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The purpose of this article is to clarify the place and role of the 'Wooden Horse' tale of the Armenian Shirak region in the tale-type ATU 575 ('The Prince's Wings'). The early Eastern versions of such fairy tales and their possible penetrations into the West are examined. Being a trade link between the East and the West since early times, Armenia supplemented its oral tradition with stories from the East and played an indirect role in the transmission of similar stories. The plot of the Shirak tale recorded in the twentieth century shows original developments and features that are absent in similar tales from other regions of Armenia, neighbouring countries, and other peoples. This study reveals the correlations of the Shirak version with similar international tales. The use of historical-comparative and borrowing methods made it possible to comprehensively present Shirak's 'Wooden Horse' tale in the context of ATU 575. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project 'Modern Fairies and Loathly Ladies' investigated what happened when a number of artists (musicians, writers, filmmakers) were asked to respond to and re-mediate a curated selection of traditional stories about fairies and loathly ladies. The artists came to the project with a spectrum of different views about fairies, ranging from belief in their existence to absolute scepticism about the supernatural. The works-in-progress they created were performed in a series of experimental shows at The Sage Gateshead theatre in 2019. The artists took up certain themes such as the otherworld, time slippage, fairies, and children, but were not attracted by others. Fairy material was reconfigured to reflect contemporary concerns about the natural world and to explore ways in which magical human–animal transformation spoke to women's experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]