Transcript ELE 616 Research in Children’s Literature Fall 2009 FOLKLORE AND FAIRYTALES What is Folklore?  Folklore is the traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practice that is disseminated.

ELE 616 Research in
Children’s Literature
Fall 2009
FOLKLORE AND
FAIRYTALES
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).
WHAT ABOUT FOLKTALES?
What are folktales?

Folktales are usually stories that have been passed
down from generation to generation in spoken form.
Often we do not know who was the original author and
it is possible that some stories might have been
concocted around a campfire by a whole group of
people. It is quite normal to discover that there are
many versions of the tale, some very similar but others
may have only one or two characters in common and
take place in totally different settings.
AND FAIRY TALES?
But what are fairy tales?
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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.
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Twice upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale
Let me state this plainly:
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. . . 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?
FOLKTALES VS LITERARY FAIRY 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:
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.
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Les Contes de Fées: The Literary Fairy Tales of France by Terri Windling
ORIGIN OF “FAIRY TALES” IN FRANCE
The salon tales (1690-1704)
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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.
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by Terri Windling
ANOTHER GENRE OF FAIRY TALES
The Oriental Fairy Tale
WAVES OF FAIRY TALES 3
The comic and conventional fairy tale
THE TALES RETURN TO THE PEOPLE
The 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.
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early modern bestsellers: chapbooks and ballads
THE BROTHERS GRIMM
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
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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.
NATIVE AMERICAN FOLKTALES
Encyclopedia of Myths
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The Native American or Indian peoples of North
America do not share a single, unified body of
mythology. The many different tribal groups each
developed their own stories about the creation of
the world, the appearance of the first people, the
place of humans in the universe, and the lives and
deeds of deities and heroes.
SOME SOURCES
Tales of the North American Indians
by Stith Thompson [1929]
The classic cross-cultural Native American
folklore study.
The Path on the Rainbow
by George W. Cronyn [1918]
A ground-breaking collection of Native
American oral literature: poetry, chants and
rituals.
EVALUATING FOLKTALES
1)
2)
3)
4)
Is the person listed as the author listed as a "reteller"?
That is, on the cover, is the book "By xxxx" or "Retold by
xxxx.“
In the author's note, does the adapter say where he/she
heard the story, or what source he/she found it in?
If the adapter provides info about source, does he/she
provide enough detail so that I could find the source if I
wanted to?
In the author's note, does the adapter tell the reader
the ways in which he/she changed/edited the story and
why?
MORE ADVICE ON EVALUATION
5)
Does the adapter make clear on the title page
or the front matter (preface, etc.), or imply in
the story itself which Native American group
this story comes from?
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Adapted from a post entitled “Recommended
Children's/YA/Reference/Resource Books in Debbie
Reese’s blog:
GOOD ADVICE
Debbie Reese:
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Elements of Native religion are misunderstood, maligned,
and romanticized when they are removed from their tribal
contexts and appear in American society. In the process,
the spiritual significance of ceremony and artifacts is
lost. For example, feathers hold deep significance in
most Native settings. To understand why it is
inappropriate for children to make construction-paper
feathers and headbands, it may be useful to consider
parallels to one's own deeply held religious experience.
Catholics, for example, would object if schoolchildren
across the U.S. made a chalice out of a Styrofoam cup
and glitter.
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Goals for writing and reviewing books with Native American
themes School Library Journal 45 (11), pp. 36-37
WHAT ABOUT THE VIOLENCE
AND HORROR?
Jenni Cargill, professional storyteller:
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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.
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Frightful Witches and Kissable Toads…Why Folktales?
Native American Legends: Abenaki - Blackfoot
Native American Legends: Caddo - Crow
Native American Legends: Eskimo - Hupa
Native American Legends: Inca - Lumbee
Native American Legends: Maidu - Ottawa
Native American Legends: Paiute - Squamish
Native American Legends: Tewa - Ute
Native American Legends: Wabanaki - Zuni
WHO IS KOKOPELLI?
Kokopelli
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is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked
flute player (often with a huge phallus and feathers
or antenna-like protrusions on his head), who has
been venerated by some Native American cultures in
the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility
deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and
agriculture. He is also a trickster god and represents
the spirit of music.1
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1. Kokopelli - Trickster God". Chrysta Links.
http://www.crystalinks.com/kokopelli.html. Retrieved
2008-05-31.
“DISNEYFYING” THE FOLKTALES
Sleeping Beauty: Disney vs. the Brothers Grimm
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“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
Approach
And: