Bittercon: Fairy Tales, Familiar and -- Not

[marycatelli]

How many fairy tales do you really think you can count on being familiar to somone?

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears -- not many more, I think.

And how many hundreds of thousands of fairy tales have been collected?  Not even counting those that vanished with their tellers?
Literacy and fairy tale collecting bear some of the blame; it couldn't have happened without them.  Joseph Jacobs complained, "What Perrault began, the Grimms completed." when he brought out his own collections of English and Celtic fairy tales -- and if you look at his tales, you will see he had a little success in restoring English fairy tales to English children.

But not all of it.  For one thing, they also allowed fairy tales to spread and outlast their speakers.  For another, even if readers were limited to well-known collections, they would know a lot more.  Grimms' collection offers hundreds of tales.  Even some of Perrault's dozen or so are unknown.  And that's not even counting such collections as Jacob's, or Asbjornsen and Moe's, or Thomas Crane's, or many more.

I read all of Andrew Lang's coloured fairy books while a child.  Dozens and dozens of fairy tales.

And, it's not always happy for the writer.  You have only so many fairy tale tropes to play with.  "Sleeping Beauty is a vampire" for instance, is so common as to be a cliche of its own.

Or else you can play with others, and count on no one picking up on it. I've been complimented for putting a "feminist twist" on fairy tales by -- having the heroine rescue the hero.

Yeah.

You know, reading The Blue Fairy Book would cure that misperception.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think there's also another group of tales, the ones in which the whole story isn't well known but one motif is: killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, the little tailor who killed seven at one blow, the seven swan brothers, one who keeps a wing when he turns human. I've seen a lot of those well used in stories.

The one that really bemused me is the story of the Witch of the Westmoreland. I'd thought it was ballad written by Archie Fisher (well, it *is* a ballad by Fisher, but I didn't think that he'd based it on older stories) until I recognized the same story tucked into in Christopher Stasheff's later Wizard books. Though the way he told the story, I don't think it's really a problem if readers miss the reference - which may be one answer to your problem.

[danceswithwaves.livejournal.com]

What story is it based on? I thought it was just a ballad, too...

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I don't know - I just figured Stasheff borrowing an old story was likely than him borrowing one from a recent song. Then again it's a song lots of people *think* is a traditional one.

Anyone know Stasheff to ask him?

[marycatelli]

Though they do tend to get a little garbed -- in very few of the variants, the princess kisses the frog. In the Grimms', she throw him against the wall.

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

And here I thought that was McKinley being startling. ^_^

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I think there's also another group of tales, the ones in which the whole story isn't well known but one motif is: killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, the little tailor who killed seven at one blow, the seven swan brothers, one who keeps a wing when he turns human. I've seen a lot of those well used in stories.

Good point! Yes, and what about the little gingerbread boy. "Run, run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

What about baba yaga, either riding through the skies in her mortar and pestle, or living in her hut with chicken legs? I've notice a few fantasies in recent years that use her, including Orson Scott Card.

[marycatelli]

Yes, but will people know who she is?

It may not matter -- the allusions in Spirited Away add depth even for me, and I catch none of them -- but it may.

And, of course, in one respect, we are the worst people to be talking about this. We know so many more fairy tales than other people that we can just guess at which ones they know.

[shadownephilim.livejournal.com]

I, too, read all of Andrew Lang's fairy books as a kid and for a while, it really really surprised me that so many people weren't aware of the fairy tales that I considered well known that weren't disney-ified such as East of the sun, West of the moon and The Seven Swans. I always get a thrill now when people actually do know as many of the fairy tales as I do or when I see books or short stories that reference some of the more obscure fairy tales like Kelly Link's.

[marycatelli]

I was reading a Patricia McKillip story and suddenly I thought, this is The Singing, Springing Lark.

She fit the story in with such exquisite dexterity. And I would guess not one reader in a thousand could admire that.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you for hosting this.

I read as many of the the Lang books as I could get my hands on, as well, but never found the entire collection. I'm quite jealous. (Of course, they're online, now, which helps a bit.)

I think many people also recognize at least a few of Anderson's literary fairy tales: The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl and (especially now that Disney has popularized it) The Little Mermaid, are some that I think are better known than others.

I love the recent "feminist" collections: Tatterhood and Other Tales, edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps and Pamela Baldwin Ford, and Maid of the North, edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps. Tatterhood is one of my favorite fairy tales, so I was delighted when it was included in the collection as the title story.

[marycatelli]

Some of Anderson's, maybe. But not many. The Snow Queen is one of the ones I might expect among people who have read a few more than usual.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite fairy tales when I was a kid involved a series of girls who were discovered when the hero peels a set of oranges. I haven't thought of that story for years. I probably read it in one of Lang's collections, although the somewhat middle-eastern association it has for me suggests it could have also been a children's retelling of something from the Thousand and One Nights.

