The present study aims to analyse one of the most complex Ancient sources that enable us to study not only history and geography, but – as will be explained – also the ethnology of the life in ancient Greece and Rome, not only in the second century A.D., but in the older periods as well. The great quantity of folklore data is compartmentalized according to the types of literary folklore forms. This system is introduced by the researcher, as the Antiquity did not use such categorizations. The source contains a great number of tales and legends, fewer small folklore forms and also many topics known from later fairy tales. The concluding part of the article focuses on the importance of Pausanias’ work for the culture of the Antiquity in general and to the parallels with similar works produced in the Czech milieu in the nineteenth century.
The article focuses on the analysis of collections of fairy tales and legends of the Czech revivalist Božena Němcová, especially those in the Czech language. The specific clusters of tales are being analyzed one by one, as for the frequency of textual emendations made by B. Němcová. The most modified were the magical tales, less modified the anecdotic and humoristic ones, only slight changes were applied to animal, legendary and cumulative tales. All the changes correspond to the „mythological school“ of her time, but unlike Erben Němcová did not sought for the mythological origins of the texts, but rather aimed at expanding them and adapting them in accord with the conviction of the Czech National Movement on the crucial importance of the popular culture