Fairy Tales & Their Tellers~From the Beast to the Blonde~August Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome to join in.

 

On Fairytales & Their Tellers ~  August  Book Club Online

 
 Source Book:
* From the Beast to the Blonde by Marina Warner  

Marina Warner's  From the Beast to the Blonde ... is a fascinating and  comprehensive study of the changing  cultural context of fairy tales and the people who tell them.  The first storytellers were women, grannies and nursemaids - until men like Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen started writing down and rewriting the women's stories.  Warner's interpretations show us how the real-life themes in these famous stories evolved: rivalry and hatred between women ("Cinderella" and "The Sleeping Beauty") and the ways of men and marriage ("Bluebeard.") Warner's book is huge.  We will regard it as a source to help interpret the stories  and plan to concentrate on the second half of Warner's book, in which she provides a sampling of the tales and demonstrates adult themes, such as the rivalry and hatred among women - and the association of blondness in the heroine with desirability and preciousness.

If you are unable to get your hands on this book, not to worry.   The fairy tales themselves are readily accessible and those fortunate enough to locate   Warner's book can share the commentary with the rest of us.

For Your Consideration - Week 3  ~August 16-22

1. "Spin a yarn" ~ "weave a plot"  - have you noticed the numerous references to spinning and weaving in fairy tales?  What do they reveal about the sources and the tellers  of the early tales?

2. What do you remember about the story of  the Sleeping Beauty?   What was its message?  Do you remember it as "bawdy, comic, and erotic," as Warner tags it?

3. Can you imagine telling a child this version? - Giambatista  Basile's Sleeping Beauty - (The Sun, the Moon and Talia)1657 What was Basile's source?  Who was his intended audience?

4. As usual, Charles Perrault cleaned up the story, but what remains of Basile's story in 1697? Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty in the Wood  1697

5. What did the Brothers Grimm accomplish with their version in 1812?    Did they completely change the message of the tale? What is the message now? Brothers Grimm - Little Brier Rose - Sleeping Beauty

6. How do you think men reacted to Perrault's tale of rape and adultery in the salons of France?  Is the king portrayed as evil, or is this more the story of the ogress, the mother-in-law?

7. Do you notice the lack of male evil doers in fairy tales, or are they mostly stepmothers, witches...and mothers-in-law?  If so, why do you think this is the case?

8. Would you be interested in examining Bluebeard and/or Beauty and the Beast to see how evil or weak men are portrayed?

Related Links:
Andrew Lang's Colour Fairy Books; Sur La Lune Annotated Fairy Tales ; A Roundtable Discussion: "How Fairy Tales Cast Their Spell"   ; Little Red Riding Hood   (Charles Perrault - 1697); Little Red Riding Hood   (Brothers Grimm - 1812); Little Red Cap (Brothers Grimm - second version see end ); Charles Perrault's Cinderella;the Brothers Grimm ~ Cinderella, 1812; the Grimms' 1857 version of Cinderella;   earlier  version- Cinder Maid ;   the 9th century Chinese Cinderella ; Giambatista  Basile's Sleeping Beauty - (The Sun, the Moon and Talia)1657;
History of Sleeping Beauty - from Arthurian legend Perceforest 1567; Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty in the Wood  1697 ;
Brothers Grimm - Little Brier Rose - Sleeping Beauty


 

Discussion Leader:  JoanP with JoanR, Guest DL

[JoanP]

I discovered some interesting things about the Perrault version of Cinderella.  The rest of the title as found in the Blue Fairy Book - "Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper."   I was really surprised to learn that  Perrault's  was not the first written telling  of the story.  Far from it.  I guess because his Red Riding Hood is the first known written narrative of the story, I just assumed the same for Cinderella.  But he was the first with a GLASS slipper.  Some say he took the French word "vair,"   which means fur  and substituted "verre" - which means glass.  The two words are pronounced the same.
Glass slippers are so much more magical than fur slippers, don't you think?  Andrew Lang liked Perrault's version -  so did Disney!

Jude referred to  the Chinese version, which featured tiny gold slippers.  I was really surprised to learn f that the 9th century Chinese version was written down ~

"Everyone has heard the rags-to-riches story of Cinderella. The most popular version of this classic fairy tale was written by Charles Perrault in 1697. But, did you know the first written Cinderella story, called Yeh-Shen, was written in 850 A.D. in China? It’s over a thousand years older than the earliest known European version! And that’s not even the oldest version of Cinderella. The story of Cinderella dates back to ancient Greco-Egyptian times. It is thought that the story emerged sometime in the first century. There are thousands of variations of this children’s tale around the world."

I checked it out to see if it resembled the story of Cinderella as we know it.  You be the judge...
Here's a   film clip of the story...
If you have trouble with the sound -   here's the written translation ...

No glass slippers, but you'll recognize the story from all those years ago... Oh, no fairy godmother either - or hazel nut tree.  But there is magic at work to make things happen for the little girl.  Lucky for her she was born with those tiny sexy feet!

[straudetwo]

JoanP,  

To my great disappointment, Grimm's Fair Tales were not where I had last seen them, smay be ten years ago. With the help of my grabber I managed to pull down a book with a similar spine.  It was the wrong book and, from my clearrecollection,  positioned on a higher shelf.  I left it lying on the ping pong table for now and will eventually try again.
 I had looked forward to opening the book and look at stories that had intrigued me, e.g.  Rapunzel and Rumpelstilzchen.  But this is not a deterrent at all because we have several versions and translations available right here.

