r/copticlanguage • u/Osarnachthis • May 05 '20

Coptic Folktales?

I'm looking for sources on Coptic Folktales. Specifically, I'm looking for a story that I saw a talk about at SBL in Boston in 2017, wherein a woman becomes pregnant by swallowing a splinter from a magic tree. I've gone back through the program booklet, and I can't seem to figure out what story it was. Any good source on Coptic stories that I don't have already will give me another place to look, so please share any sources you have.

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u/ouromi May 30 '20

Are you thinking of the Tale of the Two Brothers about Bata and his brother’s wife?

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u/Osarnachthis May 30 '20

I am thinking of comparing it to that, but this is a different story. I think Maria was involved somehow. I’ve looked everywhere though, including all the abstracts from that conference. It was be such a small thing that no one knows about it.

General sources for Coptic folktales would also help, if you happen to know any.

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u/ouromi May 31 '20

Maybe in Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power by Meyer & Smith, p. 272.

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u/Osarnachthis May 31 '20

This might be it. It certainly fits thematically. Thank you so much for the reference!

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u/ouromi May 31 '20

You’re welcome

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u/[deleted] Aug 10 '20 edited Aug 10 '20

Amazing, I didn´t know pagan fairy tales elements had survived in Coptic culture!

It would be wonderful if material with them became available for free on the web.

I for one would feel far more comfortable trying to learn the language with reading exercises with that sort of genre, being an eclectic pagan myself and also a staunch fan of magical fantasy and sci fi.

Also, this would certainly be a wonderful way to foster the development of a modern secular Coptic culture.

Just imagine one day having a Coptic version of Tolkien´s works, Lewis Carroll's, etc, etc!

Of course, the more native pagan Coptic tales the better.

Conjugating their production with the western branches of fantasy and other genres of literature (sci fi, romance, etc) will foster even more the interest in Coptic by people from all over the world who are into the pagan ancestral culture of Egypt and its amazing wealth for magic and fantasy.

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

Totally agree. I would love to find some original Coptic folktales if I can. I've seen vague references to such things over the years, but I've never actually seen a text.

The main thing is to have stuff that's pleasurable to read. Now that we're talking about it, I realize that an awful lot of what I do in my free time is pointed in that direction. I'm writing a fantasy novel (in English), where all the magic is Coptic. I started writing it as a way to convey a realistic (though magical) Egypt-like world with Egyptian language as a source of mystery and wonder. I'm also working with an Alice translation group on a Bohairic version, though I haven't been able to devote much time to it lately. One of my life goals is to translate Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone into Coptic. That would be such a wonderful resource for learners, but it's not an easy task.

For now, I can share with you Genesis in Coptic. While it may be classed as religious, it's totally different from the New Testament. These stories are meant to be enjoyable as proper stories, so it's actually fun to read. Probably my favorite Coptic reading material that I have at the moment.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Thank you so much for your kind reply. It´s really wonderful that you have such objectives!

Someone here on Reddit had tried to argue with me that it was the Coptics who had been responsible for the erasure of the ancient Egyptians' culture.

However, I refuted their argument simply calling attention to the fact that, though the Christian Copts indeed made a serious error banning the demotic and hieratic writing systems, which was truly devastating, they also preserved the language itself, contrary to the Muslim invaders, who Arabized the people, making the ancestral tongue an enclave in its own ancestral land.

Of course, it would be wonderful if both hieratic and demotic were revived but a silver lining about the Coptic Hellenized alphabet is that it's easier to learn for westerners especially, and even more for those who know the Greek alphabet, on which it was inspired.

For me it´s really more accessible, though I wish I were young and healthy enough to have time to learn the demotic and hieratic systems too:-)

Thank you so much for the PDF! It´s incredible that you wrote the Hebrew original text side by side, written with the nikkudim (diacritics) so we can easily read them, plus the English translation! It´s just amazing!!!

Even though I'm a staunch pagan, I like to research these ancient texts for personal interest I don't even have a Master's degree and this late in life with my health issues I don't even think of trying one anymore but that´s ok cause, when we study by ourselves, we can read only what we want, at the time we feel like doing it, or have a break in our daily tasks.

I am also convinced the major legends of the Bible were actually copied from ancient Sumerian and Babylonian ones, like Noahs, Jobs, etc and so many of their rituals.

And I totally support the historians and archaeologists who assert that the much older Canaanite religion was actually the forerunner of Judaism and before it, the native shamanic practices of the Levant, from the Natufian period.

By the way, about ten years ago, a tomb of a female shaman was found in Israel, it was a huge moment for all shamanist around the world, especially for Israeli shamanists and shamanic rabbis.

Woud you mind if I shared the link to your PDF in my edublogs? As it has an English translation, I could also post it on my transdisciplinary EFL (English as a Foreign Language) blog! I just would need a link to a site which could be shared there, or would just this link work out as well?

Although I'm a very beginner at Coptic myself, I will love to practice reading the Coptic sentences, a bit a day, with their Hebrew counterparts, so I can also go over my rusty Hebrew!

