagree.

Cordialement,

--Frania W. (talk) 01:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Merci pour ça, Frania W.

I guess if we could put a price on all the works it would have a place, but in such a different society, how anyone would begin to do this I don't know! You were right to query the sum. I edited the article because of an interest in the labyrinth.--Annielogue (talk) 22:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The way I look at it, when one writes about a sonata of Mozart or a painting by Monet, the cost of the paper, ink, toile & paint are not mentioned... it is only the artist & his œuvre that count. Same argument for the labyrinthe.

Cordialement,

--Frania W. (talk) 03:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Ariadne's thread

Hi, Annielogue, I was sorry to revert your change without checking with you first but I had to leave home in a hurry and have only just got back. The link you left for "Ariadne's Thread" was to where you searched it for another fable. As you'll see, mine formerly wasn't much more helpful but I've corrected that now. But the other point was the note you left saying your change was because you thought the author had got things wrong. However, you do not present any evidence, so it really counts as POV. I could have left a citation needed tag, but I was almost certain you hadn't one! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning it. It's not a big deal - in a way you say in the second half of the paragraph something like what I was trying for. As for Google books, it can be a bit slippery: you think you've got a page, but the URL is still the one you were looking at before.

I like the axe story a lot, and am glad there's been a chance to think about it. For me, it's very much about the problem of "repetition". It's also a bit like a story in the Talmud:

The Emperor Adrian, passing through the streets of Tiberias, noticed a very old man planting a fig tree, and pausing, said to him:

"Wherefore plant that tree? If thou didst labour in thy youth, thou shouldst now have a store for thy old age, and surely of the fruit of this tree thou canst not hope to eat."

The old man answered:

"In my youth I worked, and I still work. With God's good pleasure I may e’en partake of the fruit of this tree I plant. I am in His hands."

"Tell me thy age," said the emperor.

"I have lived for a hundred years."

"A hundred years old, and still expect to eat from the fruit of this tree?"

"If such be God's pleasure," replied the old man; "if not, I will leave it for my son, as my father left the fruit of his labour for me."

"Well," said the emperor, "if thou dost live until the figs from this tree are ripe, I pray thee let me know of it."

The aged man lived to partake of that very fruit, and remembering the emperor's words, he resolved to visit him So, taking a small basket, he filled it with the choicest figs from the tree, and proceeded on his errand. Telling the palace guard his purpose, he was admitted to the sovereign's presence.

"Well," asked the emperor, "what is thy wish?" The old man replied:

"Lo, I am the old man to whom thou didst say, on the day thou sawest him planting a fig tree, 'If thou livest to eat of its fruit, I pray thee let me know;' and behold I have come and brought thee of the fruit, that thou mayest partake of it likewise."

The emperor was very much pleased, and emptying the man's basket of its figs, he ordered it to be filled with gold coins.

When the old man had departed, the courtiers said to the emperor:

"Why didst thou so honour this old Jew?"

"The Lord hath honoured him, and why not I?" replied the emperor.

Now next door to this old man there lived a woman, who, when she heard of her neighbour's good fortune, desired her husband to try his luck in the same quarter. She filled for him an immense basket with figs, and bidding him put it on his shoulder, said, "Now carry it to the emperor; he loves figs and will fill thy basket with golden coin."

When her husband approached the gates of the palace, he told his errand to the guards, saying, "I brought these figs to the emperor; empty my basket I pray, and fill it up again with gold."

When this was told to the emperor, he ordered the old man to stand in the hallway of the palace, and all who passed pelted him with his figs. He returned home wounded and crestfallen to his disappointed wife.

"Never mind, thou hast one consolation," said she; "had they been coconuts instead of figs thou mightest have suffered harder raps."

--Annielogue (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Squeezing stories in

Well, what you wanted is there simply because I found the online text for Hans Sachs and then quotations from other works in the Danish article that I mention. - In which you'll find a half dozen other sources mentioned that the encyclopaedia you cribbed from had missed. As a general rule to be added to the ones you created for Aesop articles, let me suggest that it is not enough simply to cite works without giving a source for them and discussing their relevance to the story's development. I've used that criterion to delete the bulk of unhelpful inclusions in "Popular Culture" sections and see mere mention of ancient items as on a par. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 00:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

You are right Mzilikazi1939. And I had said "not a mere list of small bit-part appearances". I am all the more grateful that you gave them proper lines to perform.--Annielogue (talk) 07:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Two of the 'small bit-part' works that I found in the Danish article were of English 14th C origin - Bozon and Bromyard. I did debate whether to mention them as earlier UK instances, but they were Latin/Anglo Norman sources. I just checked Grimm and Andersen and found that the story doesn't figure in their work. It begins to look like the accidental dropping of the donkey is a result of Victorian sentimentality and not an integral part of the original. Is it worth mentioning that in the story outline, do you think? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be a progression in the tellings. In some of the early ones the father sets up a demonstration of the nature of criticism. Later stories portray them almost as clowns acting on the whims of passers-by with a suitably ridiculous outcome.--Annielogue (talk) 09:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The symmetry breaks down with Hans Sachs, where the father is similarly proving a point and yet is prepared to carry the donkey on his back as part of this demonstration. I think the Danish article has something to say on the matter too but I can't summon up the energy to wade thru it again. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 21:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

No wonder - I see you've been expending energy creating a Gabriele Faerno article. Bravissimo!

(I was intrigued to read that they were said to be the source of the fables in The labyrinth of Versailles - I'd like to know more about that...)

I spent my time today much less productively, on a fruitless search for the Ibn Said donkey story - but if it's on the Web, Google doesn't look like it's going to sniff it out for me.--Annielogue (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I've only just realised you created the Versailles labyrinth article, Annielogue. Now that really was an impressive tour de force. But, as you'll notice, I've modified the Faerno article after sniffing out what more I could find on him in French and Italian (very little). While doing so, I realised that there was a 30 year gap between Perrault's work on the labyrinth and his translation of Faerno. I therefore decided that Chalmers or his informant was going on unfounded supposition and deleted the passage about the source for the sculptures. It was unsourced, in any case. I also checked to see if some of the rarer fables present in the maze were used by Faerno and found some weren't.

