Fairy Tales- Teacher notes
Fairy tales provide an intro to the real world. Help mold social behavior
Message that evil and virtue, good and bad exist in everything
Teach that difficulties are unavoidable
Children see the fairy-tale hero confront evil…and through cleverness or bravery
find a way to triumph…don’t necessarily connect with the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the story
but with the hero
Hero serves as a role model for children…don’t worry about being good…want to be
like their heros
Fairy tales enable children to learn acceptable behavior before they are old enough
to grasp wider moral issues.
Suited to the way children think…cant understand the complex adult world…gives
them a simplified version of the world
Themes: love, fear, death, isolation, and abandonment as major themes…allows
young children to confront fears they may not be able to express themselves
Tales take on new meanings as children get older…ex: Cinderella, young children
may recognize good v. bad…older children may grasp idea of sibling rivalry
Cinderella: In this version, father is still alive…festival rather than a ball…step
sisters cut piece of foot off to try to fit into the shoe…in the end birds peck
stepsisters eyes out for wickedness and falsehood
Little Brier Rose: Frog predicted birth of daughter...13th wise woman not invited
because they only had 12 plates...100 year sleep…sleep spread through whole
castle…thorn hedge grew around castle…many princes attempt and meet a terrible
death…after 100 years prince entered…awoken at the same time as kiss….everyone
woke up…lived happily ever after
Little Red Cap: Cake and wine to sick grandma…’behave and don’t leave the
path’…say ‘good morning’…approached by a wolf…tells the wolf where grandma
lives…convinces her to go look at flowers, pick a bouquet for grandma…ran off the
path…wolf ate grandma…ate up little red cap…huntsman cuts open wolfs belly, red
cap and grandmother jumps out...fill wolfs belly with stones…fell down dead…other
wolves try to talk to red cap/come to the cottage…wolf fell off the roof sniffing
sausage water…don’t wander off…don’t talk to strangers
Little Brother and Little Sister: siblings, beaten by stepmother (witch)…ran away,
followed by step mother who bewitched the springs…brother turned into a
deer…sister promises to not leave brother…found a house to live in the
woods…great hunt…chased after brother…hurt one day…huntsmen followed him
home…king tricked sister into letting him in, asks her to be his wife…went to castle
with deer to live happily…Stepmother thought they had died in the woods, heard
they were alive and living at the castle…disquises herself…suffocates queen in
bathroom after the birth of her son, stepmothers own daughter takes her place
True queen visits baby every night checking on son and deer (ghost?)…came back to
live when recognized by king…told king about stepmother and her daughter…put on
trial…daughter torn to pieces by wild animals…witch thrown on fire…deer
transformed back to human
Little Snow White: Snow white became the fairest making her mother
jealous…hated her…blamed her for not being the most beautiful anymore. Ordered
her killed by a huntsman…huntsman took pity, thought she would be killed by wild
animals, brought boars liver as ‘proof’ to the queen.
Snow white came to small house in the woods…fell asleep in one of the
beds…dwarves took pity, allowed her to live there as long as she cooked, cleaned
etc….queen found out snow white wasn’t dead…disquised as a peddler woman with
bodice laces…tightened her bodice so tight she fell down as if dead…dwarfs cut her
free…queen returned again with a comb…fell down and was dead…dwarves pulled
poisend comb out…queen returned again with a poisoned apple…ate it…dwarves
were going to bury her but didn’t because she didn’t look dead, didn’t decay…left in
glass coffin…prince came asking to buy coffin, couldn’t live without seeing
her…dwarves gave it to him…brought to castle and servants carried it wherever he
went…lifted her up one day and hit her on the back..piece of apple fell out and snow
white came back to life…queen/mother invited to wedding…iron shoes put in the
fire…forced to wear/dance in them…danced herself to death
Rumpelstilskin: miller who told king his beautiful daughter could spin straw into
gold. King gives her room full of straw…if she can’t turn it to gold she dies…little
man comes in and offers to do it…girl offers her necklace in return……king was so
pleased he made her do it again with a larger pile of straw…little man returns, girl
offers him her ring…third time girl has nothing more to give, man asks for her first
child after she becomes queen…years later, as queen, she forgets about the little
man…gave birth to a child…little man returns…queen tried to offer wealth…gives
her three days to know his name otherwise he will take the child…guesses all the
names she knows…third day she learned his name from a
messanger…rumpelstiltskin is so mad he stomps and falls in…takes hands and rips
himself in two…don’t lie…greed…promises
Hansel and Gretel: famine makes it hard for woodcutter to feed his family…mother
plans bring children out into the woods to leave them ‘be rid of them’…children
heard parents plans…hansel dropped stones into a path as they went into the
woods…followed the stones back home…mother plans to take them further into the
woods…hansel drops bits of bread this time…this time bread was eaten up by
birds…wandered all night…hungry…follow a bird to a house made of bread, cake
and sugar…begin eating the house…taken in by old woman…pretended to be
friendly…lured them there to cook and eat them…lock hansel away to fatten him
up…checks his finger each day to see how fat he is getting…tried to get Gretel into
the oven, but gets pushed in herself…made it back home…across a lake with the help
of a duckling…returned home to father…mother had died…brought with them pearls
and precious stones