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ELE 616 Research in Children’s LiteratureELE 616 Research in Children’s LiteratureFall 2008Fall 2008

Here There Be Dragons!Here There Be Dragons!Folklore and FairytalesFolklore and Fairytales

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What is Folklore? Folklore is the traditional art, literature, knowledge,

and practice that is disseminated largely through oral communication and behavioral example. Every group with a sense of its own identity shares, as a central part of that identity, folk traditions–the things that people traditionally believe (planting practices, family traditions, and other elements of worldview), do (dance, make music, sew clothing), know (how to build an irrigation dam, how to nurse an ailment, how to prepare barbecue), make (architecture, art, craft), and say (personal experience stories, riddles, song lyrics).

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What about Folktales?What about Folktales?

What are folktales? In short, a folktale is a popular story passed on in

spoken form from one generation to the next. We usually do not know its author and there are many versions of it. The same story may also appear in different cultures.

Folktales comprise fables, fairy tales and even ‘urban legends’. It is difficult to categorize them precisely because they often fit many categories. This variety means that they can be used in all kinds of contexts and at all levels of language competence, in groups of different ages. British Studies Web Pages: Myths, Legends, Fantasy...

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And Fairy Tales?And Fairy Tales?

But what But what areare fairy tales? fairy tales? Our term in English comes directly from the French, the

“contes de fées” that became popular in France at the end of the seventeenth century.

But many, even most, of the stories we call fairy tales do not have any fairies in them. (Think of “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Snow White,” for example. Wolves that speak, magic mirrors, yes. But no fairies.)

When we speak of fairy tales, we seem to mean several things at once: tales that include elements of folk tradition and magical or supernatural elements, tales that have a certain, predictable structure. Twice upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale

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Let me state this plainly: : . . . fairy tales do not have to be stories about fairies. . . . fairy tales are part of folklore, but folk tales are not

necessarily fairy tales. The simplest way to explain this is to think of fairy tales as a subgenre of folklore along with myths and legends.

Be aware that this website and most fairy tale studies deal with literary fairy tales, tales that are once removed from oral tradition, set down on paper by one or more authors. Once the story is written down, it becomes static in that version. It is no longer only folklore, but part of the world's body of literature. For info about the website’s author, seeWho is Heidi Anne Heiner?

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Folktales vs Literary Fairy TalesFolktales vs Literary Fairy Tales

Folk tales:Folk tales: humbler stories than the great cosmological myth cycles or long

heroic Romances, and as such have been passed through the generations largely by the lower caste portions of society: women, peasants, slaves, and outcast groups such as the gypsies.

The literary fairy tale:The literary fairy tale: began as an art form of the upper classes -- made possible by

advances in printing methods and rising literacy. Literary fairy tales borrow heavily from the oral folk tales of the peasant tradition (as well from myth, Romance, and literary sources like Apuleius’s Golden Ass and Boccaccio’s Decameron), but these motifs are crafted and reworked through a single author’s imagination. Les Contes de Fées: The Literary Fairy Tales of France by Terri

Windling

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Origin of “fairy tales” in FranceOrigin of “fairy tales” in France

The salon tales (1690-1704) The salon tales (1690-1704) It was in the French salons that the term "fairy-tale" (conte de

fee) was coined -- a colorful but misleading label, as many of the stories falling under it do not contain creatures called "fairies" at all. Rather, they are wonder tales, or marchen (to use the German word) -- tales about ordinary men and women in a world invested with magic.

Although Charles Perrault is the name history has singled out from this prolific group, he was by no means the only popular writer of French conte de fee. The majority of the works collected and published in the Cabinet des Fees were written by the women who ran and attended the leading salons of the day. by Terri Windling

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Another genre of fairy talesAnother genre of fairy talesThe Oriental Fairy TaleThe Oriental Fairy Tale

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Waves of Fairy Tales 3Waves of Fairy Tales 3

The comic and conventional fairy taleThe comic and conventional fairy tale

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The Tales Return to the The Tales Return to the PeoplePeople

The power of cheap printingThe power of cheap printing The printing press has been considered one of the greatest

inventions in history by many, for without it the world as we know it today would not have developed. For the study of history and popular culture its invention is priceless. Printing allowed for the first time the recording of the tastes, values, and concerns of the population beyond the power structure of the Church and state. It preserved hundreds of years of oral tradition that may otherwise have been lost; without the printing press, the collectors of folktales in the nineteenth century, headed by the brothers Grimm, would not have been as fruitful.  early modern bestsellers: chapbooks and ballads

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The Brothers Grimm

Jacob and and Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm - famous for their

classical collections of folk songs and folktales, especially for KINDER- UND HAUSMÄRCHEN (Children's and Household Tales); generally known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Stories such as ‘Snow White’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ have been retold countless times, but they were first written down by the Brothers Grimm. In their collaboration Wilhelm, who was the more imaginative and literary of the two, selected and arranged the stories, while Jacob was responsible for the scholarly work.

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Where do dragons come in?Where do dragons come in?

Mythological Dragon Types Modern sources have tended to highly generalise

dragon types. Dragons are often listed under three main types: Eastern Dragons, Western Dragons and New World Dragons. Each type has a stereotype attached to it, which has some basis in truth but is not the whole story. The three types also tend to ignore Africa, Oceania and Western Asia.

find more detailed information in the World Dragon Mythology section

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Websites celebrating dragonsWebsites celebrating dragons

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Most famous Most famous dragon story?dragon story?

St. George and the Dragon / / Egorii / Iurii / Georgii Egorii / Iurii / Georgii Region: North Africa Time Period: 3rd and 4th

Century AD References in Literature:

The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser

Sources: Everyone – He’s very popular

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The story retold in different versions

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What about the violence What about the violence and horror?and horror?

Jenni Cargill, professional storyteller:Jenni Cargill, professional storyteller: Children instinctively respond emotionally and

unconsciously to the metaphors embedded in stories, if they are allowed to. Unconsciously and emotionally they recognize the witch, the giant and the wolf as the scary aspect of adults and/or themselves.

Folktales can give children access to ways of dealing with their natural fears, furies and frustrations. Even those with violent images, can give children important ways to deal with these confusing feelings. Frightful Witches and Kissable Toads…Why Folktales?

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““Disneyfying” the folktalesDisneyfying” the folktales

Sleeping Beauty: Disney vs. the Brothers GrimmSleeping Beauty: Disney vs. the Brothers Grimm “The changes serve primarily to make the tale more accessible

to today's youngsters, making it more compelling and more appropriate, and thus more likely to be watched, at least one person (the one who made the following graphic) has even referred to it as...

See also: Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty: A Literary ApproachAnd: