TELLING FAIRY TALES
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

Query: How many of you tell fairy tales - that is, Brothers Grimm stories or stories with magic in them along the lines of X has to do Y and gets help from Z so he can marry 1 (or Z!). Are fairy tales hard to tell? Has anyone ever been corrected in a fairy tale by a kid? Just curious because I've bene looking at Kay Stone's work with Grimms tellers in Canada.
Wendy W. 10/29/05
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Response: I'm and eclectic teller, a wide variety of stories, and tell some stories with magic in them. None exactly of that formula though. Tonight I will be a Wizard telling such stories at a Halloween campfire. I tell fun Halloween stories, none that will frighten the kids, but do have all the right elements in them. I do have some frightening stories for adults but NEVER with kids. I personally don't believe you have to frighten kids to tell good Halloween stories.
Bob S. 10/29/05
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Response: I tell fairy tales, and usually stick to the original narrative as much as I can. The only time I've been "corrected" is when I was teaching, and was telling the same tale several times (on different days). If I deviated, even in the wording, the children would correct me! But when I'm telling a fairy tale to listeners that I haven't told to before, I never get corrected on anything.
Judith W. 10/29/05
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Response: As a folklorist, I always tell folktales. Never had a problem with 'em, except for having to shelve more adult ones when someone brings a kid to an "adults only" telling!
Jo S. 10/29/05
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Response: Which "more adult" ones can you think of? Do you ever find that the adults are more shocked than the kids? The Narrative Arts Club is interested in providing a forum for storytelling for adults.
Coilin 10/20/05
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Response: They were hard for me to tell when I started performing - mainly because I didn't like them myself! I think this went back to being frightened by the Arthur Rackham illustrations as a young child (interesting to read that Bettelheim never used pictures when telling to young children in his clinical work). That experience put me off fairytales as a child and an adult. So when I began telling folk tales I kept away from that genre. My rediscovery of fairytales was just one of the many things I have to thank this listserv for. Now, usually in the second half of a performance, I love telling these deep powerful tales to adults.
Richard M. 10/29/05
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Response: I do, but not as often as I would like to. In my storytelling classes in Ithaca College, a few students took on traditional, romantic fairytales for their 'folktale' assignment -- and the rest of the undergraduates really liked them. I think they identified with that 'making your own way in the world' theme that is big in many fairytales. I also think they were surprised at how much they liked them.
Lee-Ellen M. 10/30/05
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Response: I love to tell fairy tales. I was astonished this year when working in class with dramatized fairy tales (I teach high school drama) that many of my students do not know fairy tales I thought were commonly known. To make up for it, we have just begun "Story Fridays," where I tell a different fairytale at the end of the hour on Friday. I have them on Fridays twice a month. They will be doing a unit on storytelling when they will tell stories after the holiday, but a lot of them did not know "Rapunzel," "Rumpelstiltskin," "Three Billy Goats Gruff," or "The Princess and the Pea."
Sue G. 10/30/05
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Response: I also tell fairy tales. I have also found, that when I tell them to adults as well, they are just as enamored. Some have made comments such as, "It has been way too long since someone has told me a story."

I agree with Sue, so many children today don't know the old fairytales. When I had just begun to storytell in 2000 I was visiting a school twice a month, telling stories for free to five-first grade classes. I had written a personal story, Pea Soup, and thought I would first tell The Princess and the Pea before my own tale. I hesitated at first, thinking that they would all know the story, but out of five classes, with approximately 25 children each, not one child had ever heard the tale. I was completely shocked.

Too many children only know the Disneyfied version of fairytales so I particularly love to share variants of Cinderella. They are always amazed that their is more than "one" Cinderella and it broadens their world and interest in other cultures. Through the years, my student tellers have also picked fairytales to share, Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin, Diamond and Toads, to name a few.

