folk tales, fairy tales, and the big four (or five)

Uh, what IS the difference between a folk tale and a fairy tale?

Technically, there IS a difference. A folk tale (from the folk) has come down from generation to generation, group to group through the oral tradition. These tales were altered, embellished, combined, and eventually some linguist or cultural anthropologist or literary historian came along gathering and recording the tales from various storytellers. Fairy tales have actual authors. So, the Brothers Grimm and Joseph Jacobs (although he also embellished the tales he collected) gathered and edited folk tales; Charles Perrault was somewhere in the middle--he borrowed heavily from folk literature, but he embellished the tales and turned them into original literary gems; Hans Christian Andersen created his own unique fairy tales.

Four names stand out in western folk and fairy literature: Charles Perrault, The Brothers Grimm (maybe that's two names, which would bring the total to five), Hans Christian Andersen, Joseph Jacobs. It would be odd not to take a closer look at their works, since their folk and fairy tales are among the most widely known and remembered stories read to children.

Charles Perrault & The Brothers Grimm

Perrault's works are very different from those collected by the linguists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. They are grouped here because they are close in time (17th and 18th centuries for the most part) and because their stories overlap a great deal. Both, for example, have versions of "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Red Riding Hood," and others. Still, the content and style of the tales is often very different.

Bettleheim applies psychological criticism and gives us his thoughts about the striking differences in Red Riding Hood stories in his The Uses of Enchantment. Jack Zipes in his Breaking the Magic Spell applies feminist criticism to various versions of the Cinderella story, and he's not too impressed with Perrault's version. Here is a cinderwench who is quiet, long-suffering, submissive, accepting, and Zipes believes the role it sets for child (and adult) readers is demeaning and sexist. He asks,

By contrast, Aschenputtel, in the Grimm version is, in the words of Griffith and Frey,
is much more active, assertive and human. She hates having to do all the dirty work, and does not voluntarily spend time sitting among the ashes. She helps the stepsisters prepare for the dance only under duress, and she insists that she be allowed to attend it as well as they. She meets the dishonest stepmother's challenges head-on; and, when the stepmother reneges, she invokes the power of the hazel tree and the white bird to override the stepmother's orders. To demand gold and silver finery is all her idea, as is her behavior at the dance. She leaves because she wants to, she hides in the pigeon house because she wants to, she makes the prince come looking for her because she wants to. There is little doubt that Aschenputtel is intentionally playing hard to get ....

One final major difference from the Perrault version is in the nature of Aschenputtel's magic helpers. For Aschenputtel, strength and help come unambiguously from the early love she has had from her good mother and her father, and from her present adversity: a hazel tree brought by the father, growing out of the mother's grave, watered with her own tears ....

"Aschenputtel" ... is a sharp and intense fantasy of an embattled girl in conflict with a cruel family. Its assumption is that such cruelty can be overcome with he resources one draws from parental love going back to one's earliest years, and with the incentive which adversity gives to fight back.
Perrault's "Cinderella," on the other hand, is about a girl who waits to be rescued. The idea is wittily satirized in Ann Sexton's poem "Cinderella". She borrows material from both versions of the folk tale, but she concludes by blasting the notion that a handsome prince is likely to come and save women from all conflict and work and dissatisfaction and trouble; in her estimation the odds are about as likely as winning the lottery.

In the two sets of tales compared, Perrault's versions come off as less complex, more didactic, comparatively unsatisfying. But that's not always the case. Perrault's "The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods" (which is not on our reading list) is a much richer tale with unusual plot twists and greater psychological depth than the Grimm "Sleeping Beauty" (which inspired the lovable but bland Disney movie).