Hmm. Which brings to mind Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. As these have been Disney-fied, they may also be somewhat familiar to today's audience.

For the Love of Three Oranges

[marycatelli]

Well, you could have read The Enchanted Canary in Lang. Though there are other variants that are fairy tales. Like Crane's The Love of the Three Oranges" or Basile's The Three Citrons.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I suspect that the set of fairy tales we can expect most/all people to recognize (and not just recognize tropes from) and the set of fairy tales that have been disneyfied are (almost) identical.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There are certain fairy-tale notions that I think a person can effectively use in a story that give it a fairy-tale feel even if it's not a retelling. For example: repayment of a kindness (so the protagonist's kindness to a creature is rewarded by aid later when s/he needs it) or broken prohibition. I guess those count as Stith Thompson motifs, right?

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Probably. But, I think that would be true of any of the "fairy-tale notions" we're likely to come up with.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

Robin McKinley and Patricia McKillip are faves for their treatments of fairy tales. There was a series started a while ago (by Ellen Datlow maybe?) of retelling fairy tales more in their original flavors than in the Disney, pretty versions. I remember an excellent version of Snow White and Rose Red. Disney has done such a disfavor to the original stories...especially the Little Mermaid.

Other, lesser known favorites are The Nightengale and the one about the sisters, one who when she speaks drip jewels and the other who speaks drips toads and newts.

There are some good stories in this vein currently being written in childrens, like The Magical, Mystical, Marvelous Coat. I highly recommend Edith Pattou's "East" to anyone fond of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, one of my favorites. Writers seems to mining Celtic folklore these days too...thinking of Julliet Marillier.

The one about the sisters?

[marycatelli]

Which one? That's a common feature of The Kind and the Unkind Girls -- though I think Diamonds and Toads is the best known.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

Then there's also the set of fairy tales that should be well-known to fantasy readers, since they've been retold so many times. East of the Sun, West of the Moon; practically any fairy tale involving swans; the Twelve Dancing Princesses; the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer and also 'Cruel Sister' (one sister kills the other; there's a harp made of the bones of the dead sister that starts singing the tale at a banquet or the wedding of the other sister or something) . . . and even the Goose Girl has entered this realm.

There are probably dozens more that I can't think of, too.

[marycatelli]

Of course, that can get into the problem of letting new readers into the fun.

[seajules]

I deal a lot in faery tales in my writing and reading, and talking with friends with similar tastes, I know that there are a lot of faery tale tropes that are more widely recognized than the stories where they prominently feature. The idea of the animal bridegroom, for instance, while often assumed to be referencing "Beauty and the Beast," is recognized even in stories that are actually riffing on "East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon," "The Brown Bear of Norway," or even "Cupid and Psyche." Women who speak jewels and flowers, kisses to break enchantments, double-edged gifts that come in threes, fairy godmothers, and bespelled sleeping maidens are all motifs I've seen in a lot of fantasy that isn't retelling any particular tale, or is doing a mashup of several tales.

I suspect a lot of fantasy readers are more familiar with faery tales than your average person, and can pick up more references to non-Disneyfied tales. I also think the widespread availability of tales on the internet means readers will become ever more knowledgeable, though that could be just wishful thinking. As with other information one writes into a story, though, I think playing with less well-known tales will lead people to seek sources, which will lead to tales becoming more widely read.

[marycatelli]

Yeah. Once based a story on Tattercoats, and found that my writers group -- all of them writers themselves -- would talk about how I based it on Cinderella.

sigh.

You try to make the story work for readers who don't catch the allusions, but it can still be annoying to know that they won't get caught.

The author of No Rest for the Wicked footnotes her webcomic. I understand the impulse.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

"Or else you can play with others, and count on no one picking up on it. I've been complimented for putting a "feminist twist" on fairy tales by -- having the heroine rescue the hero.

Yeah.

You know, reading The Blue Fairy Book would cure that misperception."

Yes, or reading "Princess Tales" edited by Nora Kramer, Scholastic Book Services, 1971.

My favourite is "The Practical Princess" though there are several others quite the strong-female protagonist in style in there, pretty much the whole thing, actually. *g*

[marycatelli]

If the "Practical Princess" is typical of the collection -- Princess Tales would not cure them it. It would confirm them in their misperception.

Even in my early teens when I read "The Practical Princess" I could see "feminist twist" stamped all over it. It would therefore reinforce the misperception that a modern writer, retelling a fairy tale, can't have the heroine rescue the hero without "puting a feminist twist" on an old fairy talel.