I've also modified the synopsis of "The miller, his son and the donkey" after finding yet more information on mediaeval sources. It turns out that the division of the fable into 5 elements did not originate with Bengt Holbek in his Dansker Studier article (although he is well known for turning this approach into a methodology) but with the 19th century editors of Nicole Bozon's work. That's a near contemporary of Count Lucanor and in French, but I couldn't be bothered to add it; in fact the story he tells isn't very different. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 15:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Storking off elsewhere

I just moved the illustration of the Versailles labyrinth hydraulic statues from The Fox and the Stork to Aesop's Fables, where I think it fits better. I notice that you're working on a major article to add to the list of fables and am looking forward to seeing its final state. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 06:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for posting notice of the move. I wondered about adding mention of the labyrinth to the Aesop's Fables page, but haven't got round to it. And yes, "major article"... The Fox and the Cat is a great fable, with a whole bag full of tricks. As for what its final state will be... I can't imagine! Will there be any of our work left?! --Annielogue (talk) 11:46, 8 March 2011 (UTC) Sorry, a waft of very-long-term must have swept over me there! In the short term though, I'm not going to have time to bring it to completion.--Annielogue (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I discovered the coloured version of the Fox & Stork sculptures on WikiCommons and have substituted it. I hope you agree that it makes a great difference. I don't know how you'd manage to squeeze mention of the maze into the Aesop's Fables article, especially since it's dedicated to the transmission of the stories. There's a link from the pic there to your article on the labyrinth, not to mention from some of the individual fables, and that ought to be enough.**

I intend leaving your latest fable article alone, having made the few changes I did when it first went up. I'll look forward to seeing what you make of it in the end. To tell you the truth, I want to create a few more short articles myself, although up to now I've been mostly occupied with housekeeping. Among other things, I created external links to the Laura Gibbs pictures for most fable articles, and have built on those and a few more finds to extend the art sections in some. I've now also worked over all the fable articles that were originally listed except for two - and for those I just can't raise enthusiasm. Some of those inclusions were so short and unpromising, I wonder what their original authors saw in the stories. You might, Annielogue, I know you approach them from a different angle. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

• I've now found a solution and added a new paragraph to the 'Aesop for Children' section incorporating a reference to the labyrinth and a link to the article. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 13:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Aesop for children

Can I prevail on you to remove the para on recent books? Here are some reasons:

• 1. It breaks your guidelines about bare mentions.
• 2. It's not exactly encyclopaedic, it reads more like a paragraph from a trade journal.
• 3. The piece about Aesop's social attitudes which you reference doesn't deserve to be noticed other than as opinionation. It certainly doesn't bear out the criticisms you imply.

I'd be interested in genuine evidence of what influence neo-liberal attitudes may be having on the reception of the fables, of their being censored/rewritten by fundamentalist champions of free (!) thought. That a whole pack of contemporaries are cashing in on Aesop is not of interest. Whether they're achieving anything new is what we want to know after 25 centuries. History is so telescoped in an encyclopaedia that concentration on what's happening now looks disproportionate and speculative. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for writing to me here and asking / explaining. As always I have great respect for your thoughts on this.

Let's take it out for now. I'll keep it here:

Despite the astringency and even harshness of many of the fables, the market for picture books for the young, either individual fables or collections, shows no sign of diminishing. There are contemporary author-illustrator collaborations between Margaret Clark and Charlotte Voake, Vivian French and Korky Paul and Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark. A number of illustrators also retell the fables themselves, among them Lisbeth Zwerger, Val Biro, whose easy to read editions have been published as single fables and in collected form, and Mitsumasa Anno, whose innovative book-within-a-book features an illiterate fox who tries to make sense of the fables, with varying degrees of success, by looking at the pictures alone.

My feeling is that a section on the fables for children can't ignore the contemporary. You know I value, favour even, the ancient mentions of the fables, but the present is an amazing age for the children's picture book, in numerical, financial and artistic terms, and some notable authors and illustrators have contributed to this. (Morpurgo for instance, former Children's Laureate, and perhaps one of the best-known British children's authors, his book is best-selling of amazon.co.uk's children's Aesops. People like him are not "cashing in", it is what they are good at; they ought to be making these books!

I tried to avoid it being brief mentions, by grouping the authors and illustrators together, while giving them all mention, to show that the tradition is very much alive and well.

I am impressed that these stories are so popular in books we choose to make, sell, buy and read for young children, despite the dog-eat-dog nature of quite a lot of them. I have no criticism of that. I'm pleased in fact. Perhaps I can find another source for that. I don't agree at all with Geraldine McCaughrean, but there is something in what she says. And the point is worth exploring further somewhere in the article.

As for the unencyclopaedic style, mea culpa, I'm still not very good at it. Perhaps I'll let it brew for a while, and see what I can make of it.

Keep up the good work, Mzilikazi1939! --Annielogue (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt action. Just to put things in context, I'm as severe a critic of myself. You may not have noticed that just lately I've been purging whole paras from the articles I've written. They're getting so long now, anyway, that they need focusing more stringently.

Returning to your exiled para, I agree with you that the points made by Geraldine McCaughrean deserve attention; it's her self-righteous neo-liberal tone I find distasteful. Surely there's something more considered and temperate out there. I have sympathy too with your point that children's books are getting better etc - although as a former regular visitor to the Frankfurt Bookfair for a period of 20 years, I've heard all that before. So has most of the stuff trumpeted back then lived up to the claims? I don't think so. & it's that I'm wary of; a contemporary enthusiasm needs to be tested by time, even if it's only a couple of decades. In any case, a mere list doesn't help anyone, even with links to WP articles - some of which are obviously written by the people about themselves. Korky Paul boasts of a UNICEF Christmas card he designed back in 2006. Now, I ask you, can such self-publicists without a sense of proportion be trusted to turn out work that will endure?