I had a deep love for fairytales when I was a child, so maybe that is why I love to share them today.
Karen C. 10/30/05
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Response: I started my telling with Grimm's. I had no problem doing so. Now, the telling of Ashenputtel has been interesting! My boys have been raised on classic horror, modern horror, Halloween, and they shuddered and blanched at the sisters cutting off parts of their feet! And one of the heads of the local Ren Faire asked my to not tell the part of the birds pecking out the sisters eyes.
Margaret S. 10/30/05
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Response: Wow! I'm glad you are telling the tales, then. I also notice many students don't know those stories, or Bible stories either.
Mary G. 10/30/05
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Response: When I first started as a school librarian in 1967, the children themselves were against fairy tales and fantasy. They would hoot and holler if I brought in a magic elf or mentioned golden touches or even talking pigs. I think I was experiencing an era, the end of an era, of parents' need to be literal and factual. Shortly after that, the college kids discovered Winnie the Pooh, and then the high school kids began picking up on fantasy. By 1977, fantasy was on school reading lists, and the elementary kids were enthralled with fairy tale. Such a change! I could share any of the traditional tales and read the newly minted picture books by San Souci, Kimmel, and others who were retelling the old tales.

How is it that the primary kids are not being exposed to the traditional Grimm, Perrault, Asbjornsen collections in this country? The nursery rhymes, too, Humpty Dumpty, et al., have not been on any school curricula that I know of except for two. Waldorf Schools use the traditional tales and rhymes and so does the Core Knowledge curriculum which any teacher or school can get and use.

Core Knowledge is on the web at www.coreknowledge.org. It's designed to fit in with the regular curriculum, and covers all the basic subjects. It extends and enriches what's there, while emphasizing some less well-worked areas, such as world history and geography, from pre-K to eighth grade. You can see a summary of the Core Knowledge Sequence at
http://www.coreknowledge.org/CK/about/sequence_glance.htm

By using this curriculum in a whole school, teachers won't repeat topics and books other teachers have taught, and students have a richer experience. It's particularly valuable for schools where students don't get a varied intellectual life at home.
Joan K. 10/30/05
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Response: Not too astonishing - this has been the case for 40 years or more - roughly since the time when almost every family acquired television. Twenty five years ago I was in a sight singing class where there were NO songs that everyone in the class knew except for "Happy Birthday." There was no common repertoire of folksongs, popular songs, or Christmas carols. None. And these were music majors.

Most people in the United States are entirely unacquainted with any common tradition of nursery rhymes, fairy tales or folk music. The common culture is almost entirely formed by televison (and the shows change every five to ten years), popular music (more rapid turnover) and the movies, which have an even shorter shelf life, by and large.

Those of us who grew up in the 50's were probably the last generation to be routinely exposed to Mother Goose, fairy tales, and singing - I mean the singing you do yourself, as opposed to listening to entertainers.

On the good side, any tale you choose to tell any audience is liable to be brand new to most of them....(assuming they're not storytelling aficianadoes).
Kimberley K. 10/30/05
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Response: Today's kids have lost a lot we take for granted. I have a character that is Drango's Grandpa. His name is Dickens Dragon and he was an author. Some of his books were "Oliver Bent", "Great Aspirations", and his most famous, "An Easter Carol" with Ebenezer Dragon. I probably don't need to explain these to those on the list but the kids today don't have a clue so I don't use the routines much anymore. I was trying to explain it to one kid, "You know Scrooge."
"No, who's that?"
"You don't know who Scrooge is?"
He thought a minute, then "Oh yeah, the duck guy!" (Scrooge McDuck)
Disney strikes again..
Bob S. 10/31/05
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Response: Great discussion. Yes, I do tell fairytales, mostly Grimm tales. My last CD was the unvarnished tales- including a lot of the original imagery with more violent and religious concepts.

I don't do that much telling of tales for children, but even when I do, they never correct me. Teens, as a whole, do not know enough tales to correct anything except to say, "That's not the way they did it in the movie" after the event.