Instead I have been concentrating on Warner's book, with careful attention to the references to Cinderella in the index (many more than for Little Red Riding Hood).
And I find myself in agreement with Warner's statement quoted in your question #4.  From the earliest recorded times man sought to understand the often hostile environment and violent thunderstorms.  Surely, no mortal man could cause such havoc.  So the Greeks created their pantheon of gods.

In Greek mythology, in the Bible and in fairy tales we find  characters with all too human traits: l greed, deceit, jealousy, bloodthirstiness, and vengefulness -- traits shared even now by humans all over the earth.

Warner goes into detail about the tellers of the tales, the legendary old crone,  gossipers, and nannies, nurses, governesses.  Mothers are often absent - enter the wicked stepmother. Families were large, mothers died in childbirth. In Tuscany, Warner tells us,  that 80% of widowers in the 15th century remarried within a year after the death of the first wife; a large percentage of widowers in  17th and 18th century France  took a second wife within a year's time, not seldom straining scarce family resources.

Competition bred antipathy and hatred, and Cinderella is one example.  In Rossini's opera La Cenerentola the pattern is reversed : not the stepmother is the villain but the father.  By scheming to marry own off his own two daughters to wealthy men he intends to get rich himself, all the while ignoring Cinderella in her penitential grass dress.

In this connection Warner says that fairy tales can be said to carry an underlying cautionary message.  I would agree with that.

[JoanP]

Traudee, I will agree with Warner's statement on the underlying cautionary message of these tales - ALTHOUGH Perrault goes over the top with his cautionary message - in those morals attached to the end.  Nothing subtle about his message -
With Cinderella he attached not only one, but two morals:

Moral: Beauty in a woman is a rare treasure that will always be admired. Graciousness, however, is priceless and of even greater value. This is what Cinderella's godmother gave to her when she taught her to behave like a queen. Young women, in the winning of a heart, graciousness is more important than a beautiful hairdo. It is a true gift of the fairies. Without it nothing is possible; with it, one can do anything.

Another moral: Without doubt it is a great advantage to have intelligence, courage, good breeding, and common sense. These, and similar talents come only from heaven, and it is good to have them. However, even these may fail to bring you success, without the blessing of a godfather or a godmother.

His morals seem to reflect the fact that he is writing down the tales for the court and for the salons of Paris.

[JoanP]

   You mention the high death rate of mothers during childbirth as another reason for the number of stepmothers we see in these tales.  Stepmothers, good mother/bad mothers, the absent father  and the abandoned child, the lonely child  - the stuff of these fairy tales.

"Warner goes into detail about the tellers of the tales, the legendary old crone,  gossipers, and nannies, nurses, governesses."  Traudee

 
I noted too that Warner makes it clear that male writers dominated the collecting and the production of fairy tales - but they passed along women's stories.  Women were the storytellers, men collected them- for the most part.
  This seems to be an important distinction  Warner makes.  She talks of women telling tales of women's wrongdoing. She says that fairy tales like Cinderella bear witness against women. This is what adds value to the tale, makes it authentic when women provide such commentary against women.

[JudeS]

I've been wondering about the fact that if women collected the tales and men wrote them down what messages, or meta messages, were they trying to convey to their readers ?

As an example I read that one of the brothers Grimm was trying to instill as much Christian morality in the tales as the story could bear.

Reading Warner's book, exploring  some articles about her and reading some of her speeches, she comes across as a strong (or perhaps extreme) feminist.  How this is reflected in her book  needs more analysis than I am able to do. The book is well written and researched  but does not tell us  about little boys and their reaction to these tales. Also what is the message to older boys if they read these tales?  Not many boys are dressing up as a Prince these days while little Princesses abound.

All of us in this discussion (except for Dean) are women.  Perhaps Maurice Sendak who wrote and illustrated "Where the Wild Things Are" understood that little boys want to be strong and often identify with the aggressor. I have a friend whose boys , ages three and five, have been acting out the Monsters from that movie, for months now. I have a Grandson who
runs around screaming "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down".  Two others  (ages 3 & 4) are  Star Wars fans.

If you walk around Toys are Us enough you see what little boys are interested in.  Its not the good  (and rather pale)  Princes of the Fairy Tales.So, are these really cautionary tales for girls ?  I never thought about this before and I put out my thoughts as they came.  If it is garbled  I beg your forgiveness.

[straudetwo]

Jude,  yes, Warner is a feminist.  

And I believe, the "precautionary tales" are meant for girls.  She calls Disney's adaptations "saccharine" and does not like Perrault, either.  

She refers to male cannibalism in connection with the Ogre and Blue Beard.  She links Medea, Electra,  Jean Cocteau,  Milan Kundera and countless others effortlessly and in the same breath.  The range of her knowledge and sources is astonishing - and sometimes slightly confusing.

And I wonder what message she is trying to impart to the reader.



 

[JoanP]

Jude, you just hit on something that has been on the back of my mind since we began talking about these fairy tales.  Were they intended for little boys?  I have four sons...and don't remember reading these stories to them.  BUT I do remember reading them when I was a little girl - and my granddaughter just loves to hear them read and to read them herself. 

There are many elements in the stories that date them back in time, that make them irrelevant to today's boys...as you pointed out, the princes hold no importance to boys.  But little girls, the clothes, the ball, the prince who will love her and treat her like the princess that she knows she is, well, for little girls, these stories hold their interest during any period. 
These are my own feelings - not Warner's.
Jude notes that Ms. Warner is a strong feminist.  Do you think she'd agree with me?

I'm thinking of what she writes about the older women, the nurses, the nannies, the grannies - who told these tales to their young charges.  We are told they were "cautionary tales."  I see little girls gathered around the teller, listening to these tales as part of their education.  But I don't see boys in the circle, Jude.