Finally, I don't think the point you want to make is best served by being restricted to rewrites of Aesop's fables; you've chosen the wrong forum/article to present it. There's a thesis there, but comparisons probably need to be made between originality and reinterpretation, developing beyond a tradition and breaking with it, and certainly an article on the transmission of fables is not the best place to do that. Then, to make one last point, you seem to be interested particularly in visual work where the Aesop article is primarily addressed to textual matters. Attention to the visual can only be admissable there in so far as it reflects and furthers the text.

You know I value your thinking and the alternative slant you bring to the subject we share. I've gained from dialogue with you in the past and am glad that it is continuing. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 21:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Happy First Day of Spring!

A Beautiful Cherry Tree in Spring Bloom

Theres nothing like seeing a field full of spring flowers.

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring 2011! Mifter (talk) 20:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are entering the season of Autumn not Spring then I wish you a happy First Day of Autumn 2011!
To spread this message to others, add {{subst:First Day Of Spring}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Sandboxes

When you create an article in your sandbox, it's typically better to move it out into mainspace rather than to copy-paste. Just a matter of preserving the history, you see? DS (talk) 15:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC) Thanks, DS, I see.--Annielogue (talk) 15:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Aesop

You beat me to the discussion page of this article by a couple of days. I've been gathering fresh material for the Fables article and am now in process or shifting what overlapped between them. I've also wielded the editorial blue pencil in the introduction since no-one else seemed inclined to. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

& thanks for locating the Epictetus reference for The Boy and the Filberts and an earlier English instance. I'd not come across that fable collection. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The Jacobs diagram

I thought you'd like an explanation for why I deleted the diagram you added to the Aesop's Fables article. To begin with, it's hopelessly out of date and many of Jacobs' conjectures have not been confirmed by later scholarship.

1. The date of Babrius is now thought to be earlier

2. No-one else seems to think that Nicostratus is significant

3. There is absolutely no evidence that a collection of the fables by Kybises ever existed. Jacobs claims this is where the 'Libyan fables' came from but that's a category mentioned much earlier by Aristotle. The conjecture that the author is a certain Kaśyap (that's the present Sri Lankan spelling of Kassapa) from a visiting embassy is pure speculation.

In the last few decades there has been much more solid work done on early testimony to the currency of the fables in Greek sources, which I'm slowly mining for relevant data. I've already placed a couple of finds in the articles on The North Wind and the Sun and The Dog and its Reflection. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 08:11, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

No problem, Mzilikazi1939. I thought when I added it that a lot of it looked speculative or incomplete. What made me add it was that such a "family tree" can communicate a lot of information clearly. If we could make a more up to date one...

--Annielogue (talk) 14:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Labyrinth

Hi Annielogue, I thought you might be interested in this link to a book on the emblem tradition and its connection (ultimately) with the Fontainbleau statues.

On another subject, take a look at The Gourd and the Palm-tree, which may well have Eastern analogues. There's a recent collection of stories for children that includes it and claims it as Persian. You're generally pretty good at tracking back such tales, so you might care to turn bloodhound in this case.

By the way, I too thought of modifying the diagram of author links (previous subject). What held me back was that a whole structure of links is lost by taking out the Kybyses + Nicephorus speculation and there's nothing with which to replace it. Another consideration was that there must be somewhere a diagram incorporating the century of research that has followed - so it's not so much a question of modifying the diagram as locating an update. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 10:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I see that the story is often refered to as a Persian fable. Indeedm Rumi makes the comparison, in describing people hasty for spiritual growth, in Book 6 Story 4 of the Masnavi

You run up like a gourd higher than all plants,

But where is your power of resistance or combat?

You have leant on trees or on walls,

And so mounted up like a gourd, O little dog rose;

Even though your prop may be a lofty cypress,

At last you are seen to be dry and hollow.

--Annielogue (talk) 20:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting! Might be proverbial, of course. Dig deeper, I'm sure there's treasure beneath the roots. Mzilikazi1939 (talk)

Iskander comforting the dying Dara, from the Khamsa of Nizami

I've had a look, but I think any further is beyond my powers. It may be that, as in Aesop's fable The Farmer's Bequest to his Sons (Perry 42) the roots are the treasure.--Annielogue (talk) 05:23, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

What a good job you're doing with the Gourd story! I've found an earlier, late 12th century, Persian reference to the gourd in a tree, this time in Nizami's Khamsa. This time it's a plane tree, "chinar":

"The gourd will not for long claim to be head to head with the chinar."

--Annielogue (talk) 20:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

An old literal translation, by Henry Wilberforce-Clarke, of this source, Nizami's Sikandar Nama (Book of Alexander):

http://persian.packhum.org/persian/main?url=pf%3Fauth%3D176%26work%3D002

(from the Contents page: CANTO XXVI. DARA'S EXPRESSING AN OPINION TO HIS COURTIERS ON SIKANDAR'S ACTION.)

“For much time (two or three months), the pumpkin-tree

“Makes claim to equality with the plane-tree.

“When (being of full age) it becomes sated with the small water-wheel of the vine,:“It comes down (to the earth),—the cord bound about its neck.

They plant the pumpkin (of short life) near to the plane-tree (of long life, a thousand years).

The pumpkin represents Sikandar's youth (twenty-four years of age); and the plane-tree Dárá's age (forty-eight years).

When the pumpkin, becoming sated of the water of the water-wheel, reaches the top of the plane-tree and finds no support for ascending further, it first hangs head downwards from the tree-top with the cord of its own stem about its neck; and secondly, when the cord of vegetable matter rots, it falls to the earth and becomes despicable.