Sometimes there is some discomfort with the more "earthy" elements of the tales, but I only tell those in situations where folks know that is what I am telling. Otherwise I will do a much more gentler version. For example in "Seven Ravens," I might have the little sister cut her finger on the door instead of cutting her finger off. It all depends. The more I tell the unvarnished tales, tho, the more I find I don't care for the gentler versions. I watched David Novak do his bandanna version of Little Red Riding hood this weekend. He was good but appeared a bit distracted. When the grandmother knows it is her turn to go hide in the closet, I thought, "Does that even make sense to me any more?"
Sean B. 10/31/05
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Response: Well, I do. Almost exclusively. For me, they're not hard to tell. The formulae of the story construction make them easy to remember (3 brothers, 3 colors, 3 tasks...) I've never been corrected in telling a fairy tale by a kid. of course, most of them have never heard any of the stories I tell, so what's to correct?

Hmmm. Maybe I should temper that last statement. A group who has heard a story multiple times will notice any slight change and comment on it. I wouldn't say correction, but question, "Last time you told it it didn't have..."
Kimberley K. 10/31/05
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Response: Definitely. It's an important part of our own culture & that of other lands that needs to be brought to as many as possible. If ever I have any doubts how little is known otherwise, I just recall the time a local tv station had a reading program where the kids were supposed to read in various categories, including Fairy Tales. That's when I realized that even the parents didn't know what a Fairy Tale was. One mother asked if Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit was a fairy tale!

If I want to tell a story & there's a Disney version or even a version that's fairly well known, but I'm telling a variant, I let my listeners know this will sound a bit familiar, but listen for the parts that are different. If fractured tales are being used, it pays to be sure the group knows the original or they won't catch the changes.

While we're talking about the "fairy tale", I prefer to call books in the Dewey Decimal Classification of "398s" "folk tales" even though Harry Potter has now made magical elements more popular. For too many, the term "Fairy Tale" conjures up tiny girls with wings & a magic wand. Not everybody cares for that type of story. In addition it's fun to expose groups to the Irish tales where fairies are nothing like that. Nations & ethnic groups have a folklore that can help us understand each other better. I like the comparison of a folktale to a stone smoothed by many people handling it over the years. If I recall correctly, Andrew Lang said this in an introduction to 1 if his many fairy tale anthologies that had a color in the title. (He also would label those sections for grown-ups only, saying it would make children fall asleep under its spell.) That folktales have been polished to their essentials by all the years of telling is why, when teaching storytelling, I suggest that people start out with short folktales.
LoiS S.K. 10/31/05
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Response: I tell some, Wendy. And yes, I've been corrected by kids who have heard a different version! My response is that every storyteller tells the story in their own way, and I am telling it my way. When they tell it, they can tell it the way they want to.

Ones I particularly like are Thousandfurs (a version of Like Meat Loves Salt), the Princess on the Glass Hill, The Twelve Swans, and the Gunniwolf.

I don't think they are hard to tell, but I do think a teller needs to have the audience's trust before beginning one of these. They have to be willing to go with you and to accept the magical elements. If the audience isn't at that place in their minds, the stories fall flat.

I think all of us have faced that little cynic in the front row who says "that isn't true" or "that couldn't really happen". I feel sorry for those kids because they've lost the ability to wonder. For them, I say gently, "this is a story. In stories, all kinds of things can happen and we get to enjoy those things."

Kids play video games with all sorts of violence and super-heroes and not question what they see. So explaining that a story is like a video game, with heroes and all kinds of exciting action that might not happen in real life helps those little cynics accept the stories more easily.
Granny Sue 11/1/05
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Response: My sister is a psychologist with three sons, and she is of the view that it is vital for children to be told stories about bad people doing bad things, because children need to learn that bad things do happen in the world. This makes intuitive sense to me, based on my own recollections of stories from childhood.
Coilin 11/1/05
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Response: I think this is so true. And it is MUCH better for children to hear about a wolf who disguises himself and knocks at their door pretending to be their mother, and had to try three times (maybe the real children should not let someone in on the third try, either!), then came in and ATE them, than to hear about all the awful things that could happen to them in the real world if they let a stranger in while their mother is out! The stories scare kids into good behavior before they can understand the real reasons. The "truth" scares the life out of ME and turns us all into people who are afraid to give and trust.
Mary Grace K 11/1/05
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Response: G.K. Chesterton touched on that: "The babe in the cradle knows about the dragon. He needs the stories to know about St. George."
Richard M. Dublin 11/1/05
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Response: My reply is always, "Of course it's true! A story can be true even if it didn't really happen." This is followed by comments about the fact that every story has some truth embedded in it, which you will hear if you listen for it.
Yvonne Y. 11/1/05
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Response: When the kids ask me if "that's a true story?" I counter with "Does it have a beginning? an ending? a high point in the middle?, then it's a true story. However, it may not be a story that is true."
Dale P. 11/1/05
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Response: It is interesting what they will and will not believe. On Saturday, a girl, maybe eight, who had been studying bats, said, "The bat wouldn't have run into the wall; they don't care if it's dark," but it's o.k. that they were talking. . . .

