Main Topic: Fairy Tales Defined
- What is Folklore by Ellen McHale: http://www.nyfolklore.org/resource/what.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne-Thompson
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fables
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parables
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories

Websites/Podcasts Mentioned
- http://podiobooks.com/podiobooks/book.php?ID=23 (Tee Morris - MOREVI: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana)
- http://www.escapepod.org/ (Sci-Fi Podcast)
- http://www.pseudopod.org/ (Horror Podcast)
- http://www.andrevanharen.com/ (Listener Website)

Music Provided by Jon Schmidt: http://www.jonschmidt.com/

Next Episode: Monomyth Defined

Click “Read the Article” to see the transcript

Transcript

Welcome to the Myth Show, where timeless stories are discussed and brought to life. I am your host, Gregory Lemon and this is episode three. This show is for those who would like to know more about the wide and fascinating field of mythology, folk lore, and fairy tales.

During this episode we’ll discuss Fairy Tales, Fantasy and other story types as a part of the four-episode introduction. This episode may be a little longer than previous shows. I hope you like it.

The music for this podcast is provided by Jon Schmidt at jonschmidt.com

Topic 1: Fairy Tales

In our last show, I used a definition from Ellen McHale to defined Folklore. She said (quote) “Folklore and folklife [...] are cultural ways in which a group maintains and passes on a shared way of life.” (end quote) (That quote came from the New York Folk Lore web site found at http://www.nyfolklore.org/).

In the same show, I briefly mentioned that tall tales come from a sub-section of folklore where the factual elements have been pushed aside for the excitement of the story. Fairy tales come from a similar but different sub-section of folklore. In my opinion, on of the things that separates tall tales from fairy tales is the degree of believability. Let’s compare these different story types to a football game. A true or non-fiction story is as believable as a Friday-night game at the local high-school. A story from folklore would be as believable as the professional league final championship game where the underdog comes back from behind to win the game. A tall tale would be the same final championship game where the underdog team consisted of just the quarterback who won the game by throwing touchdown passes to himself. While this is unbelievable, and could never actually happen, the emphasis of the story is on the extraordinary accomplishments of the (quote-unquote) “hero” of the tale who used to be an average guy but became so much more.

Now a fairy tale is also the final championship game. Except, one team is made up of talking and clever rabbits, and the opposition team is made up of brutish and dim-witted wolves. The referees for the game are flying around using pixie dust, the football itself is trying to understand the the meaning of its existence and the team owners are royalty from different kingdoms. The game then ends with the quarterback of one team marrying the daughter of the opposing team’s owner. Where the tall tale is simply unbelievable, the fairy tale is completely ridiculous.

Stith Thompson (in his book: The Folktale) says that a fairy tale is (quote) “a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses.” (end quote) (Thompson:

In addition to the believability factor I described using the football game as an example, the quote by Thompson mentions that the location of the fairy tale is an “unreal world without definite locality.” It is literally “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.” The importance of the fairy tale is not because of its cultural setting, but in the message or moral that is being shared. For example, the tale of Beauty and the Beast could have occurred any where and any time. It was Disney that placed the story in late-1700s France. (Now that time period is only a guess because of the use of gunpowder by Gaston, and the concept of Benjamin Franklin-like inventions made by Belle’s father, Maurice.)

Another example can be drawn by comparing Disney’s animated movie, Cinderella with the movie “Ever After: A Cinderella Story” staring Drew Barrymore, Angelica Huston, and Dougray Scott. The Disney “Cinderella” story could have happened anywhere but “Ever After” movie placed the story in Renaissance France. As an aside, I really like this movie. Mostly because it completely removed all “fairy tale” elements out of the traditional story and replaced it with more traditional folklore elements. My favorite character in the movie was Leonardo daVinci who cleverly took the role as the “fairy godmother”. While Disney made a fairy tale, Barrymore made a folktale.

Fairy tales cannot be categorized into groups as easily like mythology (for example: Greek, Norse, or Chinese). One way to categorize fairy tales is to use the Aarne-Thompson system. This system has categorized fairy tales into about 2500 basic plot lines. This means that every fairy tale with the same Aarne-Thompson numbre has the same basic plot.

The Wikipedia article on fairy tales has the following quote about the Aarne-Thompson system.

[T]ales like Cinderella, in which a persecuted heroine, with the help of the fairy godmother or similar magical helper, attends an event (or three) in which she wins the love of a prince and is identified as his true bride, are classified as type 510, the persecuted heroine. Some such tales are The Wonderful Birch, Aschenputtel, Katie Woodencloak, Cap O’ Rushes, Catskin, Fair, Brown and Trembling, Finette Cendron, Allerleirauh, and Tattercoats.

Further analysis of the tales shows that in Cinderella, The Wonderful Birch, and Aschenputtel, the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in Fair, Brown and Trembling and Finette Cendron, by her sisters, other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A, while in Cap O’ Rushes, Catskin, and Allerleirauh, the heroine is driven from home by her father’s persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale

The Wikipedia article does point out that the system does have its flaws as it is often difficult to condense a tale to one simplified category. More complex fairy tales may have plot lines that fit into multiple categories.

Fables and Parables

That’s it for fairy tales, let’s talk about another sub-section of folklore that is closely related to the fairy tale. These are the stories known as fables and parables. First, let’s define a fable.

