Tales Without Boundaries: The Inner Asian version of the Magican and His Pupil tale

Abstract

The study aims to describe how similar certain folktales, regardless of their geographic distance, might be around the world. The story of The Magican and His Pupil exemplified this basic claim. This folktale is type 325 according to the standard classification system of folktales (Aarne–Thompson). The study analyzes and compares a famous Hungarian tale with an Inner Asian story of similar construction, as well as some other versions of the story from other parts of the world. Since the Inner Asian version in question is part of the
Bewitched Corpse collection of tales, the study includes a brief overview general introdution and history of its research, and then, based on the major themes in four stages, the parallel examination of the two tales follows: 1. How we meet the protagonist and his/her situation at the beginning of the story; 2. The precursor to the conflict: how the protagonist obtains the magical knowledge of transformation from his/her master; 3. The overall conflict: how the protagonist, using his/her magical knowledge, deceives the master; 4. Finally the magical escape and chase, and, in some cases, the atonement for sins. At the end of the study, the translation of the Inner Asian variant of the tale is provided.