My friend Anne liked that I prefaced some of my Historical Haunting stories with , "This is one of my almost-really-could-have-happened-to-me stories."

and of course, all stories are true, and some actually happened.
Mary G. 11/1/05
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Response: If they ask if it's tru I answer: maybe. I don't know for sure, but it's definitely a story.
Dvora S. Israel 11/1/05
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Response: Absolutely. And it seems the grim Grimms are based on fact. So is Cinderella because so many mothers died in childbirth and father's remarried but didn't have money to support 2 families. So is Hansel and Gretel, in fact still true today.
Dvora S. Israel 11/1/05
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Response: It is interesting what they will and will not believe. On Saturday, a girl,---maybe eight, who had been studying bats, said, "The bat wouldn't have run into the wall; they don't care if it's dark," but it's o.k. that they were talking. . . .

I think the girl had a good grasp of the rules of the fairy tale: It is accepted that the anilals may SPEAK - this is often necessary to move STORY. But the animal must have at least the physical characteristics of the real animal. When pigs fly or dogs walk on two legs --- you are in a different genre.

To comment on the fact that the animals talked would be as foolish as to comment on the fact that the story was being told by a live storyteller, and not a television set. She happened to know something about batsand felt that the author should have been aware of it if she was.

Or maybe she was just showing off. We all like to have an opportunity to do that.
Lois T. Israel 11/1/05
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Response: I tell fairytales, among a broad diversity of stories. I find the Grimm's type some of the easiest to tell, because they are so well structured and generally so "light" that they flow very easily.

I like to modify them to suit my own tastes, just as the brothers Grimm selected and edited them according to theirs.

Most of my audiences have been mostly adults, and I've never tried telling a fairytale to children who might already know the story in question.

If a child "corrected" me, I might just humorously correct him or her right back! There's great room for satire in that! I could say: "Well, I know that was what the New York Times said, but I got my version from a German newspaper that said that wasn't the way it happened at all." Something for the older kids to chew on, perhaps?

Or it could be very interesting to ask the child to tell me what happened next, and then the next child, and then the next.

It could become a good game to get the audience to tell a story they know very well and interrupt them with irrelevant questions:
"But what about the elephant?"
"And what about the alarm clock?"
"Did he take the train or the bus?"
"An axe, or a chainsaw?"

As a clowning friend says, adults being stupid = funny.
Coilin 10/31/05
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Response: Yes, I have been corrected by children when telling a fairy tale that has been botched by Disney. Try telling that the Little Mermaid dies in the actual story! I know Anderson wrote them and therefore they are literary, but it is in the style of a fairy tale. Telling Beauty and the Beast can get a similar response, "What about chip the teacup?????" Chip, being a cutesy Disney invention is not needed in the actual story. I have no trouble telling fairy tales and some audiences adore them, but some, adults in particular, just can't enjoy anything that is not PC. Sad, as they are quite psychologically satisfying to many.
Cathryn F. 10/31/05
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Response: Thanks for this, Cathryn. Sorry to hear of your woes.
This kind of thing presents an interesting challenge, and maybe an excellent educational opportunity: Why not just tell the kids the truth about Chip? In the traditional story, Chip is nobody, and the Disney version is "a" version, but not "the" correct version of the story.