[JoanP]

Here are a few notes I took about the messages that women and men convey in fairy tales.. from Marina Warner's book -

"Fairy tales claim to speak in a woman's voice."
"Storytellers claim to know their material from an eye witness.  The voice of an old woman lends reliability to the tale."
"Men and women tell some tales in characteristically different ways."

Hmmm - this sounds to me as if Warner is saying that the men who wrote the tales, had some latitude when putting the tales to paper, but that it was imperative for them to make them sound as if they came directly from the storyteller's mouth - and that the storyteller is a women.

She writes - "Men may be expected to find women flighty, rapacious, self-seeking, cruel and lustful, but if women say such things about themselves, the matter is settled."

She talks frequently of the misogyny in the tales women holding other women in contempt.  We need to talk about this.  Let's consider Cinderella, which is probably the oldest of all the tales.

Traudee, we were posting at the same time this tonight.  As a feminist do you think Marina Warner is criticizing the way young girls were educated or trained in the past to behave in a way men thought they should be conditioned?

You asked a very good question, I think - 
What  message is Warner trying to impart to the reader?  Do you think she is trying to understand women's attitude towards other women...just as we are?

[straudetwo]

JoanP,

Well, in a way the tales did come directly from the mouths of the tellers in the oral tradition.  One particular source for the brothers Grimm is mentioned in the boo (have to look it up).  
The Grimms and Perrault  listened to, collected and wrote down the stories. It makes sense, don't you think?  How many girls went to school in rural areas of Europe in the 17 or 18 hundreds or learned to read and write ? They took care of home and hearth and children - who knows how many were abused or exploited and had reason for complaints?  

Marina Warner could hardly be critical, in retrospect, of the way girls were brought up then. That's how things were - even in my own life until 1967, when I joined AAUW (despite my husband's vociferous obections),    read Betty Friedan's eye-opening Feminine Mystique and experienced my own women's lib   .

When we came to Mass.,  there was no AAUW branch within easy reach,  so I decided to co-found a new branch here in our fair town  with  the help of a native daughter  then just returned after years in California.  It was a struggle but helped me over being homesick for Virginia.

We fought hard for the Equal Rights Amendment - which passed in Massachusetts but failed on the nationallevel. Those were heady years.  My daughter and her generation benefited from the advances that were made as a result of our activism and, sadly, take them for granted.   Still, there is no pay equity, yet. Moreover there has been a backlash, as expressed, for example,  in a book by Susan Faludi. But I digress...

Good night now.
More tomorrow.

[straudetwo]

Continued.

One of the Grimms' sources was Dorothea Viehmann, a "market woman", daughter of an innkeeper and wife of a tailor (see pictures and text on pg. 189).
"Marktfrau" (plural Marktfrauen) was the name of the wives and/or daughters of farmers who sold farm products on market day.

There are more intriguing, erudite references in  the chapterConclusion,  where
Warner mentions Salman Rushdie,  Satanic Verses, The Arabian Nights, the Ramayana, and the Koran. (See the first two full paragraphs on page 412).

In paragraph 3 she comtinues:

The story itself becomes the weapon of the weapoinless. The struggles of women, for example, are not resolved by combat, on the whole (one or two Amazon heroines excepted), as the contests of men may be in heroic epic; when they need to undo error or redeem wrongdoing, or defend the innocent, they  (the women - my addition) raise their voices, if only in a conspiratorial whisper - hence the suspicion of women's talk that haunts the whole history of the old= wives' tale.
Women's arts within the fairy tales are very marked,  and mot of them are verbal : riddling, casting spells, conjuring, understanding the tongue of animals, turning words into deeds according to the elementary laws of magic, sometimes to comic effect.   Whereas saints, knights and fairy tale heroes assault the beast with weapons -- Perseus with the sea monster,  Theseus and the Minotaur, St. George and the Dragon, Jack the Giantkiller, Tom Thumb and the ogre -- women in fairy tales align themselves with the Odyssean party of wily speechmakers, and with the Orphic mode of entrancement. In this they simply extend the practice of storytellers themselves. Emphasis mine.

... "weapon of the weaponless" ..." - That's powerful.

[JoanP]

"weapon of the weaponless"

Yes it is  - very powerful, Traudee.  This paragraph from which you are quoting is found deep into the book - and further explains some of the points Warner makes in the Introduction to the book.  I've been thinking of your recent posts, yours and Jude's, and wondering how a feminist could possibly veiw "Cinderella"  as anything but an attack on women.  Reading the introduction and considering the fairy tale as a "weapon of the weaponless" sheds light on how Warner these stories to which she has dedicated so much of her time and research.  Here are some of the points she made in the Introduction -

* Charles Perrault was a pioneer in disseminating fairy tales, but at the time he was writing them, there were 20 other writers, over half of them were women.  (The others were lost, his survived.)

*Writers in 17th century France intended the  fairy tales for an adult audience. Fairy tales were the television and the pornography of their day.

*Feminists in 1970 found Cinderella's story an oppressor's script for  female domestication - the prince's castle a girl's ultimate goal.

*Warner: "I have become even more drawn to them as I have grown older.  There is nothing in the least childlike abut fairy tales, and this, together with the suspect whiff of femininity hanging around them, attracted me to study them."

* Warner finds that evidence of conditions from past social and economic arrangements coexists in the tales with the narrator's innovation.

* The slant is towards the tribulation of women...especially those of marriageable age.

*Prejudices are against old women especially - they are the mouthpiece of homespun wisdom.  

*These are "stories of staying power because the meanings they generate are magical shape-shifters dancing to the needs of the audience."

