TRADITIONAL

TALE AND LEGENDARY

CHARACTERS
from
Turkey, Romania, Greece, Portugal

This is a common product of a Multilateral Comenius Project
called United Europe is in Our eYes, UE-YES (2012-2014)





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ZILE ISTIKLAL ZEN ILKOKULU

SCOALA GIMNAZIALA CARAULA

3RD HIGH SCHOOL OF PYRGOS ILIAS

AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS VERTICAIS CEGO DO MAIO
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Nasreddin Hodja was a Turkish satirical sufi who lived
in Akshehir (a city in Turkey) in the 13th century. He is a symbol
of Turkish humor, and his
stories have passed from one
generation to the next. He is
considered
a populist philosopher and
wise man, remembered for
his funny stories
and anecdotes. Today, Nasreddin stories are told in a wide
variety of regions, and have been translated into many
languages.. Some regions independently developed a character
similar to Nasreddin, and the stories have become part of a larger
whole.. He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty,
sometimes wise, but often, too, the butt of a joke. A Nasreddin
story usually has a subtle humor and a pedagogic nature.

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Kelolan is a fictional character in Turkish folklore.
Kelolan means bald guy. He is bald from birth, so he is
called Kelolan. He has big
dreams. He is virtuous, wise,
bald, romantic and very athletic.
He stands for a boy of Anatolia,
which has big dreams, but is
honest, helpful and romantic.
He has no father, and he lives
with his old mother in a small
cottage in the forest. There are many stories about Kelolan in
Turkish folklore. Kelolan is wise and funny, and he makes
children laugh. Kelolan is very poor, and he always wants to
be rich and noble, but his mother never wants to be rich. There
are also cartoons of Kelolan in Turkey.
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Karagz and
Hacivat are the most
important characters
of the traditional
Turkish shadow play.
Both characters are
parts of Turkey's cultural heritage. Karagz means black eye
in Turkish, and Hacivat means "Ivaz the pilgrim. The main
theme of the plays are the contrasting interaction between the
two main characters. It is
believed that Karagz and
Hacivat were actual people.
These two legendarily
clownish individuals were
construction workers on a
mosque in Bursa sometime. Their silly antics distracted the
other workers, slowing down the construction, and the ruler at
the time ordered their execution. They were so sorely missed
that they were immortalized as the silly puppets that
entertained the Ottoman Empire for centuries.

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The Stories of Dede Korkut, one of the oldest
surviving pieces of Turkish literature can be traced to
tenth-century origins. Now considered the national epic
of Turkey, it is the heritage of the ancient Oghuz Turks
and was composed as they migrated westward from their
homeland in Central Asia to the Middle East, eventually
to settle in Anatolia. The work originated as a series of
epics orally told and transferred over the generations
before being published in book form. The epic stories of
Dede Korkut carry morals and values significant to the
social lifestyle of the nomadic Turks and their pre-
Islamic beliefs. The stories are usually about heroes,
warriors and battles between likely the Oghuz, the
Pechenegs and Kipchaks.
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Pacala or The Fool
man is a Romanian folk hero,
famous for his native humor
and cleverness dissimulated
under a simplicity and
ingenuity mask. Pacala has a
genuine sense of justice that
he imposes in the most
impossible situations. He treats the authorities in his
village (the priest, the nobleman, the judge), with irony,
but often plays the fool. He is always making fun of
everything is wrong with the human behavior, like
stupidity, greed and other bad things that can be found in
humans.
Besides his native
intelligence, he is extremely
strewed in creating confusing
situations that his partners
cant avoid.

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Tandala or The Lazy man, is a comic character
from Romanian folklore. His name means to waste time
without doing anything good, or working slowly and with
laziness. He is a man who sleeps all day and likes to walk
without any sense.

These two Romanian characters symbolize the rural wisdom.






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DRACULA is a legendary
character, a Romanian prince
known for his cruel habit of
impaling his enemies, traitors
and thieves. He is described as a
blood thirsty cruel prince, they
associated him with words as
evil,demon.

The legends of Vlad the Impaler were
the source of inspiration for Bram
Stokers novel Dracula, thus creating
the modern myth of vampires.








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Hercules is a hero of
ancient Greek mythology, the son of
Zeus and Alcmene, famous for his
extraordinary strength, courage and
masculinity.
He was sentenced to serve the king
of Troizina, Eurustheus, for twelve
years by the oracle at Delphi, in
order to expiate a hideous crime: he
murdered his three children in a
moment of insanity that Hera caused
to him. She wanted to pay her
husband, Zeus, out for cheating on her. White he was serving
Eurustheus, he achieved twelve labors, which nobody else
could ever bring off.






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Odysseus (Ulysses) was a
legendary Greek king of Ithaca and a hero
of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.
Odysseus also plays a key role in
Homer's Iliad and other works in that
same Epic Cycle.
Husband of Penelope, father
of Telemachus, and son
of Lartes and Anticlea, Odysseus
is renowned for his brilliance,
guile, and versatility and is hence
known by the epithet Odysseus
the Cunning (mtis, or "cunning intelligence"). He is most
famous for the ten eventful
years he took to return
home after the decade-
long Trojan War and his
famous Trojan Horse ploy to
capture the city of Troy.



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Jos Rodrigues Maio - a hero, a lifeguard and a
fisherman. Cego do Maio is his nickname, Cego means blind,
and some say he was nicknamed because he jumped fearlessly
(blindly) into the sea to save others. His image, is the most
complete expression of the cult of a folk hero: poor, simple,
illiterate, worthy, selfless, conductor of men. The Cego do
Maio was a symbol of volunteerism and heroism ' perfect
Symbol of the people of the sea.










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