Seems a bit jumbled, but we know what it's saying.

--Annielogue (talk) 21:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well done, Annielogue! I've made a few changes on WP of which the principal are 1) deleted 'several' (unjustified when there are only two instances); 2) deleted your short line from Nizami, since it's obviously only a précis of what is actually said in the Persian, and have left the literal version to tell its own story. Thanks for your detective work. I'm beginning to suspect, as so often happens with fables, that what you've actually discovered is a proverb or idiom that precedes a fable ultimately based upon it.

Another possibility is that there may have been an ancient debate poem such as those discussed by Wilfred Lambert that underlay all this, as they seem to have done in the case of The Trees and the Bramble.

I've now tracked down the 20th century reference to the story as Persian...or rather, just to confound things, the gourd and pine version. You're the expert on books for children. Do you know it, can you take a look and see if there's any evidence that it really is of Persian origin? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:55, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Amina Shah

Hi - My parents became friends with Amina Shah in Oxford in the 1940s when my father was a Rhodes Scholar. My parents have recently died. I wrote to Amina - twice, once after the death of each parent -- and have gotten no reply. My brother and I would like to know: Is Amina still living? Is she well?

Thank you--

65.185.107.228 (talk) 13:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Cynthia Rush (sister to David Rush) coffeyrush@woh.rr.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coffeyrush (talk • contribs)

Hi Cynthia,

Aside from having read some of her great books and listened to tapes of her storytelling, I don't know much about Amina Shah. I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question. Good luck with your search. --Annielogue (talk) 14:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The Deer without a Heart

Jakob Jordaens' Satyr and Peasant

Hi, Annielogue. Would you care to do some more detective work on Eastern sources? I've a shewd idea that The Deer without a Heart has Eastern equivalents - maybe even in the Jataka Tales. The idea that thinking gets done in the heart is distinctly Eastern.

Currently I'm working on "The Satyr and the Traveller", which is impeccably Aesopic. However, I first came across the story in Idries Shah's Tales of the Dervishes. That proves nothing, however, coming so late; Shah doesn't say what his sources are, either.

One other thing. I came across another fable article on WP which I think you originated. I've forgotten its title now, but it struck me that this was a story that has been ascribed to Aesop. It might be a good idea to move it to that section of the Aesop's Fables article. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Aha! - any good?

Glad you're working on the Satyr - I like that one.

As for the last; not sure which it is... --Annielogue (talk) 12:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Jacobs, ref. It's a start and I have a Panchatantra from which to quote. There's no date for the rabbinic ref, though. Any clues? ....I was wrong about the I. Shah ref; it's in one of his Nasruddin compilations, which is even more unreliable. Do you know of other evidence of its Eastern existence?
- & how many 'unaesopic' fables have you written about, then? OK, just checked...it was The Monkey and the Cat. My copy of La Fontaine gives a ref to a 1633 work on Phaedrus. I'll take a look at it and see if a connection can be made. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 17:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the date for Jacobs' Yalkut Shimoni reference either, mentioned here. And I'll have a check for the Satyr in the East...--Annielogue (talk) 16:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

So far as far east as Miletus, but more as science than a fable... Why is it that the breath comes out colder when you put your lips together??--Annielogue (talk) 17:15, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's really intriguing and the Garden of Delight ref. is lovely. It's a pity more of the book isn't there to read. As for Anaximenes, I once had to research the pre-Socratics in the course of writing an article on the Dutch poet Hans Faverey, who had a thing about them. Actually, I blow through closed lips when warming and cooling! I knew of the Jordaens painting (which is commented on in the WP article about him) and a couple of other versions by him, as well as a Benjamin Cuyp pic.

I may get round to the heart fable next week - unless you get there before me. You may have noticed that I took The Monkey and the Cat in hand and, as so often, was astounded by how much there was to find about it. It does raise the question of how many other fable articles there are on WP, Aesopic or Fontainean, that we have yet to discover. The Androcles article was yet another that I recently added to the list. Could I suggest that both of us, on our cyber-wanderings, add such material to the list either under Aesop's Fables or at the end of the La Fontaine article. They'd then serve as a reservoir into which to dip our buckets whenever we feel the urge to do a spot of research. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The foolish satyr

I'm within sight of finishing the article. It needs more work on assessing the art and that will include your Voltaire quote, for which I was grateful. All I had to back disquiet was a rather silly article arguing that the satyr's role is subverted by subtly portraying him as a fool. I'm puzzled by your quote; the Guttenberg equivalent doesn't have the Fable article. Any explanation? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 06:40, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The article on the Dictionnaire philosophique tells us there were two editions. I suspect that Gutenberg is the first as it has fewer articles. A Google book search finds volumes of the book with more, so I guess those are the 2nd edition...?

He can't be the only person to have noticed the gap between the structure of the fable and it's moral. If I get time I'll check that out.--Annielogue (talk) 07:35, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Lessing saw the trouble with the moral, which is also mentioned in other books, such as this one and this one. --Annielogue (talk) 13:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the research, Annielogue. Voltaire, Lessing (both notable cynics) and then the rather silly article I discovered as evidence of continuing disquiet will be more than enough. I'll try and get the article finished tomorrow. I really want to revise The Monkey and the Cat too in the light of your discoveries and mine (both the 15C authors are Burgundian, for instance, and that makes a big difference) but I may not get a chance for quite a while. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Abstemius

You'll have noticed that I've swapped the position of a couple of the fables from the misattributed list to the Aesopic. In the case of The Lion, the Bear and the Fox, I'm disgusted with myself for not realising the importance of Chambery and the solely Greek transmission outside Babrius. I know better now.

