corpse bride -- I knew it sounded familiar

[Lessa of Pern]

Jewish legend

 

[mtblujeans]

Hmmmmm....I thought someone had posted that it was a Russian legend.....?

 

[issa]

its a 19th century russian / jewish ????


http://www.timburtoncollective.com/corpse.html

We have the original folktale for you to read here:



BACKGROUND;

The Corpse Bride is a story based on actual events that occurred in 19th century Russia, at a time when anti-semitism was widespread in eastern Europe. Very often bands of anti-semites would waylay a Jewish wedding party on their way to the wedding. And because the bride would be the one to bear future generations, she would be ripped out of the carriage and murdered.

She would then be buried in her wedding gown.

 

[mtblujeans]

And a little more from your link: "The Jewish folk obsession with the macabre --- encompassing tales such as the corpse bride -- comes from strikingly different cultural sensibilities than Burton's obsessions, said Rabbi Pinchas Giller, professor of Jewish thought at the University of Judaism.

"Over the centuries, the Jews were very helpless and very beset by outside forces," Giller said. "Bad luck could always come about, and it was a real act of Providence that bore a couple to the wedding canopy."

Schwartz, author of "Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism" (Oxford University Press, 2004), retells the corpse tale in his 1987 book, "Lilith's Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural" (Oxford University Press), in a story titled, "The Finger." His source was the 17th-century volume, "Shivhei ha-Ari," which collected earlier stories about the alleged feats of the real Rabbi Luria.

The stories are hagiographic legends -- tales about a master that show his great powers. In the corpse-bride narrative, Rabbi Luria confronts the cadaver, who accepts his authority. He is a member of the rabbinic court (the beit din) that eventually rules against the corpse, stating that she is not married because the dead have no claim upon the living, among other reasons.

The real Luria lived in the 16th century, but the origin of tales about nuptials with supernatural entities is far earlier. Schwartz traces them to biblical commentary that suggests Adam had an insubordinate first wife, Lilith, who became a seductive demon. Later variations on this storyline include "the forced or accidental marriage of a man to a demon; an attempt to be free of unwanted vows and a decision reached by a rabbinical court," Schwartz wrote in "Lilith's Cave."

The unearthly characters "perhaps represent the fear of marriage to gentiles and hybrid offspring," he said. Like the supernatural fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (also the subject of a new movie), the corpse bride of folk tradition also serves as a cautionary tale, warning about the consequences of bad behavior.

"It tells us, `Be careful, don't ever take an oath in vain. Don't take it lightly,'" said Peninnah Schram, a professional Jewish storyteller and associate professor of speech and drama at Stern College in New York.

In "The Finger," the wayward bridegroom gets lucky. After the rabbis rule against the validity of the corpse's marriage to the careless suitor, the would-be bride -- after emitting one last shriek -- collapses in a pile of bones and dies, this time for keeps."