*Contempt for women - an opportunity for them to exercise their wit and commemorate their ideas.

I'm think I'm beginning to understand what Warner is saying about  female tellers.  They were better able  to portray the conditions under which women had to endure than the men who heard the tales from them.  Male writers, when they heard the stories from the female tellers missed the underlying message - and slanted the tales towards their immoral behaviour.  They failed to understand what they saw as  the hatred between women as part of the social and economic conditions -   These issues were not evidenced in the men's retelling of the tales.

I'm really curious to hear what you think about Warner, feminism and the men who wrote the women's oral tales.

[JoanP]

By the way, I've been meaning to ask you if you'd noticed the appearance of Cinderella's two stepsisters in the different versions of the story.  I was struck with this fact first when reading the Grimms'   version of the story -

"The stepmother already had two daughters by her first husband. They were beautiful to look at, but in their hearts they were proud, arrogant, and evil. "

 

 When did the stepsisters become beautiful?  Or a better question - when did they become ugly?  Looking back to Perrault's version, there is no mention of beauty - except for the beautiful clothes that they wore to the ball.  What is your mental picture of these sisters?  When did they go from beautiful to downright ugly and homely?  Did Disney do that?
Does the fact that the sisters were beautiful, or at least not homely, change the story in any way for you?

[roshanarose]

I delved deep into Warner's book last night, in particular, the Cinderella story.  It reminded me of the instances in my life when I have found myself in a feminine hierarchy.  These unpleasant experiences stay with me.  I also remember our (male) boss asking "Why can't you women just get along?"  I took him aside and told him that imo it was all about power (or lack of it).  He looked bemused, missing my point.  It was almost as if his appointment was of the Sultan in the harem.  He had been deliberately chosen as boss (by the all male panel of gods) because of his complete lack of understanding of women.  And of course, because he was a man.  The three female bosses I have had were all fantastic.  Lots of complexity in our relationships in fields regarding degrees of power.

In India (generalisation alert)when a young wife joins her husband's family, she is treated as the lowest of the low by the other women and given the most menial tasks.  I suspect that this not only happens in Third World countries.  Then when that young wife becomes the mother-in-law the cycle begins again.  Is this also about power?  Tradition?  Getting even?  What do you think?

[straudetwo]

As I said, I turned to the last chapter of the book, titled "Conclusion".  
There were more references but no "message".  But I will read that last chapter (pp. 409-418) again, carefully.

On the other hand, I am not certain w'e'll find an answer by examining more fairy tales.  But to explore some of the tellers in Part I of the book, e.g. Saint Margaret, Saint Anne and the Queen of Sheba, might have been interesting.  

The divergent versions of specific fairy tales are easily explained, as the author has done, by saying that  different listeners and audiences produced a different tradition.

What other message did Warner ntend to give ?  That women have always been victims or downtrodden -- as, indeed,  millions of women still are??


[/i]

[ursamajor]

The most cowed woman I ever met was born in Taiwan and was married to a talented physicist.  She had been educated in this country.  After I knew her for a while I found that she had cared for her mother-in-law for several years during the MIL's last illness.  This woman would actually slink out of the room if there was any unpleasantness; she was like an abused dog.  I am certain that she was abused by the MIL, probably even physically.  I don't think this is unusual in Chinese cultures where the daughter-in-law is sometimes treated like a slave.

[straudetwo]

Ursa, exactly!  These are the realities.  

Not all of us   are aware, unless  or until we come across a blatant example that gives us pause.  Even when we are aware, there's little a best-intentioned  ordinary person is able to do in the face of centuries-old traditions -  as abominable and unfathomable as they seem to us.  
There's be more to say about this,  but off topic of course ,,,


 

[JoanP]

No, Traudee, that's very interesting, perhaps not that far off topic as you fear.  Please  continue...

Roshanarose, you've given us some food for thought. Is Cinderella's maltreatment about power? Tradition? Getting even?"
Perhaps all three? Power definitely.  The stepmother has her two daughters to look after, and now finds herself with another to look after, another daughter in need of a dowry or she will never find a husband.

 The real puzzle to me- where's DAD?  He seems to have disappeared - once he married and found a new mother for his daughter.  Maybe that's how stepmother is getting even with her new husband?  Have you noticed that fathers are more often than not, missing in these stories?  Has that been explained?

Tradition? - well, if the new arrival is low man on the totem pole, given the most menial tasks, then you're describing Cinderella's situation in this house.  I agree, this is an extreme example.  The women  have turned her into a slave!  Just as Ursamajor describes -  in Chinese cultures where the daughter-in-law is sometimes  is treated like a slave.
Looking over tale of   Yeh-Chen - the 9th century Chinese Cinderella  again, I've just noticed this comment:
"The stepmother didn’t like Yeh-Shen for she was more beautiful and kinder than her own daughter so she treated her poorly. Yeh-Shen was given the worst job." (So way back then, beauty was an issue.  But the other daughter is never described as homely.

[JoanP]

Traudee asks - what other message does Warner intend to convey as  women have always been downtrodden.

Jude asked earlier - "if women collected the tales and men wrote them down what messages, or meta messages, were they trying to convey to their readers ?"

My own question is about the  message do these story tellers intend to give to their audience? So far we have looked closely at two of the oldest tales - and in different time periods, different centuries.  Do the messages change with time?  What message do you think a young girl takes from the Cinderella story in our time?

[JoanP]

I still don't have it straight in my mind about the sources of the tales...and the intended audience.  We hear about the women, spinning the tales, weaving the yarn as they worked,  but to whom?  To one another?  Certainly some of these tales were not for children's ears, or were they?

