2001/3 Summaries


B. BOUCIQUE

De drakendoder en zijn trouwe dieren (AT 300) in de Vlaamse en internationale sprookjestraditie

Summary : The dragon killer and his faithful animals (AT 300) in The Flemish and international tradition of fairy tales.
This article is the summury of some research on the 16 Flemish variants of the fairy tale type ‘The dragonslayer” (AT 300). Conclusions about the sources, the motives, the structure, the dramatis personae, the cultural background, the style, the interpretations and an international comparison are given.
One variant (“17”) out of the Flemish index of De Meyer (1968) is exposed as an example of the fairy tale type AT 315 (“the unfaithful sister”). It is not a combination of AT 300 and 315 (a frequent combination in the international
material, according to Ranke (1955). Using Propp’s morphology of the Folktale a threefold structure was discovered.
In the basic version the hero saves the princess from the dragon (devil, giant) with te help of his animals and marries her when he comes back. In the second version an impostor is going to marry the princess during the hero’s absence, but he is exposed by the latter at the very last moment and gets punished. In the third version the hero instructs his animals to rob food from the feast dish preceding the (unrighteous) marriage in order to get summoned by the king and confront the deceiver. The “robbers’ den episode” (a preliminary adventure) was encountered only once in the Flemish material. The international comparison has shown that it is a much more frequent episode in other countries and as such a real part of AT 300. The motives of this episode should be added to this fairy tale type in the Flemish motive index of De Meyer and in the international one of Thompson (1964²). “The dragon-slayer” is one of the oldest and most variably fairy tale types known. Under Christian influence the dragon was replaced by the devil in  some variants.  Possible interpretations of the dragon, the dragon-slayer,…are wide and are well discussed in the literature consulted on this subject.

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J. VAN NEER

Adso’s Verhandeling over de Antichrist

Summary: Adso’s treatise on the Antichrist
In the 10th century the leamed monk Adso from Montier-en-Der sent on the origin and the time of apparition of the  Antichrist to the Frankish Queen Gerberga. This treatise consists of a prologue, the proper treatise and an ultrashort epiloque. In this letter Adso gathered and sorted out the many sources from East and West on the eschatological antagonist in general, and the Antichrist in particular. Oreover it is of the utmost importance that he succeeded in presenting all this information in a really surveyable way, i.e. in the popular way of a “vita”, a life of a saint, although in this case the main character was an anti-saint. This work of Adso’s, which rightly can be called a key text, would become in its turn the source of a comprehensive medieval Antichrist traditions, with as a result that many more or less radically changed editions of this treatise appeared. In this article the monk Adso  is focused upon, the time he lived in (trandition to the 1the millennuim), his relationship with the Frankish royal family, and on the Antichrist himself.
Besides, this article gives a concise commentary on the Treatise on the Antichrist and – for the first time – a complete translation into Dutch.

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