Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories [antikvár]

HHEE GENERATIONS of readers, young W W and old, have learned to love the . laughter and the wisdom in the tales L of Uncle Remus. The pranks of his m^W Brer Rabbit have become a real part of American folklore, so much so that few of us are even aware of the original source from which they came. Ethnologists agree that the source is quite ancient, that it probably goes back to the legends of the African Negro, long long ago. Slaves brought the legends to this country, and retold them on the old plantations of the South. It was here in Georgia, in the days of the Civil War, that Joel Chandler Harris first heard them. He listened. With the painstaking care of a scholar, he recorded; he edited; he compiled. Then, with the genius of a true artist, he created his great Negro storyteller. Uncle Remus. It was from the tongue of Uncle Remus in his humble slave cabin that Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and all their friends and enemies really came to life. Whether the antics and follies of these creatures would ever have brought such popular enjoyment without Uncle Remus, is hard to say. In any case, Mr. Harris made them immortal, and in Uncle Remus himself he created a character so lovable, so filled with humor and understanding, that he will live as long as literature itself. It is because of the universal appeal of these legends, and their place in the artistic heritage of this country, that the Disney studio first became interested in presenting them on the screen. During the preparation of material for the motion picture Song of the South, a great quantity of the early Remus tales were studied and adapted by the Disney staff. Though we feel that all of them are entertaining and that all of them should be kept alive, we have chosen those we feel to be the most representative for inclusion in this book. We present them here in the hope that the boys and girls of today will chuckle with Brer Rabbit as their parents, their grandparents, and their great grandparents chuckled, long ago. To those few persons who are familiar with the dialect of the Georgia Negro at the time of the Civil War, it may seem an affront to change in any way the speech of Uncle Remus. Unquestionably, the dialect is a living part of the legends themselves. But after much consideration, we have been forced to conclude that this dialect is much too difficult for the majority of modern, young readers. For this reason, we have greatly simplified it, although with regret that we had to alter it at all. We do not expect that the stories in this book can take the place of the original Uncle Remus legends. Perhaps, however, they can help to introduce new readers to these legends. There, in the more archaic but picturesque language of the old Negro himself, one may enjoy more fully the rhythm and the poetic fantasy that have made these stories classic.