And talk about the message of the tale changing with time, we hadn't seen anything like we see in The Sleeping Beauty transformation!  What do you remember about this tale - and what was the message?

Do you remember anything bawdy - or erotic about the story? 
This version of Sleeping Beauty was written down in Italy - not too long before Charles Perrault wrote down what he heard.  According to Warner, Basile was Perrault's source...
Take a deep breath - I'm not sure you are ready for this - I know I wasn't!

Giambatista  Basile's Sleeping Beauty - (The Sun, the Moon and Talia)1657

[straudetwo]

Somehow I do not believe the fairy tellers in medieval Europe had a specific "message" to impart. Nor did they intend to collect them (how? where?)

Life in rural areas of medieval Europe was often grim.  Incessant wars brought devastation and decimated the population,  especially the 30th Years' War from 1618 to 1648, when marauding troops criss-crossed central and eastern Europe  from Sweden to the Alps.  
Those storytellers focused, I believe, on their own chores, their hard lives, their place at the bottom of the pyramid,  thatwas  the feudal system in Europe, when  kings, dukes and barons and such like were the lords.

Girls had to  take up their end of the bargain from an early age; as women they were often un- or underappreciated.  When there wasn't a major war going on, there were local skirmishes  and, to create more misery,  outbreaks e of the plague and cholera in different parts of the continent.

It is easy to imagine how back in those days girls might have gathered  in secret  and talked by candlelight  about the latest troubles that had befallen them or about the master;  and how word of mouth became gossip and engendered rumors.

At one point, as we saw,  Warner talks of the fair tales as "cautionary tales" - and they might well have been that,  e.g. beware of the big bad wolf in the forest.  (And the woods were deep, dark, mysterious and scary --- before acid rain in the 20th century destroyed large parts of them).   I believe the tales had their root in shared experiences based on the same social and ecibomic background.

What do girls make of these tales today?  Do they regard them as warnings?  Do they still read them, even?

From what I see in my granddaughter, who's 11, I think not. Youth today take their idols from show business "celebrities",  sometimes  even emulating their most deplorable excesses.

But my question is   if  there is a conclusion to be drawn by the reader,  if Warner had a defined purpose for writing  this huge, enriching, entertaining book, a purpose that eludes us.

[JudeS]

Joan P:
I was certainly not ready for these versions of the Fairy Tale.  I am shocked that the stories were so openly sexual and cannabilistic.  These are not the white washed versions I read as a child and far away from the Disney movies.These are the XXX rated versions.Guess they were the soap operas of their day.  Wow!

Need time to think about this.

[straudetwo]

Jude,  my sentiments exactly.  Never before have I given a thought to the erotic angle in f fairy tales.

Thank you, JoanP, for linking Giambattista Basile's version of Sleeping Beauty = The Sun, Moon and Talia.  I never heard it  or of rivalry between a queen and a second unacknowledged wife.  In this connection it is  funny how the Prince's "encounter" with the comatose Talia was genteelly semi-disguised.    

This is hardly the stuff one would tell children.  Which makes me think that adult tellers possibly concocted spicier variations for their own amusement.  Suum cuique. To each his own.

[ursamajor]

One has to remember that there was no TV and no books.  These tales were all the entertainment people had.  When these were told around the fire or outside in the twilight I'm sure the bawdy versions were appreciated by adults.  It was only in Victorian times that fairy tales came to be thought as children's fare.

I have been thinking about what these tales have to say to modern children, and I think very little.  We must recognize how much a child's world has changed since we were young.  If we saw an occasional movie we were lucky.  Some of the cautionary tales still have meaning; LRRH still warns of the danger of taking up with strangers and wolves abound on the internet.  I can't see that Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast have much to say to modern girls.

We have not discussed any of the boys' tales, like the various adventures of Jack and the stories of the three brothers who go to seek their fortunes.  Neither have we discussed any of the stories in which the hero is disguised as a frog, bear or other creature.  Maybe these haven't been written about because they don't lend themselves to Freudian interpretation so readily as the girls' stories. I wonder if these stories still interest boys?

Then there are the Tales of King Arthur.  These seem to be perennially of interest to adults.  I can think of at least five interpretations of the main story that have been published in the last few years, including a truly modern one in which after Guinevere is accused of dallying with Launcelot Arthur says to her "How awful for you, Gwen!"

[JoanP]

"It was only in Victorian times that fairy tales came to be thought as children's fare." Ursa
A good point and it leads to another question - how do today's children look at fairy tales - at Sleeping Beauty, for example?  Another question -has your appreciation for these old tales changed at all since we began this discussion?  Or has your pleasure been crushed?  (Sincerely hope not!)

Traudee asks about  Marina Warner's purpose in writing this huge work on fairy tales and their tellers?  Other than to entertain her readers, that is.  I've been thinking about the reasons we decided (voted) to talk about fairy tales this summer.  Some of the reasons expressed during the voting period - light, fun summer reading.  We remembered enjoying fairy tales, daydreaming, the possibilities they suggested.
(I'm somewhat fearful that reading of the dark underpinnings of the tales (think of Sleeping Beauty now) will spoil the feel-good feelings about them that we had as children.  Can we ever think about them as innocent nursery tales again after this?)

Traudee, I went back again last night and reread Warner's Introduction  closely to learn of her intended purpose in writing this book.

She begins  by saying how she enjoyed fairy tales as a child - she regarded them as nourishment.  They seemed to offer the possibility of change - going beyond established boundaries.As she grew older, she continued to be attracted to the capacity for daydreaming and wonder.