But while looking at Greek sources, I've come across a handy translation of the Greek Anthology (some of it, anyway). That led me to the epigram on the walnut tree, which gave me a way of reassigning "The woman, the ass and the walnut tree". It was then too that I realised why Abstemius so impressed contemporaries. His fables aren't as new as we think, many of them refer to already existing fables. He provides, for example, a sequel to The Lion and the Mouse. His woman, ass and walnut tree relates back to The Walnut Tree, while Jumping from the frying pan into the fire relates to a quasi-fable in the Greek Anthology and an earlier instance of the Greek idiom 'jumping from the fire into the flames' (not smoke, as in Plutarch). I must now work through other fables of Abstemius to see if they too bear out my conclusion that there is a correspondance between older (and particularly Greek) fables and his updates. L'Estrange obviously thought he was important. If I'm right about the correspondance, there must be a rethink about the inclusion of material by him in the Perry Index. At the moment there are only 5 or so of his first hundred fables.

The work to be done in this area seems never ending! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Sienna

The article for the color Sienna is incorrect with mis-labeled pictures for the raw and burnt varieties of the color. Several of us users have tried fixing it bit it always gets changed back within a short time. Can someone please view the discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sienna and then help correct the article again and possibly protect it from just being reverted right back again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Treedonkey (talk • contribs) 16:13, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Orangutan rescue and rehabilitation

Category:Orangutan rescue and rehabilitation, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks for letting me know. Have responded there.--Annielogue (talk) 15:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking for RfC input

If you are still interested in the Color project, would you mind looking at this RfC here? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 13:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Orangutan conservation article

I note that you have been involved in articles relating to orangutans. WP should have a Orangutan conservation article. Are you able and willing to write one? Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:17, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Alan - willing, yes; able, perhaps. But I haven't the time available at the moment. Good idea though.--Annielogue (talk) 20:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Princeton_University_old_rusty.jpg

Annielogue, I see they've removed the above file from the end of your article on The Fox and the Cat. Something like that happened to me in various cases and I argued for retention under 'fair use'. Now that doesn't apply in the USA and therefore to WikiCommons but, I was told by a helpful administrator, if you upload to the UK site such usage is allowed. So I located the Flickr site and was about to do that for you when I noticed that there's no text about that sculpture in the body of the article. To establish fair use you'd have to name the sculpture and comment on how its form bears out the theme of the fable. At present its relevance baffles me, as does the name of the jpeg. Can you shed some light, both here and in the article? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Mzilikazi1939, good to see that you're contributing lots to wp. As you can see, I've been much less active here recently.

When I put the photo on, I'd checked an interview to make sure it really was about the fable. As with this kind of abstract art it was allusively, non-literally linked. I put it in more to show the influence of the idea than to show a representation of it. But I can't see that article now, and as the picture is 'fair use' at best, I think we should manage without it. Best regards, --Annielogue (talk) 19:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah, you've come to life again. Good! Right, on this page I find this information under Legal 'Can I use this image for my creative project? Yes! This image is in the public domain and may be used for any purpose, commercial or not. We believe that you should give attribution to the photographer, but this is not required.'

The photo should never have been removed from the article, therefore. I'm therefore going to reinstate it. We can look for the Richard Serra article and add a quotation from it when we find it, but since there's a free use rationale already we don't have to go through the UK rigmarole I suggested. Incidentally, it's more complicated than I was led to believe and I've since had a tussle over inclusion of a sign from Lovelock, Nevada with an extremely pedantic editor - a semi-administrator who has allowed this small access of power to go to his head. I finally short-circuited him by getting permission from the photographer.

I was grateful for your support just now against the opinionated Dream Focus, who seems to have created waves all over WP and generated many calls for him to be banned. Now you've redressed the balance and I've whistled for the Thought Police to intervene. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

'Bother! said Eric, now well on the downward path.' When I came to look more closely at the photo, it gave its source as WikiCommons from which, of course, it has been subsequently deleted. So I had a look at more pics on Flickr and thought this one might do instead, although there's another in the set where the edges of the sculpture are made to relate to peaked buildings behind, which gives a nice spikey feel. I've now written to the photographer and asked for permission to use it once only for the article, uploaded to UK Wiki. We'll see what response I get. In the course of looking for a suitable pic, I did come across the article that you lost. It's in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, November 20, 2000 Vol. 90, No. 10 and reads 'The name of the sculpture refers to an essay by Isaiah Berlin, who quotes from the Greek poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one great thing." Serra explained, "It points to how scholars either become free thinkers and invent or become subjugated to the dictates of history. This is the classical problem posed to every student." Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 00:12, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The photographer has agreed to change the resistration for http://www.flickr.com/photos/oblong_dog/3188440307/in/photostream and I've asked for it for http://www.flickr.com/photos/oblong_dog/3188440075 as well so that you can choose. The first creates a relationship with the curve of the building behind, while the second does so with the roof angles and creates a pleasant prickly effect. Let me know which you prefer and I'll upload just as soon as Peter Briggs lets me know that he has made the change. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 10:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

It's good of you, Mzilikazi1939, to take time to chase up this rusty old sculpture! I think the first of the two Peter Briggs pictures shows it in a better light. Thanks, --Annielogue (talk) 17:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

My pleasure, especially as I see you are very ably engaged elsewhere. Reference and illustration are now added. Eventually I will write a short article on the sculpture, the message of which is adaptability to circumstances - which supports the fox against the hedgehog. That shift of emphasis will please you, I think! Let's record our joint gratitude here to Peter Briggs for his generous co-operation in making the article more comprehensive.Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 12:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed, to him and you! Great to have Serra's beautiful sculpture on the page again! And good luck with tackling Serra's sculpture in text - hard to interpret: so polyvalent, so abstract... --Annielogue (talk) 13:54, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately, the quotations and facts I needed were readily to hand, and Peter's brilliant photographic interpretations add a vital dimension to the article - The Hedgehog and the Fox (sculpture). I've added cross-references so even at the outset it's not an orphan. Let me know if you see the piece in a different light. I'm still having difficulty with copyright for the pictures; administrators seem to be going out of their way to be obstructive, greatly in contrast to helpfulness of the creators. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 15:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Excellent! What a great article! Hope the problems with the photos are over now too.