A fable is a short story with a very definite moral or principle that is being taught. Like fairy tales, extraordinary characters are used in the story. One example is the tortoise who raced the hare. Unlike fairy tales, a fable is told in a very conversational manner where both the story teller and audience knows that the tale is fictitious. The main purpose of the fable is not to entertain but to educate the listener using the fable as an example.

Aesop is believed to be a Greek slave living around 600 B.C. While there is a debate as to whether he was a real person, he is credited as being the father of fables as a story genre. Many of his fables, like the tortoise and the hare are still commonly known and shared today.

The close cousin to the fable is the parable. A parable is also used as a teaching tool for morals and principles. The difference between fables and parables is that a parable does not contain any of the fantastical elements found in the fairy tales or fables. The parable uses very real settings and real people to convey the message.

Probably the best known parables are those that are found in the religious scriptures of the Jewish and Christian faiths. One example is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Even though this story is on a road through ancient Samaria, this parable could easily happen today and in any city in the world.

One of the great blessings in my life is the opportunity to read bedtime stories to my kids most every night. I would say, with few exceptions, that each of these stories fit into the categories of fables, parables, or fairy tales. The line between these are blurry and one story may be able to fit into many categories. I don’t know, where do you place Strawberry Shortcake?

Fairy Stories

While I was researching for this essay, I found a new term I had not read before. The term was “Fairy Story”.

This term was coined by the famous author, J. R. R. Tolkien. He wanted to define a new sub-category of stories for those he and his friend, C. S. Lewis wrote.

The Wikipeida entry of Fairy Stories says the following:

“Tolkien names the genre Fairy Stories, which he is careful to distinguish from actual fairy tales such as that of the Brothers Grimm or H.C. Andersen. This distinction seems to be twofold. First, he defines fairy stories as not stories about fairies or other supernatural beings, but stories about the interaction between humans and those beings. Second, he emphasizes that through the use of fantasy, which he equates with fancy and imagination, the author can bring the reader to experience a world which is consistent and rational, yet utterly strange as well. He calls this “a rare achievement of Art,” and notes that it was important to him as a reader: “It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories

There is another item used by Tolkien to distinguish between fairy tales and his fairy stories. That was location. Fairy tales occur on Earth. It may be a kingdom once upon a time and far-far-away but it was still Earth. Fairy stories are found on a different earth or in an entirely different universe. Now for a slight tangent, when I’ve listened to podcasts for fiction and fantasy writing, a common subject discussed is “world building”. For these genres, it isn’t enough to make unique and three-dimensional characters, but you need to define the world in which the character lives. Fairy stories require a lot more world building than earth-bound fairy tales.

Tolkien went on to justify his use of new worlds by using them as a new perspective to view our own world. Let’s take an example from what I believe to be Tolkien’s most known alternate-world. That is Middle Earth as described in the Lord of the Rings. In the first book of the series, a fellowship was formed with representatives of the different races: Men, Elves, Dwarfs, and Hobbits. It seems that the greatest animosity at the beginning was between Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf.

Throughout their adventures the relationship between them grew from tolerance to friendship. We, in our own earth, sure could learn a lesson of friendship between races, ethnicities, or religions as demonstrated by Legolas and Gimli.

Topic 2: Fantasy

We began this podcast discussing fairy tales, fables, and parables. We then transferred into a more modern genre with our discussion of Fairy Stories. Let’s bring this discussion to modern times by discussing speculative fiction. Before a couple of months ago, I couldn’t have told you what speculative fiction meant. The podcasts that were using the term never defined it. I recently found one definitions saying that speculative fiction is any story that could be classified as Science Fiction, Horror, or Fantasy.

During this podcast, I will not discuss stores about science fiction or horror. To hear more some podcasts with these kinds of stories, please visit the EscapePod and PseudoPod podcasts. I enjoy listening to the science fiction in EscapePod but I’m too chicken to listen to the Horror in PseudoPod due to there very explicit warning on the home page. The links to these are http://www.escapepod.org/ and http://pseudopod.org/. and links are in the show notes

So that leaves Fantasy. While this podcast will focus primarily on Mythology, Folklore, and Fairy Tales, I believe that a short discussion on the definition of Fantasy would be appropriate for this introductory series of podcasts.

The line between the genres of speculative fiction (again that’s sci-fi, horror, and fantasy) is very thin and one story could easily contain elements of all of these genres. Fantasy does distinguish itself from the others by using “magic and other supernatural forces as a primary element, theme or setting.”

Wikipedia’s article on Fantasy provides some examples of some early forms a fantasy. These include the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, Beowolf, The Book or One thousand and one nights , and the various Arthurian legends. Each of these stories probably would fit into the categories or mythology or folklore better than fantasy. However, they do contain fantastical adventures and other literary elements that greatly influenced or inspired more modern Fantasy writers.

My top three favorite modern fantasy authors include J. K. Rowling, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. (Which makes me wonder if I should change my name to G. A. Lemon to have a better shot at being an author. Two additional fantasy authors who I have enjoyed this year includes Diane Duane (author of So you want to be a wizard and its sequels) and Christopher Paolini (author of the Inheritance Trilogy. The first book Eragon is being released as a movie this year)

Resource Materials

I believe that with these examples and recommendations, I’ll wrap up this discussion about Fairy Tales, Fables, Parables, and Fantasy. There are too many references to the resources that went into this podcast, but links will be provided in the show notes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne-Thompson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories

 

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