ABSTRACT
A comparative approach whether with literature, folklore, or a combination of both, prevents scholars from accidentally falling in lockstep with the expectations of their individual social group and opens them up to other readings. Folkloric indirection, via the portal of the Otherworld, leads readers away from the binaries that "other", sometimes without them knowing it initially. Whether otherworldly and immortal, or wise and ancestral, the categories of folk women in these works repossess images that societies have attached to women and restore some life-like ambiguity to them. The folkloric basis for legitimacy provides benefits of indirection that enable successful communication in a world full of competing values. Cross cultural comparisons reveal the underlying structures of rhetorical indirection, reveal new ways for future authors to succeed in ushering their visions into print, and reveal the interrelatedness of expressive forms, genres, cultures, and generations.
