from Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales, Dr. Ignacz Kunos, 1913, illustrated by Willy Pogany
And so it was that Simplia clasped her head in her hands and directed her feet to the medicine cabinet, and Sagacia sat down at the laptop and typed “Fairy Tales” into two search engines. She’d been hearing that late-night “Bing it on!” commercial, and today seemed as good a time as any to run her own comparison study.
Both Bing and Google brought up Wikipedia first, that intrepid web-based collaborative multilingual recorder and purveyor of all information known and unknown without regard to currency or reliability among those acknowledged as experts in the field of–well, whatever. In other words, the place everybody goes first. The information marketplace. Well, if she’d wanted that, she could have just typed it into the address box herself!
Next, Google listed one annoying children’s site then SurLaLune Fairy Tales, and Bing listed three children’s sites and an e-text of Grimm before naming the treasure trove that is SurLaLune.
“Hmmm…,” she thought. “This does not bode well for our microsoft-headed friends at Bing.”
She clicked onto SurLaLune and typed “letter” into Heidi Ann Heimer’s own search engine, skimmed a few entries, and picked out “The Fish in the Ring” from the Joseph Jacobs’ collection, “Rich Peter the Pedlar” from Asbjornsen and Moe, and “Vasily the Unlucky” from Post Wheeler’s Russian Fairy Tales, each of which narrated a case of letter interception and forgery. In addition, she called up a Slavonic tale, “The Spirit of a Buried Man,” which had a letter intercepted but no forged letter replacing it. When Simplia came back into the room, Sagacia related her task and her findings.
“Try ‘Ashliman,’” Simplia whimpered, lying back on the Chesterfield and gently placing a cool, wet washcloth on her forehead. Murzik hopped up and nestled into her side.
Sagacia typed the name into the two search boxes. Bing brought up the University of Pittsburgh’s fine “Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts” site first, and Google reported first the modest home page of the revered folklorist himself, now retired and living in Utah, then, second, the grand resource site. She smiled as she clicked to the clean, familiar homepage, but discovered it had no index listing for “letter” under the L’s or “Intercepted Letter” under the I’s. The motif would not be so easy to find here!
Boldly, Sagacia typed “fairy tales intercepted letter” straight into the Google and Bing search boxes.
“Look at this!” she shouted, leaping from her chair. “Bing lists Fairy Tale Lobby first, and second! Two pages!”
“Great!” said Simplia, sitting up, her hurting brain forgotten–or miraculously healed. Murzik blinked and directed a cat sneer toward the Simpleton who’d disturbed his sleep.
Sagacia clicked away. “And Google lists it first, too, but just one page. Then it goes on to other things.”
“Well, then; clearly, Bing is the better search engine,” Simplia asserted.
“Indeed,” Sagacia nodded.
“But you know what I just thought of?” Simplia asked.
“What?”
“Well, we’ve been intercepting Vasilisa’s letters for over a year, now,” Simpia reflected. “And the USPS doesn’t seem to care.”
“Hmm…,” Sagacia pondered. “If by USPS, you mean delivery service by birds, frogs, chimneys, hens’ nests, arrows, the Sunday coupon insert, the internet,…”
“Okay! I get it!” Simplia interrupted, cutting her off.
“And, besides,” Sagacia continued, “She asked us to intercept them. We are simply helping a friend. And we’re not deceiving anyone, either.”
“True,” Simplia agreed. “We’re not fooling a soul!”
“Dilettante in Delhi wanted to know about interception and deception, not friendship and helping out,” Sagacia concluded.
“Yep. And I guess it’s time to help her out by letting her know what we’ve collected,” Simplia said, standing up. “Don’t we have a Flat Rate Box around here somewhere? I think it should all fit into the $5.35 size.”
“In the hall closet,” said Sagacia. “Just let me find a few more titles for her. SurLaLune has ten more pages of results here!”
Sagacia clicked on the keyboard. Simplia clambered in the closet. Murzik yawned and rolled over. Sleeping on one’s right side can be a refreshing change from sleeping on one’s left side, he noted.
Linking today to Granny Sue’s Storytellers’ Blog Hop.
Fairy Tale Lobby 
Dear Jackie Baldwin’s story-lovers is indeed marvelous, and Ashliman’s site is essential I agree. It’s amazing what you sometimes get on Google when you just write your query in straightforward language.
One other amazing resource I’ve found that many folks are not aware of is Google Books. I use Gmail so I can access it direct from there. The terms you searched for will be highlighted in yellow on every page in all the books that come up from your search terms. What’s great is that for many old fairy and folktale collections, it will always show the table of contents and often show you the entire text of the story as it appears on the page, which you can print out for yourself. (The catch – it almost always omits some pages of the book so no one can rip off the entire thing.)
I’d love to hear how others are using this resource and exchange notes. Thanks S & S as always for this rich discussion.
Liz, I’m so glad to know about this! I guess I thought GoogleBooks was another attempt at Amazoning everything. Instead, it sounds like it has the potential to be a great resource for finding motifs in books or stories you haven’t read before and also for re-finding favorite quotes or passages in old favorites. Thanks!
i am learning a lot…. that’s all i can say….. thank you Simplia and Sagacia :)
Erica, you made my day! Thanks!
I use Google for general searches, but http://www.Story-Lovers.com is my first choice for story searches. I am amazed by how much information we can get so quickly!
Why is this usually the third or fourth place I think to look? You’re absolutely right. It’s a gold mine. Thanks for the noodge, although I really think a swift kick in the pants might have more impact upon my memory.
Yrs, Simplia
In teaching we used to chortle about the wonderful things we “used to do” but somehow forgot about and discovered all over again.
Oh, Mary! How could I have skipped this one? Maybe because it’s such a natural reflex to go there! You get the story plus insightful commentary from real storytellers. Thanks for including the direct link to Jackie Baldwin’s amazing, ever-growing site! The stories and themes can be found under “SOS,” Searching Out Stories.
Hugs to you ;-)
Bing just brings to my mind Bing Crosby which, to be honest, don’t do much for me. And Google, I believe, comes from Googleplex which is used to describe 10^10^100. And although I have no idea WHAT that means, it sounds more impressive that White Christmas!
Bartholomew (from the desk of SMB).
Bartholomew —
So good to hear from you again. I agree — I prefer a search engine that means something I don’t even understand to trusting my information gathering to an engine named after … a crooner? Please.
Trusting all is well, I remain
your devoted servant —
Simplia