Fairy Tales
"I would not for any quantity of gold part
with the wonderful tales which I have retained
from my earliest childhood or have met with
in my progress through life.“
Martin Luther
A bit o’ history…
The unwritten lore of a culture, passed on from
one person to the next by word of mouth- the
oral tradition- STORYTELLING!
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Proverbs (moral)
Riddles
Songs
Myths (creation stories)
Legends (historical)
Tall tales (exaggeration), and..
Fairy Tales!
Fairy tales are not just for children, but also for
"children of a larger growth," who are not
ashamed to confess.
What makes a Fairy Tale a Fairy Tale?
In America, the “Disney-fied” versions:
Start with “Once upon a time”
 End with “and they all lived happily ever
after”
 Villains: witches, ogres, giants
 Damsels in distress; princes as rescuers
 Forests, castles
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However…
As we explore the world of the true fairy
tale we will learn that fairy tales:
Occur in the realm of “faerie”- there is
some type of magical element (but not
always!)
 Wide range of plots and characters
 Can sometimes be quite scary
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Fairy Tale Tidbits
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Fairy tales are based on old, old stories
which can be traced back thousands of
years
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Written fairy tales over 3000 years old
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The term “ogre” comes from a variation
on the name of a tribe that was very cruel
to infants
The Queen of the Fairies:
Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy
Marie katarine dull nwa
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Published Les Contes des Fees (The Tales of
Fairies)
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Hosted a French woman’s salon, i.e. “Ladies
Night Out”
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None of her tales are popular today, not for
children
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Goldilocks first mentioned- not 3 Bears!
The Father of Fairy Tales:
Charles Perrault
Mother Goose Tales
Published in 1697 under the name of his son Pierre, Stories or
Tales from Times Past, with Morals:
Tales of Mother Goose included eight stories:
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
Little Red Riding Hood
Bluebeard
Puss in Boots
The Fairies
Cinderella
Ricky of the Tuft
Little Tom Thumb
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NOT original stories of Perrault’s, but his
version of folktales he had heard
throughout his travels
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Other then the Bible, the most popular
book ever
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Brothers Grimm have some of the same
stories, but their own version
Beauty and the Beast
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1740: Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve writes a 362 page
version of Beauty and the Beast This version is not
intended for children with its many storylines, length,
and subject matter.
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1756: Madame Le Prince de Beaumont publishes her
own considerably shorter version of Beauty and the
Beast. This version is the most well-known and copied.
It is written for a young audience. This is the first
example of a literary fairy tale being written specifically
for children.
And they all lived happily ever after.
THE END
For a storynory story:
http://storynory.com/category/perrault/
Internet Sites
The Tales of Mother Goose by Charles Perrault. A Project
Gutenberg ebook.
Perrault's Fairy Tales with illustrations
Les contes de Perrault . A French-language site featuring
Perrault's tales.
http://storynory.com/category/perrault/
Fear of the consequences which happen to those
who do bad deeds!
 Sir Walter Scott: “The mythology of one period
would appear to pass into the romance of the
next, and that into the nursery tales of
subsequent ages”
 Max Muller: “The gods of ancient mythology
were changed into the demigods and heroes of
ancient epic poetry, and these demigods again
became at a later age the principal characters of
our nursery tales.”
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