Perrault's tales are uneven. Perrault was writing for the French aristocracy, not for children, and certain tales, such as "Blue Beard," deal in subjects that many parents would object to. Yes, the tale was based in part on historical events, but the story of a man murdering his wives for disobeying his one command (not to open the closet) sends mixed messages. The wife has to die when she discovers the remains of the previous wives. But why was the first wife killed? Blue Beard is testing the wives' loyalty and obedience, and they fail again and again, but the test is cruel, psychotic. Still, it's hard to feel great sympathy for the wife who mocks the ugliness of the blue-bearded man (and what's wrong with that!?) at first; after being wined, dined, treated to lavish parties, surrounded by his great riches, she decides perhaps he's not so ugly after all. She seems a classic gold digger. In the end, however, she does use Blue Beard's wealth to bring happiness, not as a snare. It's a complex, and maybe even perplexing, little story.

The folk tales collected by the Brother's Grimm are also often disturbing to current readers (especially parents). They read the stories that were read to them as children, and they just don't remember them being so politically-incorrect. Parents (and, of course, step-parents) are murderously abusive, cannibalism shows up routinely, and "good" and "bad" behavior often seem confused.

Taken literally, "Hansel and Gretel" is disturbing on many levels. Again, children won't be disturbed, but their parents might. Abandoning the children to starve in the woods is bad enough, but the story's climax has Gretel shoving an old woman into an oven. Louise Gluck's "Gretel in Darkness" is a haunting look at what nightmares a real child might experience having participated in the killing, even a killing in self-defense.

"Rumpelstiltskin" seems to send odd messages:

Again, the story probably shouldn't be taken too literally. The young woman is desperate and a victim. Rumplestiltskin should not be asking for her first-born child.

"The Frog Prince" raises some of the same issues as "Rumplestiltskin," and it surprises readers with its passion. The princess does NOT kiss the frog to turn him into a prince, she flings him with all her might against the wall. The violence of her emotion, not her generous behavior, causes the transformation.

In the end, they're not real, they're stories. But all of these stories, whether we approve or disapprove of them, have the power to entertain and the power to engage us in thought.

Hans Christian Andersen

Fans of biographical criticism have a luxurious source in the works of Hans Christian Andersen. Like Lewis Carroll (and, to a lesser extent, Kenneth Grahame), Andersen was near-pathologically uncomfortable in the company of adults. Of course all three had to work and interact with adults, but all three really related well to children and their simpler worlds. Andersen, for a time, ran a puppet theater and was incredibly popular with children, and, of course, he wrote an impressive body of fairy tales which have been produced in thousands of editions since the 19th century.

Most everyone has read or at least knows the titles of many of Andersen's works: "The Ugly Duckling," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Nightengale," "The Little Mermaid," "The Match Girl," and many others. Though, as with most folk and fairy tales, they strike adult re-readers much differently than they do young first-time readers.

Charming tales of ducks who feel awkward because they don't fit in, only to exult in the discovery that they are majestic swans, gives child readers clearly-identifiable messages: don't tease people because they're different; don't fret about your being different because some day you'll discover what special gifts you have.

A closer, deeper look at many of Andersen's tales (including "The Ugly Duckling," which is not on our reading list), reveals a darker, harder, more painful thread. People are often cruel and unfeeling, love is torturous--in general, the things of the material world cause suffering. There is often a happy ending, but it's not conventionally happy. Characters are rewarded, but only after they manage (often through death) to transcend the rigors of the mortal world.

"The Little Mermaid" and "The Match Girl" are prime examples, but you might also want to read "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" (not on our list) with its final image of love being requited only after it completely consumes the two long-suffering characters. In fiery death they are finally united.

Comparing Disney's film version of The Little Mermaid with Andersen's story makes a wonderful essay topic, so I won't go into too much detail discussing differences. Many adults will be more approving of the comfortable, antiseptic stereotypes of the Disney version. Good is rewarded; evil is punished; the headstrong princess melts the heart of her father and of the handsome prince, and she finds completion in a fairy-tale marriage; there are also plenty of chase scenes and moments of comic relief (and a rather nice soundtrack).

