Tag Archive: Fairy Tales
By Donald Haase
When W. H. Auden claimed that Grimms’ fairy tales “rank next to the Bible in importance,” he may have been right—at least in 1944. Auden could not have anticipated, however, the criticism that Grimms’ tales were to undergo during the last half of the twentieth century, beginning already in 1947, when the brothers’ tales became controversial because of their implication in Nazi ideology.
Nor could Auden have anticipated how the classic tales would be challenged throughout the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Foremost among those asking tough questions were feminists, progressive pedagogues, and sociopolitical critics, whose resistance to the stories was fueled by revelations that the Grimms had reshaped tales to suit their own nineteenth-century middle-class values.
This reevaluation and the surge of fairy-tale studies over the last forty years have definitely altered the reception of Grimms’ tales. Writers, filmmakers, and creative artists in every medium have produced countless new fairy tales and adaptations. There has also been a flood of new editions, anthologies, and translations of authors and editors who had long been overshadowed by the Grimms.
When Jack Zipes published his 2004 translation of Sicilian folktales collected by Laura Gonzenbach, he wondered whether Gonzenbach was “more important perhaps than the Brothers Grimm.” I’m not sure about that, but just asking the question proves the fairy-tale canon is in flux. In 2010, an overwhelming number of tales compete for our attention—not only in bookstores, television, and movie theaters, but also on the Internet. Nowadays, even Disney has to try harder.
Donald Haase is Professor of German at Wayne State University. His previous books include Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches (2004), and The Reception of Grimms’ Fairy Tales: Responses, Reactions, Revisions (1993).
IMAGE: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Say it isn’t so! This is Wonders & Marvels’ last giveaway in our History of the Fairy Tale week. We hope you’ve enjoyed our bookish offerings and remind you, there is still time to enter many of the contests. Now, without further ado, we present to you:
In The Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley, descendents of the Brothers Grimm – Sabrina and Daphne — are detectives who investigate crimes that take place in the world of fairy tales.
Take Book Seven: Picking up after the dramatic cliffhanger that ended Book Six, the sisters are naturally quite relieved when their parents awake from their sleeping spell. But their happy reunion is short-lived, thanks to the appearance of Scarlet Hand and Prince Charming’s Everafter army. As the family works to help the prince’s ragtag group of rebels and protect their friends, Sabrina comes face-to-face with the family’s deadliest enemy: the mysterious Master.
Sound interesting? There’s even a fascinating book trailer you can watch to learn more.
Dear readers, we have five signed copies in the series that will be randomly selected for our giveaway. Enter this contest by commenting no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 24, 2009 in response to this question: Real or fictitious, who is your favorite detective? Good luck! (Sorry, at this time books can only be shipped within the U.S.)
by Catherine Delors
Charles Perrault was born in Paris in 1628 into a family of wealthy bourgeois. As befitted his status, he received a careful education, on occasion running afoul of his school’s rules. There must have been a stong element of whimsy in him, for he wrote a burlesque version of Virgil’s most serious Eneid. He then went on to law school and became of member of the Bar, but discovered in short order that the practice of law was not to his liking.
As a well-connected young man, he had other options. He became a clerk in the Ministry of Finances, rose through the ranks and soon reported directly to Louis XIV’s most famous and influential minister, Colbert. He became Comptroller General of the Royal Buildings, a position of great importance, given the Sun King’s passion for architecture. The colonnade of the Louvre was build under his supervision.
He waited until middle age to marry, a much younger woman of course. But poor Madame Perrault died in childbirth after bearing him five children in six years, not an unusual occurrence at the time. Another misfortune followed a few years later: Colbert died, and Perrault, as his protégé, was dismissed from all of his public functions.
A widower and unemployed, Perrault returned to his first love, writing. Not that he has ever neglected literary endeavors during his years as what we would call an upper civil servant. He had been one of the most vocal proponents of “modern” literature versus the classics, and had played a major role in establishing the procedings of the French Academy.
