Source
Vladimir Propp (1928), Морфология сказки [Morphology of the Folktale], LIT-828, read in NOTE-615 from the 1928 Russian text, chapters I–IX in full, with appendices II and III read in a second Russian text (the 1969 edition) on 2026-10-20.
The proposal
Abstract each wondertale from its characters and their attributes, and describe it by what the characters do, each act defined by what it leads to in the story. Propp proposes that the acts then form a short list, 31 functions after an initial situation; that they occur in one order; and that every tale of the class is a selection from that one sequence, which omits some functions, repeats or trebles others, realises each in one of a range of forms and assigns the functions to characters. The functions fall to seven roles: villain, donor, helper, princess and her father, dispatcher, hero and false hero. So the tales “differ in who performs the functions and how”. He ends by defining the wondertale as the tale built on this sequence.
The material is Afanasyev’s tales 50–151, analysed by Propp alone. The order is shown on 45 printed schemes: of fifty tabulated tales, he set aside No. 94 as of another kind and Nos. 123, 127, 139 and 159 because “the canonical sequence is also not strictly kept” (NOTE-615, note of 2026-10-20).
What this does not say
- That the proposal is true. That is THEORY-167’s question, which waits on a coding by other analysts with agreement measured.
- That it was tested for reliability. The book reports no second coder, and functions are assigned by consequence, which leaves the analyst latitude.
- That the order was checked here. The 45 schemes are on a fold-out insert that neither text the record holds reproduces, and they were chosen partly for keeping the order.
- That all folktales share the structure, or that the wondertale has a single source tale or a mythic origin. Propp offers the last two as hypotheses the book does not support.