In fairy tales the hero finds his bride and brings her home; the heroine walks to her husband and stays. A folklorist reads the pattern as an old marriage custom.
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Why does the stepmother torment the heroine? A folklorist's quick answer: she came from far away, and her own daughter had to marry too.
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Send Little Red Riding Hood from Bordeaux toward Russia and her basket changes at every border. A folklorist explains where a fairy tale keeps its nationality.
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Terence McKenna said mushrooms made early humans gentle. A mycologist says psilocybin only amplifies what you already believe, and that may be how religion began.
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