Now he could dedicate his full time to writing. During the 1690s he published various literary versions of traditional folk tales. Perrault was not a mere scrivener. He chose between concurrent versions of the same stories, embellished, polished, removed what he did not like. Perrault’s fairytales are very much his own stories. They are terse, brisk, subtly ironic, unsentimental and beautifully written. If you read French, I recommend the original 1697 text, far superior to the better known “modernized” versions.
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by Heidi Anne Heiner
1. The Tsarevna Frog
The Tsarevna Frog, often translated as The Frog Princess in the United States, is a well-known and beloved Russian fairy tale. This time the frog is a princess and must prove her domestic skills before she is disenchanted to live happily ever after with her prince, a youngest son.
2. Doralice
Doralice is an early Italian variant of the Donkeyskin tales, one of the most popular tale types in France but often ignored elsewhere thanks to its incest themes. Donkeyskin is also closely related to Cinderella tales. Doralice first appeared in print in Giovanni Francesco Straparola’s Facetious Nights around 1550.
3. Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree
Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree is a Celtic Snow White variant, closely related to the Lay of Eliduc by Marie de France. It is one of my favorite variants because the second wife is the true heroine, saving the day, while most variants only have a villain and a victim.
4. Petrosinella
Petrosinella is an early Italian Rapunzel variant from Giambattista Basile’s Il Pentamerone, first published around 1634-6. Petronsinella rescues herself in this tale, escaping with her prince through cunning and the help of magic objects.
5. The Peasant’s Clever Daughter
The Peasant’s Clever Daughter is from the Brothers Grimm although many variants exist around the world. It has gained popularity in the past few decades thanks to its intelligent and resourceful heroine. It also is one of the few tale variants to portray a somewhat balanced marriage. This one is highly recommended for bedtime reading with your favorite child while many of those listed above have more adult content.
Heidi Anne Heiner is the creator and keeper of SurLaLune Fairy Tales, a top internet resource on fairy tales. She wants to be a fairy godmother when she grows up.
IMAGE: Illustration for Parsley (Petrosinella) by Warwick Goble.
By Holly Tucker
The all-so-familiar Tales of Mother Goose have decidedly unfamiliar origins. The fairy tale as a genre dates back to sixteenth-century Italy and late seventeenth-century France. The author of Mother Goose, Charles Perrault, would like us to believe that the tales were collected from rustic old ladies and wetnurses. But really, nothing could be farther from the truth. The first fairy tales were written by adults, decidedly for adults.
Let me just say this: I certainly wouldn’t read some of these stories to my young daughter.
Basile’s early Italian tale, “Sun and Moon and Talia,” is one of the earliest versions of “Sleeping Beauty.” The problem is that Sleeping Beauty (Talia) gives birth to twins shortly after she wakes up. That’s right, the Prince does a lot more than kiss her while she’s sleeping.
And how about Perrault’s later French tale? After Sleeping Beauty is awakened and hops into bed with her Prince, she also gives birth to two children. The narrator tells us that Sleeping Beauty is beginning to show her age; her face is not is taut as it used to be.
But this is the very least of her troubles. It turns out that Prince Charming’s mother is a ogre, who would like nothing more than to eat her daughter-in-law and grandchildren while the Prince is away being Princely. To our relief and some horror, the mother-in-law meets her fate in a pit of snakes.
I have the Mother Goose tales on the highest shelves of my study–out of my daughter’s reach, for now. As much as I cringe at my daughter’s recent fascination with the Captain Underpants series, I do think that it’s the safer bet!
[Illustration: Gustave Dore, "Blue Beard." 19th century. By far, my favorite illustration for the early tales.]
by Sandra Beckett
“Little Red Riding Hood” is the world’s most popular fairy tale and a childhood favorite, but it was once a ribald, grisly tale, whose bawdy tone and course language is not the stuff of nursery tales.
In oral versions of the tale, such as “The Story of Grandmother,” a young girl, with no distinctive red cap or hood, generally meets a bzou” or werewolf en route to Granny’s. He poses a seemingly nonsensical question, asking the girl if she is taking the path of needles or the path of pins. It is now widely believed that the path of pins symbolizes a girl’s coming of age, while the path of needles implies sexual maturity, as threading the eye of a needle was a sexual symbol in the folklore of seamstresses. By choosing the path of needles, as the heroine does in some variants, the young girl appears to assume prematurely the sexuality of an older woman.
