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And Then an Elephant Came Along : Commentary

2017; Purdue University Calumet; Volume: 11; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

1835-2340

Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar, Hart Cohen, Rachel Morley,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

In the Netherlands, after telling a bedside story to their children, parents will say, as a signal that storytime is now finished and the time for sleep has come: ‘And then an elephant with a long snout came along, and it blew out the story’ (it rhymes in Dutch). This is, admittedly, a rather Monty Python-esque way of putting an end to a narrative (generations of Dutch children will probably have gone to sleep wondering who this elephant was, where it came from – and why it went about blowing out stories like some absurdist jack-in-the-box), but at the end of this special issue, we, the editors, will be the elephant in the room. We certainly do not mean to lull anyone to sleep, but here are some final thoughts to ‘blow out’ the story of our special issue.