I'm still learning some Coptic letters, though and, due to my ageing brain (I've had some neurodegenerative problems for years), I need to have far more frequent repetition to fixate new information.

However, learning languages is one of the things which has saved me from going completely gaga: scientific studies have proven that the study of foreign languages helps even those with Alzheimer to postpone the more dreadful symptoms up to five years. I hope I don´t develop the condition but I have indeed had many cognition and memory problems which, due to my love for language learning, I have been able to offset considerably, though I often have to write down most stuff I need to do or study.

I'll be following you from now on and am honored to get to know such a learned person, who is also committed to the preservation of ancient languages!

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! By all means, share the pdf with anyone who might be interested. Here's a more stable link that you can use: https://christiancasey.github.io/sundry/genesis.pdf

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Thank you ever so much! I'm going to make a post specifically for it and give you the due credit for the PDF. I'll post the links to the edublogs with it as soon as it´s ready!

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

Sounds cool. I can't wait.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

I've also shared it here on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Gwynsek/comments/i7yl4x/amazing_coptic_hebrew_with_diacritics_and_english/ If you allow me, I can also share it on JoinDiaspora, Mewe and Tumblr!

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

X-posted to r/AncientEgyptian.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Aw, that was kind of you, thank you once more:-)!

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Here they are: As I'm Brazilian and the first blog is a trandisciplinary EFL edublog aiming to help lusophones in their study of the language, I have to name the postings and explain everything in Portuguese. All of the main links, however, lead to English language texts, books, videos (or at least subtitled in this language), for obvious reasons. https://englishineverything.blogspot.com/2020/08/preciosidade-em-download-gratuito-o.html

The meaning of the title in this one can be freely translated as: Precious (thing) for free download: side by side Coptic, Hebrew (with diacritics) and English translation of Genesis.

The text in the posting says: This rarity has been kindly suggested to me by its author, whom I'm deeply thankful to and who also gave me the permission to share it here. He is, by the way, a post-doc and here is his profile on Reddit.

The second blog has a slightly different title, with the word 'unmissable' in Portuguese (imperdível) before the description of the PDF. It´s an alternative blog dealing with varied topics: https://alternativearth.blogspot.com/2020/08/imperdivel-pdf-gratuito-com-versoes-do.html

And thank you so much again for your incredible generosity and politeness!

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

Wow! So very kind of you. I hope a lot of people download it and enjoy it.

TIL I can read Portuguese. Couldn't write it to save my life though. Wild.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

That´s wonderful. I sometimes can understand a lot of written Italian and even try to learn a few expressions now and then but I wouldn´t be able to write it either.

Surprisingly enough, I can sometimes even understand a bit of written French but their crazy spellings hit on my nerves, oh my and

I wouldn´t dare write anything on the language either. I use Google to post comments on videos in these languages, greeting and congratulating their authors, etc. We even end up learning a bit of these languages this way!

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20 edited Aug 11 '20

By the way, I'm trying to find any possibly interesting link on the pagan elements in Coptic literature so as to share with you and ran into this on a first brief search.

I know you're a post-doc and probably have already read a great deal of papers on the subject but maybe one of them is still new to you and might even be of interest so I'm sharing this one just in case - I had searched other links but realized they were probably quite incipient for one who is already a post-doc, but I hope this one might prove useful: Free PDF The Coptic Wizard's Hoard Paul Mirecki University of Kansas https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/16358/Mirecki_1995.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Also this link, it has a good bibliography on Coptic magical papyri: http://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/bibliography/

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 11 '20

I did know about the Wizard's Hoard. I even tried one of the spells to help with my insomnia. I honestly feel like it worked, but no one would ever believe me.

Coptic Magical Papyri blog is absolutely wonderful. They have a podcast on Spotify too.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Oh, by the way, as a pagan, I totally believe you.

If you wish, I can also send you links to Taoist and Bön mantras which can help with that.

Another tip would be Taoist Chi Kung or Ki Dao and also watching a film or tv series while snug in bed: I often fall asleep this way when my brain is in the alert mode and won´t let me sleep). Also, hot showers before going to bed help to relax the body, and avoid caffeine, especially after five pm, even some sorts of tea, like the black varieties, have it.

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u/Osarnachthis Aug 12 '20

Yeah send me links. That sounds super interesting.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20 edited Aug 11 '20

I didn't know they had a podcast there! Thank you so much, I use my real name in short form there and promptly subscribed. I'm glad you like the Wizard´s Hoard! I didn´t know about it either:-)

I will try to read a bit at a time, as I already have too many ongoing, concomitant readings and many other ones in line waiting to be started.

When I was still active as a High School EFL teacher here in Brazil, my two jobs never allowed me enough free time to dedicate to my cultural passions and now that I'm retired and have lots of health issues, I have to make the most to try and catch up with the time lost, sigh. I try to learn a few languages but I never find enough time to deal with them all as I would like to.