At the grandmother’s, the wolf offers the little girl the flesh and blood of the old lady, in a cannibalistic meal that becomes a rite of passage in this initiation tale. In many versions, an animal calls the girl a “slut” for her cannibalistic act. Whereas the wolf devours the grandmother raw, the girl generally eats her cooked. Sometimes the little girl drinks the blood as wine, but often it is added to the cut-up meat to create a grandmother fricassee.
The meal is followed by a lengthy, ritualistic striptease, in which the little girl removes her clothing one item at a time and throws them into the fire, before climbing into bed with the wolf. A more risqué climactic dialogue begins with the girl asking about the wolf’s hairy body, to which the wolf sometimes replies: “It’s from old age.” The confusion of granny with the wolf is explained by equating the postmenopausal woman with a hairy male.
Realizing her danger, the girl tricks the wolf by pretending she has to go outside to relieve herself, a scatological scene that has numerous variations. The wolf often ties a woolen thread to the girl’s foot, and when she doesn’t return, he asks her repeatedly if she is “making a load”. Unlike her helpless successors in the classic Perrault and Grimms’ tales, the heroine generally escapes by running away, seeking help, or courageously confronting the wolf.
This essay was originally posted at Wonders & Marvels in March 2009.
Thanks for joining us for The History of the Fairy Tale week here at Wonders & Marvels. To celebrate, we are featuring a new fairy tale-related giveaway each day from Monday through Friday.
First up is Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by author-illustrator Lucy Cousins. You may know Cousins’ lovable — albeit mousy — creation, Maisy. Think Yummy will be Maisy-esque? Wrong! From Publishers Weekly:
Anyone expecting the gentleness of the Maisy books in Cousins’ retellings of eight fairy tales is in for a whopper of a surprise — although the cheeky title does provide a tip-off. Who knew Cousins could depict a wolf decapitation (“Little Red Riding Hood”) or stewing (“The Three Little Pigs”) with such relish? Or that she’d find a creepiness factor in the Henny Penny story worthy of Flannery O’Connor?
Beware — these fairy tales are not for the faint of heart. Yummy retains all the emotion and humor of the original fairy tales: the heroes are courageous, the villians are horrible, and the children are…tasty. Yummy!
We are pleased to offer three copies of Yummy as a giveaway. To enter, just comment before midnight EST December 17, 2009 in response to this question: In your favorite fairy tale, would you rather be the hero or the villian? Sorry, but at this time we can only ship to U.S. addresses. Good luck!
All are invited to a weeklong celebration of the meaning and mystery of fairy tales.
Come hither into the marvelous, mysterious, complex and fascinating world of fairy tales for grown-ups at the Wonders and Marvels website all week beginning December 13. The History of the Fairy Tale week will feature guest blog posts, book giveaways, profiles of the earliest fairy tale writers, and much more.
“Fairy tales weren’t initially written for children. The earliest tales are full of sex, desire, and violence. Hardly the stuff of sweet dreams,” says cultural historian Holly Tucker, who curates Wonders and Marvels.
Among the guest posts from university professors and specialists of the fairy tale will be “5 Fairy Tales about Fairy Tales,” “5 of the Best Tales You’ve Never Read,” and “5 Reasons Why I Would Not Read These Fairy Tales to My Child.”
All week long, readers will be eligible to win copies of fairy tale collections such as The Complete Tales of Charles Perrault (Oxford University Press.)
Those who wrote the earliest fairy tales were many times as colorful as their tales. Readers will be treated to the profiles of such fairy tale authors as Giovanni Francesco Straparola, Giambattista Basile, Madame d’Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and Madame de Beaumont (author of “Beauty and the Beast.”)
Stayed tuned, as the fun begins December 13th. And if you haven’t signed up for the newsletter for updates, please do so here.
Graphic: The Frog Prince art ©Kris Waldherr 2001. All rights reserved.
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