Different light...? You already seem to me to have given a very rounded account. What did I think in addition? ...I wondered about the two paths you can take through the sculpture: in my mind that linked with the two protagonists in the fable; as it were, a choice of paths, of ways of being. Then I wondered about other binaries the sculpture creates: either walking through it, as a contained, directed path, or walking around it, with many more trajectories possible. Only one person's thought - I wonder if any other commentator or critic has seen it like that.

I also wondered whether he saw a contrast between the engineering of heavy steel as it is usually practised which, I imagine, is strictly utilitarian, and his use of the engineering which in that world is unusual to create an object which will have no clear function to many, or perhaps many different functions for many different passers-by. A sort of The Ant and the Grasshopper contrast, as well as a Fox/Hedgehog contrast. But again, has anyone else said this?

The other thing that occurred to me was to link it with mention of his other steel sheet sculptures completed around the same time.

Another thing: geometry: here it says "Three parts, each comprising two identical conical/elliptical sections, inverted relative to each other overall."

Anyway, again, well done! --Annielogue (talk) 17:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

As you suggest, several of your speculations are undocumented - and could be disputed. I'm not sure you can use the alternative way through; it certainly looks less used and the infolding of the sheet there looks minatory (the hedgehog path barring entry?) Photos with people standing in the sculpture have had them on the right. In any case, the commentaries suggest balancing of views, not choosing one approach or another (although I speculate in the article that Serra indicates what his choice is). As for walking all round it, no source I've read suggests that as an alternative. Arguably it might be seen as reluctance to engage with it, dilletante theorising about an exterior. Peter told me that what enthused him to make it the subject of what amounts to a photo essay was walking through the piece.

I don't think either that Serra would approve a view that sees a division between utlitarian and art uses of steel. All the evidence points to that being an elitist (hedgehog) way of thinking. The person who makes more of this distinction is Frank Stella in his later work. At one point I got him mixed up with Serra and was wondering what someone born on the East Coast was doing working in Californian steel works!

Where you are onto a winner is the additional technical details in the black and white book you found on Google Books. I'd looked at that but couldn't read the caption, it was too blurred. Making a reference to it, and the aerial view, would certainly be useful. In addition, it definitely does need discussing in relation to his other work of that period. I found a claim that it belonged to a whole set, but I think it was on a blog. I'll work on that however, and I'm grateful for the suggestion. It will certainly round the article out and anchor it in facts. Many thanks for indicating that avenue.

The image issue is slowly working itself out. It took an immense amount of time. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 11:04, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I've now expanded the first para into two along the lines you indicated. It gives the article a much more comprehensive focus. Thanks, Annielogue. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 11:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Even better! Great work! --Annielogue (talk) 13:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

& thanks for creating a link from the Princeton Uni article. I hadn't thought of that. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 21:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation cabal

I'm sorry to drag you into this Annielogue. Request for mediation was refused until other approaches had been tried to resolve the conflict. Specifically I was advised to try the Mediation Cabal and made the request before the page containing the advice was deleted. There I named you as one of the parties to the dispute without consulting you first. I apologise for this and have no idea what further will be asked of us. It seemed important to get some sort of process going since Dream Focus is aware of the thin line has has been walking elsewhere and is anxious not to get himself banned for edit warring. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:40, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

No worries.

It is hard when there's hardly any scholarship that says much about the Eastern variants in this fable group, but as it is all ATU 51 I've added a reference to that in the article.--Annielogue (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong link above. Try clicking "There" again now. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Dabbhapuppha Jataka

Bharhut jackal and otters

Sorry to revert your pic, Annielogue. I located a slightly larger version and was in the midst of cropping it and making it look less grainy when I realised that the kneeling human figure in the foreground had no place there. That made me suspect the attribution. On doing a bit more research I discovered this restriction on publication and noticed that it was cited as "The Jackal and the Cats". There is such a jataka (but it's not the Dabbhapuppha) and it could well be, on looking more closely, that this is the story portrayed. I did find a modern picture which will warm your heart and will see if I can get permission to use it. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 10:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't a very good image. But this one is better, and from a 1916 book, and so out of copyright. It's on the page after page 268. As to whether it's our story, yes the figure in the foreground is puzzling. There are however the two otters with head and tail of the fish, and the jackal retreating with the middle. It looks fairly convincingly this fable. What do you think? In any case, I would hold off adding it for now as, puzzlingly, like you I'm accused of breaking the three revert rule, in either letter or spirit. --Annielogue (talk) 23:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That's much better. I knew there was a clearer version somewhere but couldn't locate it. The animals don't look like otters (or cats) but the other elements of the story are there. Go ahead and upload. I too am mystified by the warning issued to you. The administrator involved (whom we know from Lion's Share) cannot have looked very closely at your edits. Perhaps he mistook you for me, Tweedledee! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I also reverted your Mahabharata addition. It belong to the series of tales where a cat (or fox) disguises as a priest and eats those who come to confess. It begins to appear in Europe in the Middle Ages. Look for it in Aarne-Thompson. Then there's Aesop's fable of the cat disguised as a physician (Perry 7). Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Here are a couple more mentions of the predator-disguised-as-holy-man theme, also of Indian origin. In the Bilara Jataka it's a jackal preying on rats; a Panchatantra version involving a cat is mentioned in this interesting article. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I've uploaded the new version of the Bharhut sculpture to the article. WP doesn't like png files but wouldn't let me upload the jpeg conversion onto the same page, so I made a seperate file under a new name and cropped it a little too. I've heard nothing from the guy in the USA I asked for use of his illustration. If I ever do and he says go ahead, we can decide what to do with it then. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 01:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. --Annielogue (talk) 17:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011

Your recent editing history at Lion's share shows that you are in danger of breaking the three-revert rule, or that you may have already broken it. An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Breaking the three-revert rule often leads to a block.

