08-26-2020, 01:59 AM
Why This Charming Gay Fairytale Has Been Lost For 200 Years
Jamie Wareham -Â Contributor
It’s long been presumed by many folklorists that heroic LGBTQ characters didn’t exist”“because when they were told from generation to generation, being queer was a taboo.  But one newly released gay fairytale, that can be traced back to at least the 19th century has been discovered by Pete Jordi Wood, the Cornish writer and illustrator.
His research suggests that not only did gay fairytale “The Dog And The Sailor” exist but that a “whole chunk of LGBTQ folklore” was “deleted” by one homophobic man, as recently as the 1950s.
“We know that queer characters and stories were prevalent in mythology,” Pete tells me.  “There is some fascinating stuff about the origin of Mulan and how it’s actually a trans narrative. So why, particularly in European fairy tales, did queer characters suddenly, seemingly, disappear?”
The reason we don’t have much to point to is not that LGBTQ folklore didn’t exist, but because during a relatively short period of history”“one of the most important folklore academics put his own morals into play when editing the most internationally renowned folklore collections.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareha...d305af6163
Jamie Wareham -Â Contributor
It’s long been presumed by many folklorists that heroic LGBTQ characters didn’t exist”“because when they were told from generation to generation, being queer was a taboo.  But one newly released gay fairytale, that can be traced back to at least the 19th century has been discovered by Pete Jordi Wood, the Cornish writer and illustrator.
His research suggests that not only did gay fairytale “The Dog And The Sailor” exist but that a “whole chunk of LGBTQ folklore” was “deleted” by one homophobic man, as recently as the 1950s.
“We know that queer characters and stories were prevalent in mythology,” Pete tells me.  “There is some fascinating stuff about the origin of Mulan and how it’s actually a trans narrative. So why, particularly in European fairy tales, did queer characters suddenly, seemingly, disappear?”
The reason we don’t have much to point to is not that LGBTQ folklore didn’t exist, but because during a relatively short period of history”“one of the most important folklore academics put his own morals into play when editing the most internationally renowned folklore collections.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareha...d305af6163