Andersen's version is much more complex, and the Christian (no pun there) symbolism is apparent. The mermaid is interested in marrying the prince, but her real goal is to acquire an immortal soul. She endures pain (graphically described) and ultimately, because she is willing to sacrifice herself, is elevated to a sort of purgatorial existence as a daughter of the air. She will be given an immortal soul (though at an indefinite time in the future). The earthly love and the riches of the court are less significant; in fact, they invite satire. Happiness in this tale is found in transcendence.

Similarly, "The Match Girl" is about transcending the ugliness and the meanness of the material world to find happiness in an afterlife. The story is reminiscent of William Blake's "Chimney Sweeper" with its attack on the callousness of society and the exploitation of child labor. The treasured Christmas memory of her now-dead grandmother is much more attractive than the thought that she is likely to be abused by her father if she returns home.Note: remember this story when you read The Giver.

Andersen's works, like Blake's, are pointedly satirical--attacks on social injustice and the pettiness of human nature.

At the same time, and here we have a pretty clear view into Andersen's own psychological state, there are a few feeling, loving misunderstood individuals who don't fit into this cruel world; in the end, these individuals become the transcendent heroes of his stories.

Joseph Jacobs

Here's a thought which you may wish to complete (it might even make an interesting essay topic):

If there's something characteristically English about Jacobs' tales, is there something uniquely Northern European about Andersen's works? Do the stories collected by the brothers Grimm give us insight into the Germanic character, and do Perrault's tales reveal anything about the court of France at the time?

Certainly folk and fairy tales can be read as straightforward fantasies or as small moral examples; they also seem to invite psychological, feminist, biographical, historical, and other interpretations. They work on many levels.

Jacobs compiled many of the tales that we in America are most familiar with: "Jack and the Beanstalk," "The Story of the Three Little Pigs," "Henny Penny." He also included some of the oddest tales popular in England of his time: "Master of All Masters" is a prime example.

Actually, you might find the versions he included in his his collection to be just a bit different than what you remember having been read to you when you were a wee little child. "The Three Pigs" is different only because the version that most modern readers were raised on has more to do with Walt Disney than with folk literature. The pigs in the Disney short owe as much to "The Grasshopper and the Ant" as to the Jacobs story. The Disney version is much more preachy--the lazy pigs (who want to sing and dance rather than work) are nearly gobbled up; the industrious pig saves the day--the message is Puritanically clear. Jacobs' first two pigs are just victims of inferior building materials. The third pig doesn't reveal so much industry as he does cleverness (sneakiness really). The latter part of the story where the pig tricks the wolf repeatedly is absent from Disney's version.

This theme of cleverness (bordering on downright sneakiness) is common in many of these stories; it seems to be the central value that the various heroes (male and female) possess. "Molly Whuppie" uses her wits to survive and to win favor with the king. Along with craft, the main characters are often lucky. Jack climbs the beanstalk a third time to "try his luck again," and "Lazy Jack" wins the princess because (not in spite of) his blundering.

Most of the stories are very tightly crafted, with repeated catch phrases, events coming in the conventional threes. There is a joy and wit and oddness about many of the tales that many might find at the heart of British comedy. The high are often brought low (we imagine the Master of All Masters is going to burn to death, or at least lose all of his possessions, because of his pompous silliness).

There is a marvelous (well I think so) quirkiness to the version of "The Three Bears" that Jacobs chose to repeat. Both this version (told earlier by Robert Southey) and the Goldilocks version were widely known; he chose the version most of us are not familiar with: the vagrant woman and the three bears. And, in a sense, he has really captured the essence of the story. Even as a young child I was aware that Goldilocks was not a victim who escaped just in time to avoid being eaten. Here was a little girl who broke into someone's house, stole from them, vandalized their property, and then moved in. The old woman (who may now be in the House of Corrections according to the author) was a woman up to no good, and that's exactly what I always felt about Goldilocks too.