Bengt af Klintberg "The Baby on the Track: A Newspaper Legend with Roots in the 19th Century."

Klipi teostus: UTTV 05.10.2023 772 vaatamist Folkloristika


Bengt af Klintberg peab eesti ja võrdleva rahvaluule õppetooli asutajale professor Walter Andersonile pühendatud loengu The Baby on the Track: A Newspaper Legend with Roots in the 19th Century.

In a novel by a Chinese author, Yu Hua, the birth of the main character takes place in a train toilet. He falls down on the track and survives. During the last thirty years news stories with this content have been reported several times. The event is mostly said to have taken place in China or India. From a folkloristic perspective the story can be defined as a newspaper legend. Like contemporary legends in oral tradition newspaper legends often are about accidents where babies are involved. As opposed to the orally transmitted legends they not seldom have a happy ending; they are published as a counterbalance to all real accidents that daily papers have to report. The oldest version of “The Baby on the Track” was published already in 1888 in a medical journal. The author, the famous physician William Osler, had a reputation for being a practical joker, and it is today difficult to judge if his story is based on a real case or invented by Osler. vt kodulehelt lisa:

https://kultuuriteadused.ut.ee/et/sisu/andersoni-loengud