Greek / Cyprus
Oi triplaroi tzai o drakos tēs mēlias. Kypriakon paramythin
(The triplet brothers and the apple tree dragon. Folk tales from Cyprus)
Polykarpu, Lampros
(Lampros, Polykarpou)
(text)
Tsangarēs, Champēs
(Tsangaris, Hambis)
(illus.)
Leukōsia (Nicosia): Champēs Tsangarēs (Hambis Tsangaris), 2015. – 87 p.
ISBN 978-9963-9586-4-1
Text Greek, English, Russian and French
Courage | Greed | Folk tale | Multilingual book
Reading age: 7+
White Ravens issue: 2016
This quadri-lingual illustrated volume presents a 300-year-old Cyprian folk tale as told by ninety-one-year-old Lampros Polykarpou. It is the story of a king who at the birth of his triplet sons plants an apple tree. On their seventeenth birthdays the tree bears three apples, which one by one are stolen by a dark figure. The clues lead to a dragon in the underworld, who has captured three girls whom he wants to seduce using the apples. After the brave youngest prince kills the dragon, frees the girls, is betrayed by his brothers and then is reconciled with them, a triple marriage ensues. The important artist and former university art lecturer Hambis Tsangaris lives and works in the Cyprian village of Plataniskia, where he directs a lithography museum. His much-praised work is strongly connected to Cyprian traditions, as are the lithographs in this book, which are characterized by bright colours and ornamental lines.