ironbite4:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

scotsdragon:

dwarven-beard-spores:

soufre-de-paris:

soufre-de-paris:

GUYS THIS IS AMAZING

SERIOUSLY

6000 YEARS

STORIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN CIVILIZATIONS

STORIES THAT WERE TOLD BY PEOPLE SPEAKING LANGUAGES WE NO LONGER KNOW

STORIES TOLD BY PEOPLE LOST TO THE VOID OF TIME

STORIES

GUYS LOOK AT THIS

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS

GUYYYYYSSSS

“Here’s how it worked: Fairy tales are transmitted through language, and the shoots and branches of the Indo-European language tree are well-defined, so the scientists could trace a tale’s history back up the tree—and thus back in time. If both Slavic languages and Celtic languages had a version of Jack and the Beanstalk (and the analysis revealed they might), for example, chances are the story can be traced back to the “last common ancestor.” That would be the Proto-Western-Indo-Europeans from whom both lineages split at least 6800 years ago. The approach mirrors how an evolutionary biologist might conclude that two species came from a common ancestor if their genes both contain the same mutation not found in other modern animals.” 

@cydonianmystery

Ooooooooooooo

The Fae can only survive if they’re talked about.  And they cling to life jealously.  Tell their stories or a terrible fate will befall you all.

So, funny story.  I was a biology major (with emphases in cell bio, evolution, and ecology), and a literature/myth minor.

And SEVERAL of my lit professors were…shall we say, of a school.  They argued that the fact that stories from different parts of the world shared structure and arc, PROOVED Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious and that humans were driven to tell themselves these stories and that’s why they’d popped up everywhere,

And I, as a biologist trained in evolution, who had built trees like this in science class based on traits, would raise my hand and suggest:

OR…

Some fairy tales may be 6000 years old