[Sca-cooks] A/S Competitions was Cooking Competitions

[Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps]

Stefan wrote:

Huh? "elaborate frame tale"? What is that? A story about a picture
frame? A tail in a frame?

My response:

The frame tale is an ancient form of story telling.  A bit like literary 
"Russian Dolls" with one tale within another and another...  The best I 
could do was about five layers in if memory serves me correctly.  An outer 
layer frame set in the 16th century, an inner layer frame set at the time of 
Richard's Crusade and then nights within that that framed their various 
tales which occasionally framed takes within them.  "Canterbury Tales", "The 
Decameron " and "1001 Nights" are the best known examples to modern Engish 
speaking audiences albeit all in "translation".   "The Heptameron" is less 
well know to such but is considered a classic of Frence literature.  Tis 
well worth the effort to find in translation if you don't read French.  "The 
Pentameron" in Italian is less known than the "The Decameron" and to my mind 
deserves to be.  Burton did a translation of it.  There are other examples 
just can't think of them this early in the morning.

Daniel