Does this say something to you about the motivations of  early storytellers, women, working together at their monotonous tasks, spinning, weaving...spilling the facts of their woeful existence - taking them beyond the boundaries, into a better life - with a happy ending?  One way to deal with the present.

Warner writes that she began investigating the meaning, but "soon found it was essential to look at the context in which they were told, at who was telling them, to whom and why."

She writes that the stories have staying power because the meanings they generate are themselves "magical shape-shifters, dancing to the needs of their audience."  

Do you agree with her?  Right now I'm weighing the early tales on which Sleeping Beauty was based with the modern version of Sleeping Beauty and the chaste kiss of the handsome prince that brings Beauty to life- struggling to look at it (the modern story) through the eyes of my granddaughter.   Will have to talk to her about it this weekend - and ask her what she thinks of the story.  After having read the early version, I have to admit the cleaned up version seems very bland -

[JoanP]

Ursa - in her introduction,  Warner also explains that she decided to start with Charles Perrault because his tales published in 1687 were some of the best known and loved in the world.  She goes on to say that this choice meant she would be focussing on fairy tales with family dramas at heart, rather than the jests and riddles, animal fables and proverbial tales often described under the catch-all name of fairy tale."

Since we are only at the half way mark in this discussion, perhaps you would like to suggest some of the tales of interest to boys?  We  should get into the matter of "blondness" - but I have no problem leaving the final week to you all - and the tales you would like to investigate together while we are gathered here.

[JoanP]

Back to Perrault - and his version of Sleeping Beauty.  I was quite surprised to find that the elements from Basile's version remained in Perrault's.  Not only the cannibalism, murder (attempted), adultery, rape - but Perrault seems to treat the whole affair with humor.  I haven't had a chance to check to see whose version Andrew Lang selected for  his fairy book - was it the blue one?  (I'll bet you that it was Grimms'. )
Perrault intended his stories to amuse the adults at court, in the salons, but his tales, according to Warner, are the most loved by children the world over.  Is this another example of how children only see what they are ready to see?

Jude, now that you have had time to sleep on Basile's version, I'm curious to hear what you thought of the little moral Basile tacked on the end of his tale:

Those whom fortune favors
Find good luck even in their sleep.

What does he mean to say?  It will be interesting to compare Perrault's moral at the end of his version to Basile's:

Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty in the Wood  1697

[JudeS]

Here are some of my thoughts:

THOSE WHO FORTUNE FAVORS
FIND LUCK EVEN IN THEIR SLEEP.

This is to give hope to those whose lives are hopeless.  Perhaps those who have been raped will come to believe that their Prince will come and help support them in their mean poverty and misery.  Instead of thinking miserable thoughts they can dream of good things to come and sleep more easily.

In all these horrible versions it seems that the "good" people win out over the evil ones even though they must go through many years of suffering. In all the stories there are characters whose goodness help saved the endangered damsel.  Sometimes it is a fairy Godmother or a cook or a loyal servant who dare to see the evil and not be overwhelmed by it.  They do something, however small, to help the good person be saved from the evil one, be she Queen or Stepmother.

Another point seems strange.  We have as yet, not read of evil men per se. Only evil wolves and animals.  Are there fairy tales in which men are the perpetrators of the evil from the beginning of the story? Only Jack and the Beanstalk come to mind.

Lots to ponder.

[JoanP]

Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty in the Wood  1697 is more like the one I remember as a child...the christening, the seven invited fairy godmothers, bearing gifts for the princess.  Then the appearance of the aged fairy that no one thought to invite and her curse that Beauty would prick her finger while spinning - which caused her to sleep for 100 years.

No rape, no adultery - the prince and princess were married by a chaplain the very night he found her sleeping in the palace. 
The Princess's Mother-in-law is still there - an Ogress who wants to eat her grandchildren.
Their names, similar to   Basile's version (Sun and Moon) - are "Dawn" and "Day"
Do you know that Disney named Sleeping Beauty "Aurora"?

It turned out that the Mother-in-law also planned to eat Beauty...who is now the queen.  Perrault has injected
humor into several places in the tale. I liked this one:

"The young queen was twenty years old, without counting the hundred years she had been asleep. Her skin, though white and beautiful, had become a little tough"

I don't suppose this version  was too gruesome to read to children - after all, the Ogress did not actually eat the children or their mother. In Red Riding Hood, that old wolf actually swallowed Red Riding Hood and her granny!

Jude is right, "we have not read of evil men per se. Only evil wolves and animals."  Of course the king in Basile's version of Sleeping Beauty comes close, do you agree?  Is it because the written tales that we have in translation - come from Perrault - who collected tales from female narrators, who spoke of the tribulations of women? But the males who cause their misery - are mostly absent.
 Shall we look in Andrew Lang's collection for tales of evil men?  Hans Christian Anderson?

[JoanP]

THOSE WHO FORTUNE FAVORS
FIND LUCK EVEN IN THEIR SLEEP.

Jude   sees consolation for those who have lost  in this moral Basile has attached to the end of his story.  I suppose that one can always hope that LUCK will get them through hard time.  To me, it seems "chancey."  That poor girl, lying there asleep and vulnerable to the King's advances - and then left without a thought.  She is not visited by Lady Luck as she slept.  But wait, there's more!  She's pregnant - two beautiful babies...and the king marries her after all. 
Is this supposed to be amusing to the reader?  I guess it is, it's so over the top!

What  do you think of Perrault's moral?  He seems to have ignored Basile's altogether...