If that's too advanced for the children you're talking to, maybe you could start out by telling them the story of how Chip was walking across the street without looking, talking on his cellphone and eating freedom fries at the same time, when he got crushed by a big truck - KERRUNTTCHHHH! Everybody was sad for a while, but then they realised they would just have to get on with life, and although it was tough in the beginning, Beauty and the Beast soon discovered they could get on just fine without Chip!

Maybe you should encourage the children to make their own stories and to modify old stories to suit their tastes - just as folktales have always been modified as they passed from teller to teller.

My sister is a psychologist with three sons, and she is of the view that it is vital for children to be told stories about bad people doing bad things, because children need to learn that bad things do happen in the world. This makes intuitive sense to me, based on my own recollections of stories from childhood.

Also, I know from my own observation that children as young as six years old may have a great tolerance for gory stories, provided they feel secure with the teller.

And I think it's important that stories not be too moralistic, as there may be different ways of judging or understanding a character's actions. Some of the Grimm tales could be interpreted to have a moral that I disagree with - e.g. The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn - but I think that makes them interesting in a different way.

So where does that leave PC?

For myself, I certainly get great satisfaction out of stories about taboo topics.

I'd like the Narrative Arts Club to provide storytellers with an opportunity to tell all those great stories that "somebody" objects to because they break some kind of taboo. These are some of the most entertaining stories!
Coilin 10/31/05
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Response: Sounds like it is time, when we tell any story that has touched by Disney, that we are going to tell them the story that Mr. Disney to get the idea.

That goes for his tall tales, as well. Bought the only one that I have seen lately that wasn't totally rearranged was Pecos Bill, and they did some 'wrong' things with that one too.
Margaret S. 10/31/05
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Response: And there are many stories that Disney hasn't touched. Thank heavens!
Jo S. 10/31/05
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Response: Hmm. I remember a small girl of my acquaintance who balked when the storyteller (not me) mentioned that the mama bear was wearing an apron. "Bears don't wear clothes! They are WIYULD ANIMALS!" she rebuked him sternly. She had not balked at the fact that they lived in a house, or talked to little girls....

The storyteller was nothing if not adaptable. "You're right! I don't know what I was thinking!" he told her with a twinkle in his eye....

Added response: Not me. I always say, with the utmost conviction, "ALL of the stories that I tell are true." WhenI get "the look" - you know the look - I tell them, "Dreams are real, right?" They say yes. And I ask, "But are they real the same way this table is real?" No. "Well, stories are real the same way dreams are real...." No one has ever questioned this line of reasoning....
Kimberley K. 11/2/05
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Response: I LOVE fairy tales, and I interpret the term broadly to include any story that begins "Once upon a time..." and ends "and they lived happily ever after," or that COULD end that way.

Here is what I think: the goal of a fairy tale is personal happiness. In fairy tales, we learn that what we might think of as disadvantages or shortcomings (being the youngest or smallest, being so helpful we verge on inviting abuse, being prone to giving away food or time) are actually assets and will be the very things that help us get what we want out of life: a prince or princess, a kingdom, or our true self which arises from our "cursed" self. I regret that finding a prince or a kingdom has often been taken to mean achieving great wealth through marriage or magic; I think my prince and my kingdom mean self-fulfillment or self-actualization--or just the ability to be at home in this world. I don't know about you, but I have found myself taking the form of a snake or monster, and I need some fairy tale magic sometimes to get me back to my true self--so I can then be self-fulfilling or self-actualizing again.

Fairy tales show us that anyone we meet, especially if they're old or strange or funny-looking, may have special powers, and they will not forget us if we are kind. They may use their powers to befriend us at the very time we need it most. Not that helping others is a quid pro quo, but the stories teach us to trust our intuition about strangers, to listen to our inner voice, to not be afraid to give, to not be afraid to run.

Another thing that can be overdone (in European folktales) is blondness of the princess. Many of the old texts just say "golden hair" which could be understood as shining, like a halo of light and goodness. Beauty comes from goodness; it doesn't have to glorify blondness (or any other physical feature) unless you make it do that. So don't!!! In an effort to change this princess stereotype, I sometimes say (in real life, I mean) that someone is beautiful like a princess--you know, from always being kind. And it's true that kind people are more beautiful than mean people.