If you wish to avoid being blocked, instead of reverting, please use the article's talk page to discuss the changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. You may still be blocked for edit warring even if you do not exceed the technical limit of the three-revert rule if your behavior indicates that you intend to continue to revert repeatedly. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little mystified about this Annyong. Could you show me what you think the offending edits were? Thanks, --Annielogue (talk) 13:39, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I've struck it out; it was a bit premature. It was more that I saw two reverts from Mzil in a two hour period and got nervous that there was going to be some edit warring, so I thought I'd be proactive and stop things before they grew. Sorry. :/ — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Wilfred Lambert 1926-2011

Since I've mentioned Wilfred Lambert in passing in messages to you, I thought I'd pass on the news that he just died. There's an obituary in the Birmingham Post but I don't think the academic journals have got round to him yet. I've found his work on 2nd millennium BCE debate poems particularly valuable. He was a younger friend of my father, so I've been aware of him much of my life although I saw little of him. Since his speciality was so remote from my interests in the past, it never occurred to me that I'd ever take an interest in it myself eventually. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 00:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Sounds like he was in demand well after his retirement. (I could have done with someone like Wilfred Lambert when I was doing a little on the isopsephy article, mentioned up above. I spent ages trying to sniff out the original source, but couldn't get back to it.)--Annielogue (talk) 17:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Analysis paralysis

Hi, Annielogue, I looked at the See Also articles in The Fox and the Cat and wondered about their relevance. The KISS principle article seemed of very doubtful application and I'm not sure you make a case in your article for what is essentially a design approach rather than a life skill. Personally, I deprecate any parallel between animate and inanimate applications.

As for Analysis paralysis, that article looks like original research and is scarcely encyclopaedic. Look, for instance, at the ham-fisted introduction of our fable with no reference or title. Do we want our approach to appear to sanction such amateurish speculation? By all means rewrite that article if you think it useful, but at the moment I'd be inclined to delete everything in the See Also section. If it was anyone but you involved, I'd have done so already! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 10:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

You're right. The articles aren't that good. Which is a shame, because the psychological dimension in fables often has it's counterpart in contemporary psychology, and if possible it would be good to make the link. But by all means excise. And thanks for speaking here. --Annielogue (talk) 22:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather you made the edit yourself, in view of the surveillance we seem to be under! I sympathise with your wish to underline psychological principles. Why don't you rewrite Analysis paralysis, as I suggested, particularly orienting it within the context of The Fox and the Cat and any other fables you can think of? That gives WP a greater unity and reciprocity as well. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:33, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Removed. I like the idea of rewriting it. I'll add it to my "to do if ever time allows" list. As for surveillance, don't let it cramp your style too much. Remember that you've been creating really informative, interesting and balanced articles in an under-represented and important area. --Annielogue (talk) 13:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Building castles in the sand

I see you're back, Annielogue, after being away from WP since just before Xmas. I decided I'd dedicate the holiday period to researching and creating fable articles. You might care to learn what led my choice...well, you might not either, but it certainly interests me why people choose to write about what they do, so forgive a bit of self-indulgence. First of all I read all through the section of the Greek Anthology that seemed to include references to fables. Quite a while ago I discovered The Walnut Tree that way, having never heard of it before, and became aware that there were others there too. Once that seam was mined, I remembered that there were some hinted at in the story of Ahiqar and, once I'd gone beyond the early Aramaic version to the marvellous final section in the Syriac, I ended up with quite a list. Some I've yet to write up but I've more or less run out of time for a while. That's all, really, apart from The Rose and the Amaranth, which I discovered while sifting through reference books and decided it was different enough from most other plant fables to be worth adding. They're favourites of mine, anyway. I'd no idea there were so many of them. Of course, the majority only existed in the Greek, which is why they never caught on and became bywords in the rest of Europe as, very obviously, The Woodcutter and the Trees had in Ahiqar's day. That, by the way, was recommended for immediate deletion within an hour of being posted...and then was reprieved by the same editor. There are some wierdly impulsive creatures on here, aren't there!

Incidentally, I wonder if there are articles dedicated to individual riddles. There are quite a few of those in the Ahiqar story (when he goes to Egypt and confounds a rebellious Pharaoh). And there are tales in Grimm and Laing's coloured Fairy Books that involve them. I see too that the ballad that Child titles Riddles Wisely Expounded already has an article. Once I'm nearing the end of Aesop's 600 or so fables, that might be the next project! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 00:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Mzilikazi1939; I'm honoured that you're updating me like this. And of course interested. What great seams of fables you are mining, and it seems like an excellent method of approach - to go to the ancient texts and work forwards!

I don't know how much wp I'll have time for this year, but I'll be keeping an eye on how the fables are going. Do please leave a few for me! And yes, there are hardly any riddle pages...

I'll take this opportunity to wish you a fine 2012, with plenty of wise expoundings, elaborations and elucidations, Mzilikazi1939.