Many a girl has waited long
For a husband brave or strong;
But I'm sure I never met
Any sort of woman yet
Who could wait a hundred years,
Free from fretting, free from fears.
Now, our story seems to show
That a century or so,
Late or early, matters not;
True love comes by fairy-lot.
Some old folk will even say
It grows better by delay.
Yet this good advice, I fear,
Helps us neither there nor here.
Though philosophers may prate
How much wiser 'tis to wait,
Maids will be a-sighing still --
Young blood must when young blood will!

[JudeS]

In my search for evil male figures I read chapters 15 & 16 of Warner''s book. They deal with the stories of Bluebeard which I had heard of but never really read before.  The book states that ti was written by Perrault and based on actual serial killer whose victims were his many wives.  There is not much magic in this tale.  It's almost pure slasher story except for the key which won't give up its blood.

I find it hard to put this story in with fairy tales for children. It too can be seen as a cautionary tale for women and their mothers about being careful of who you marry.

The next chapter deals with Beauty and the Beast.  However in this story it is obvious that one should not judge the book by its cover but by what it contains within.Warner goes on about this theme and she says(page318) :"The Beast,formerly
the stigmatizing envelope of the fallen male, has become a badge of the salvation he offers. ..........she tends to personify female erotic pleasure in matching and mastering a man who is dark and hairy, rough and wild....."

Disney made a fortune on this story but livened it up with talking teapots, singing brooms etc.  Obviously he knew what story the folks wanted to see.

However when I think of fairy tales I don't think of either Bluebeard or Beauty and the Beast. What do others think of these stories?

   

[JoanP]

Ursamajor mentioned the absence of tales about little boys and now you are hunting down tales with evil men in place of evil stepmothers and witches, Jude. Isn't it odd that we have to hunt so hard.  Do you think that it's because the genre, fairy tales, originated by women for women? For the most part?  I'm trying to envision the men who listened to the tales in the salons during Perrault's time.  Were they taken with the story of Sleeping Beauty?  How do you think they reacted to this tale?  I don't know, they seem to me to be tales that would appeal to women, not necessarily men.

What about the tales of King Arthur that Ursa mentioned - would they fit the description of fairy tales?  Consider Perceforest -"the earliest known version of the Sleeping Beauty theme "- I'd say that Troilus fits the description of an evil male as he rapes the sleeping Zellandine...

An episode contained in Perceforest, the “Histoire de Troïlus et de Zellandine,” (Book III, chapter lii) is the earliest known version of the Sleeping Beauty theme, though here Troilus rapes Zellandine in her deep coma, and she delivers the child without waking. According to the Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, "it was read in France, and in northern Germany was performed as a pre-Lenten Shrove Tuesday drama in the mid-1400s." Charles IX of France was especially fond of this romance: four volumes of Perceforest were added to the Royal library at Blois sometime between 1518 and 1544, and were shelved with the Arthurian romances Perceforest 1528

Jude, I don't think I've ever read Bluebeard, though I know the story...surely Bluebeard as a serial killer, fits the description of the evil male.   So does the  Beast  as the Fallen Male - but he's reformed.  Women would go for that.

Would you like to look at these two tales  more closely to see if they fit a definition of a "Fairy Tale"?  We need input from the others.  I know that children are taken with the story of Beauty and the Beast - but can't see Disney touching Bluebeard with a ten foot pole!

But is that part of the definition of a fairy tale?  A story suitable for children?  We're back again to that question of what is a fairy tale?  Are we seeing that fairy tales are magical tales of the fantastic - that capture the imagination, take the reader or the listener beyond the boundaries of what is real - suggesting other possibllities?  Do we all need fairy tales, young or old? 

Having said that, the next question seems to be -  - do we all need Bluebeard?   I've never read it - have you?  If I did, I don't remember now.
 Let's at least read it  so we know what's there.

Perrault's Barbe Bleu

[marcie]

I don't remember if I read Bluebeard as a child. I must have, as part of one of the many collections of fairy tales I read.

Since the young wife is saved and avenged, it does seem to me that this is a fairy tale with an appropriate fairy tale ending. She uses her new wealth to help her family and find a new, worthy husband.

I found an interesting article about some possible meanings in Bluebeard. The article is about a 2010 French film based on the fairy tale. The actress who plays the young wife looks quite young. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/movies/28bluebeard.html

I was wondering what significance the "blue beard" might have. In "The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales" by Maria Tatar, she says "The blue in his beard tips the reader off to his exotic, otherworldly nature." In a footnote to "Bluebeard" she says: "Beards were not fashionable in Perrault's time, and Bluebeard's monstrous growth of a shadowy color marked him as an outsider and libertine. The exotic beard inspired a number of interpretations that cast Bluebeard in the role of oriental tyrant. Edmund Dulac's illustrations set the take in the Orient, with Bluebeard sporting a turban while his wife lounges with other women in what appears to be a harem. Many authors who took up the story set the tale in the East and gave the wife the name Fatima."

FYI. There is a sample chapter of Maria Tatar's 2004 book, "Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives," at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7894.html

[JoanR]

In trying to think of fairy tales casting men as the villains, my first choice was "Donkeyskin' in which a dying queen makes the king promise to wed someone as beautiful as herself.  He promses and, upon the death of the queen, seeks the hand in marriage of his beautiful  daughter.  She escapes of course.  Marina Warner has quite a lot to say about this tale - a whole chapter is devoted to it and its spin-offs. Basile collected this tale, calling his story "L'Orsa" which means "she-bear" - the heroine escapes her father's attentions by assuming the form of a bear.  "Donkeyskin" was Perrault's version.

There is a similar tale, "Catskin" in which the heroine also flees from marriage with an incestuous father.