I was talking with a friend the other day about animals, and remembering how, in Russian skazki--wonder tales, fairy tales...--the hero has accomplished all his tasks but one, and he is just at the point where he cannot overcome whatever is before him, so he sits on a stone and weeps. Just stops everything, sits on a stone, and weeps. I have been there so many times! I have sat on that stone and wept! When that happens, help comes from some unexpected source: a crab, a bird, an ant--someone to whom the hero was kind earlier in the story. That's one of the things that makes me feel happiest in a fairy tale, because it recalls that moment when you had just about given up and someone who plays no major role in your life comes along and does exactly what you need done, and it makes all the difference!

Well, I'm rambling and jumping from point to apparently unconnected point! Clearly, I have a serious fantasy life involving people and animals who don't even exist! but it is one that makes me happy--and I don't have any trouble separating it from my real life. The truth is, it HELPS my real life--it helps me have faith and know things will turn out okay. It makes me know I shall live happily ever after. I think it is sad that some people do not even have the fantasy, the illusion, the glimmer of possibility. If you don't have happiness, what can you give?
Mary Grace K. 11/1/05
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Response: When I teach storytelling to kids, it's all folk tales. Some of these are current lore, jump tales, false jump tales, the odd fable, and some are classic fairy tales.

Often students want to include the cartoon elements of a Disney version into their telling, and no wonder; the dancing mice and singing goldfish are often the most amusing parts of the movie. I tell them something like this:

(Begin inspirational pep talk)

Who here has ever tried telling somebody a good movie you've seen? Me too. Did you ever do ok for awhile, then get to a point where it suddenly gets kind of wierd and flat, not very good at all, even though it was real good in the movie? Me too. And you have to say, somethng like "well I wish you could have seen it, it was really funny!"

A movie has a ton of things for your eyes to look at, and music, and singing and dancing, and lots of people doing different things, all at the same time. As a storyteller, you can't do that. You can maybe talk about that stuff, but you can't make it happen in the same kind of way. All you have is a line of words, and what you can do with words.

*But*-- if you tell an old folk tale the right way, it can be really really good. It can be as good as any movie anybody ever saw. Because that's what they are made of, words , so all you need is words and the things you can do with words.

Now, I like the old story about Snow White, and I like the Disney movie too. But they're different, and they work differently.

When Mr. Disney took the old oral story of Snow White, and started to make something out of it, he had to change what it was, because he was making a movie, not doing storytelling. If he had just made a movie out of a guy sitting in a chair talking, telling the story, it wouldn't have been a very good movie. Movies don't work like that.

So, in order to make his movie good, maybe even as good as the old story, he had to put songs and the dances, and all the different animal friends, and the different ways the trees looked when they were scary and nice, and all the different dwarves with the different names and and looks and personalities.

But try telling all that to somebody who hasn't seen the movie, and they will not like it as much as you did. It'll be boring, and nowhere near as good as the movie is. At best, it'll be like a book report about the movie, not the movie itself.

That's because, you're not telling the story, you're telling the movie. Movies don't just use words.

Start from the old tale. It's made of words. It was made out of telling, by telling, for telling. If you can figure out how to tell it right, you can be as good as any movie Mr. Disney ever made.

(end inspirational pep talk.)

Do they know what I'm talking about? Sometimes, some of them, a little. I think.
Tim J. 11/5/05
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Response: I think that is a great explanation. Maybe all won't understand but some will. They may be the next generation of Storytellers.
Bob S. 11/5/05
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Response: I like the idea of explaining to the children the difference between oral storytelling and movies. I guess I do that a little, too, but I talk about how they will use their own imaginations to create the pictures in their heads. I sometimes say something like: "When you watch a movie or TV, all the pictures are there for you to see. But when you listen to a story, YOU get to make up your OWN pictures!"
Judith W. 11/7/05
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(This web page updated 11/7/05)