--Annielogue (talk) 20:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Have a good year yourself, Annielogue, and I hope you're no so busy you won't have some time left to devote to WP. I doubt if we'll reach the end of available fables, but are there any you'd particularly like to reserve for yourself? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. For the most part, I'm happy to see good new articles created whether I'm involved or not. If I were to bagsy any for myself, what would they be...? (consults Perry Index) ... Perry 1. Eagle and Fox; Perry 7. Cat as Physician and the Hens; Perry 11. The Fisherman Pipes to the Fish... oh, too many to list! But I won't / can't do that. --Annielogue (talk) 22:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Gilbert Grey

Hi, Annielogue! You once discovered (for The Boy and the Filberts) a 1732 source in 'Grey's Complete Fabulist'. That early date always intrigued me and eventually I did some poking about of my own, only to discover this reference, which knocks Grey's date back 50 years. I suppose the fact that he was a Newcastle publisher gives the game away, since that town seems to be the capital of pirate editions of Dodsley's fables. Earlier there had been Thomas Saint's edition (illustrated by the Bewick brothers) of 1776, followed by Grey's in 1780 and then, in 1820, John Trotter Brockett's Select Fables, which doubles the piracy by using Dodsley's text (with at least one odd change - see The Gourd and the Palm-tree) and Bewick's old blocks. I discovered all this while researching The Elm and the Vine; there's a subverted derivative that made its way into Dodsley (the 1764 rather than 1761 edition, but I could be wrong) very near the date when a poetic fable closer to the elm and vine iconography was first published in The Gentleman's Magazine for 1763. One could be derivative of the other, or else there's a third version (not necessarily in English) on which both drew.

It's amazing where the fable trail takes you. Last year I expanded the article on Berck simply because the ballerina who danced in an adaptation of one of La Fontaine's fables was mistress to an artist who had a studio there! Oh, and by the way, the little bit of house-keeping above is in consequence of tidying up before I leave for a three-month stay in Taiwan. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

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Common Era dates

Hi, Annielogue, I just got back from Taiwan and am beginning to wish I hadn't. There's a barrack room lawyer called WP Editor 2011 who is claiming that 'our' guidelines stipulating CE dates for Aesop-related articles breaks WP guidelines. I've reverted his intervention at the Aesop's Fables site, since he hasn't checked that we had raised the question on the talk page there. However, he's started a discussion on the Aesop page so that's where I (and Dougweller) have taken up the cudgels. He accuses me of bullying those who revert CE dates; I've claimed that this is monocultural bullying. If you have a view on the matter (and time to express it), that's where it would be best to go. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mzilikazi1939, I see the discussion is in full swing. I'm sorry, I haven't really got the time at the moment to chip in. If I get time later, and you're still discussing it, I'll try and read through everything and add something. In the meantime, all the best! --Annielogue (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

BOSF

I notice that about 2 years ago you were doing editing in the borneo orang utang article - it is being re-arranged at the monent - if you are around - could you have a look? sats 09:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Back in the UK

Hi, Annielogue, I see you're editing again and choosing some very unfabular subjects. You might say the same when checking articles I've been working on. The greater part of the last 12 months has been spent art editing in Taiwan, but I'm back in the UK until November now. I'm still pecking away at fables too in my spare time, and still largely choosing them from rare sources - Lydate's Isopes Fabules and Andrea Alciato's Emblemata recently. I also wrote up The Frog and the Mouse purely so I could incorporate mention of (and so get rid of the crap article on) the Scorpion and the Mouse. I still think with gratitude of your patient coaching and the skills with which you provided me.Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 23:30, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

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The Farmer and his Sons

I note that you started an article on this fable in your sandbox back in 2011 and never took it further. I've got round to it meanwhile - and also the more interesting "The father's advice to his (litigious) sons", on which I'm still writing notes. I hope you'll forgive me for completing the article. Quite a while back we discussed which fables you'd like to preserve for yourself and I'm therefore guilty of trespass! Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 12:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

That's great! I think any claim I had on it is past its sell-by date, if I can mix a metaphor or two. But thanks for letting me know! --Annielogue (talk) 18:22, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of World Tessellation Day

The article World Tessellation Day has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This is not a particularly notable day, as there are no news sources available. Since it is already mentioned on the M.C. Escher page, it seems logical to delete this page.

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Bogus world tessellation day

HI! it looks like you have been editing for a while, so you should know that the World Tessellation Day does not really cut it in terms of notability. This is especially true since it was apparently only invented three weeks ago. Do you think it meets notability guidelines?HappyValleyEditor (talk) 08:10, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi! I take your point in terms of recency, but this seems more than counterbalanced by the global reach of the day. Self-created days rarely spread so far so quickly. For instance, there is an El Pais article on the day, which I should include reference to in the article. As for sources, I agree that Twitter is not a reliable source for events outside itself, but it is clearly a source that certain accounts (eg the Escher Museum) have made certain tweets, and also that hashtags exist and have been used extensively. The relevant part of the article was about how the event has spread through social media. You say, 'Very fishy-- the article is a bit like that Escher drawing of a hand drawing a hand' - but I am not any of the people mentioned in the article, just as I am not any of the other very different people in other articles I have created or worked on. I'll add more material to demonstrated that there were events associated with the day. --Annielogue (talk) 18:52, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok, that makes one news source and a bunch of unreliable sources... Which, I hope you will agree, does not make for siginificant independent distributed sources. You're welcome to improve the article, but I think it has to be deleted, at PROD or AfD, as events with two blog posts, some Twitter activity and one news article are not notable. If it had threeor more independent news sources, it would make it, but there is only one. Also my aplogies as I did not mean to imply that there was any conflict of interest. "The hand drawing the hand" comment was more about the fact the Wikipedia article on WTD makes WTD seem more important. The fishy part, I think, is that spomething invented a couple months ago on a lark has its own Wikipedia page. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. This should have been accepted as a PROD. Since it hasn't been, there's really no alternative to AfD now, given the absence of reliable sources. I'll start the process. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

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Howard Whiddett moved to draftspace

An article you recently created, Howard Whiddett, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more in-depth coverage about the subject itself, with citations from reliable, independent sources in order to show it meets WP:GNG. It should have at least three, to be safe. And please remember that interviews, as primary sources, do not count towards GNG.(?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:06, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Howard Whiddett

Hello, Annielogue. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Howard Whiddett, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 12:01, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

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Wikiproject

Hi, I see you've contributed a lot to The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal, would you be interested in a wikiproject on oral tradition? Kowal2701 (talk) 18:50, 25 July 2024 (UTC)