Then there is "The Robber Bridegroom" which is pretty gruesome involving cannibalism.  No incest here - merely a murderous and cannibalistic bridegroom! 

"Allerleirauh" is the Grimms' version of Catskin - she flees her father into a forest where she makes her home in a hollow tree.  The  king's huntsmen's dogs find her and she is taken to slave in the castle kitchen and as in Cinderella, all ends happily in the end.,

So, although not as numerous as the wicked witches and stepmothers, there are indeed some villainous men to be found in fairy tales!

[JudeS]

Marcie :
Thank you for that chapter of Tatar's book on Bluebeard.  I read it through and then went to the PDF version.  Some really gruesome illustrations from the story were included in that version.  Not for children or most adults either.

I liked the authors take on the story."A tale that focuses on marriage and the friction when one party has something to hide and the other wants to know too much."  She goes into a song and dance about the meaning of women's curiosity and the male attitude to this personality trait.

Two other remarks of Tatars that I found interesting were : "It was a set up.  By giving her the magic key he invited her to find the seven dead bodies."
The other remark was this:"The Blue Beard is a symbol of the exotic outsider, a libertine and a ruffian."

All in all , in my opinion, this is not a Fairy Tale but an adult tale with much power and meaning. Very sexual in all its allusions.
Perhaps its meta meaning is the most powerful element.  Now different people may find different messages underlying it all but the fact that it is open to so many different interpretations makes it a powerful and lasting piece of literature.

[ursamajor]

I agree that Bluebeard is not a fairytale for children.  But it is surely one of the stories that were told around the fireplace.  I think in some ways we might think of fairytales as the predecessor of TV.  What sells on TV?  Right.  Sex and violence.  Bluebeard and some of the other tales we have looked at surely qualify on these points.

  It is hard for us to imagine a world with no electricity and no entertainment other than what the folks in the family/ community could come up with.  A good storyteller was a valuable member of the community.  Bluebeard surely qualifies as entertaining drama.  I don't remember where I encountered it but I remember the delightful frisson evoked by "Sister Anne, Sister Anne!  Is anybody coming?" repeated over and over.  You knew the monster was coming......

[JoanP]

 "But it is surely one of the stories that were told around the fireplace." (Ursa)  One of those tales told around the fireplace - yes, but after the children had gone to bed. Although today's children might see and hear as much violence on the TV and some of those video games!
 I can also imagine the women at work, at the spinning wheels, or doing other monotonous work together, spinning these tales, making them more  gory and bloody, with each telling, just to make the time go by.  "Each telling of the story seems to recharge its power, making it crackle and hiss with renewed narrative energy"  Isn't that what the fairy tales were all about - lifting one out of the monotony of everyday into a different world of possibilities? Magic!  Although I'm not sure what exactly what the magic was here - perhaps that key?  Or the happy ending?
Ursa, I can see the tale dramatized as you describe it, though I've never really seen a Bluebeard production.  Lots of opportunity for sex and violence!  Do these productions always end happily?  Do the brothers arrive just in time to save the damsel?  
 
Jude, thanks for bringing up Tatar's view of the story - it was a "set up" wasn't it?  But a set up that makes no real sense.  What else could the Blue bearded one have expected of his beautiful, but very young wife?  He knew she'd fail the test.  But he'd waited so long for a wife to share his riches - and this one was all he could hope for.
Can't you see the delight of the women as they sat at their spinning, telling this story?
 I see the story as another example of the poor sad lot  women faced in the past at the hands of their domineering husbands - and yet somehow they managed  to come up with a happy ending in which the woman triumphed. Isn't this a happily-ever-after fairy tale after all?

Out of curiosity, I thought I'd look at the Brothers Grimm - they seem to have written their versions of the old tales with children in mind, don't you think?
Brothers Grimm - Bluebeard - illustrated, for children

Well, what did you think?  Lovely illustrations - and a happy ending too!

Bluebeard's poor wives were given a Christian burial, the castle was completely renovated and the young widow, some time later, married a good and honest young man, who helped her to forget the terrible adventure. And that young lady completely lost all her sense of curiosity... 

[JoanP]

Marcie, what a valuable find! thank you so much for bringing the Tatar reference to our attention!   Makes me wish that we had used IT as our source book!  I hope everyone finds a few minutes to read through it...

I'm running late right now, but will include a link to it in the heading when I get back in...we need to hear more from Tatar!

JoanR, you have an eye for finding evil men!  Will look into them when I get back this afternoon too...

 "such a fundamentally black story. In all the other fairy tales the ogre is an ogre; he’s a monster. ‘Bluebeard’ is so very dark because in the end the ogre isn’t an ogre. He’s a man.”

 (From the New York times movie review Marcie posted  -)

[marcie]

It's interesting that even in the "happy" retelling of the Bluebeard story by the brothers Grimm, they end the story with the sentence "And that young lady completely lost all her sense of curiosity... " I'm wondering if the word "curiosity" had a different connotation in earlier times.

[Ella Gibbons]

You are all discussing Bluebeard.  One story I never encountered when I was young or reading to my children.  It never came up, until the one, the ONLY,  vacation I got my husband to go on.  He hated flying, wouldn't fly, but I got him on a week's trip to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands where we rented an apartment, lovely, and with that came a car.  But you had to drive on the opposide of the road, like in Europe.  Well, that did not go over well with my husband.  He tried one time to get to BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE which was on a hilltop and we got lost and was he perturbed.  We finally picked up a native fellow who stayed with us until we arrived at the restaurant, but, of course, I thought the whole experience funny.   I offered to drive which brought more (expletives) from my dear husband!!!! 

http://www.bluebeards-castle.com/