Many thanks for this one, Hmb. It's a strange thing, but when I was just a child there was a programme in TV that showed many small animation films from eastern Europe. I so clearly remember seeing one that told exactly this story, and failing to catch all the words that had been said and the justification for how she went dressed. In the film, she was covering only her breasts with some clothes, but she went naked from the waist below. I don't remember, I never did, why. But thank you thank you so much for telling me this is actually a folk tale.HuManBing wrote:
A Russian folktale also had an interesting case of a peasant woman making use of contractual ambiguities. She had to go to her lord's castle, neither walking nor riding, at neither day nor night, neither naked nor clothed. She threw one leg over a pony but kept the other on the ground, and went wearing a fisherman's net to the castle just before dawn.
There are sometimes things that brand you for a whole life, and this is one of them. Another one of the same series of films was one where a magician took a young boy as an apprentice. And they once went to a society party and the magician stopped time. He had some nuts which he had previously made appears as jewels (but the effect would last only about 15 min) and during the time stoppage, the magician and the pupil stole all the jewelry in exchange for the disguised nuts. Then they left.
I've always kept this memory, it's one of my oldest recollections. I didn't see the whole film because I arrived home (sad saturday mornings in the dentist, every 2 weeks
) and it was already on, but it marked me heavily, as you can see. Moreso than the previous one. And it indeed convinced me that 'time stop' effectively means infinite resources at your disposal... if you can stop it long enough, that is. Much of my imaginings and beliefs have been influenced by that scene.
