The Fairy Tale

[Pah]

Are there any thoughts on why some of the fairy tales are so gruesome and violent? Don't they have a negative influence on children?

 

[Ormiston]

Are there any thoughts on why some of the fairy tales are so gruesome and violent? Don't they have a negative influence on children?

Man, that's a good question. The only thought that comes to mind is that the classic fairy tales were written in a completely different era. Maybe times were bad (like Ring O Roung the Rosies connection to the plague). Historically there seems to be a lot more famous events that were bad (like wars) and maybe the authors thought they were helping the children by casting the stories in fantasy fashion.

 

[Finnyhaha]

Maybe fairy tales weren't originally for children?

But then again maybe they were and the parents just didn't care about scaring the kids. And like John said, times were more round back then, you can't hide kids from reality.

Plus, I've come in contact with plenty of parents nowdays who think nothing of exposing their kids to violent, disturbing things, whether it be movies or video games that are too violent/sexual for the children, or telling them tales of hell and damnation.

 

[Ormiston]

Maybe fairy tales weren't originally for children?

But then again maybe they were and the parents just didn't care about scaring the kids. And like John said, times were more round back then, you can't hide kids from reality.

Plus, I've come in contact with plenty of parents nowdays who think nothing of exposing their kids to violent, disturbing things, whether it be movies or video games that are too violent/sexual for the children, or telling them tales of hell and damnation.

I had a thought about fear. I wonder if the fear we associate with 'scary' isn't also associated with children. I mean, we have Holloween and campfire stories. Maybe we subconsciously believe that we outgrow these fears (fear of the dark, boogeyman, etc...). With this in mind, maybe adults think it's fun to scare children. Primitive, but perhaps common (I've been guilty of it a time or two).

 

[lilithu]

Are there any thoughts on why some of the fairy tales are so gruesome and violent? Don't they have a negative influence on children?

More negative than the violence that they see nowadays on tv and in video games?

I think that the violence in fairy tales serves a positive purpose, as opposed to the gratuitous violence we are exposed to today. The fact is that the world is violent, and kids know it. There is suffering and there is death, and there are not so nice people out to hurt others. When stories exclude these realities from childrens stories, they don't ring true. They come across as maudlin. But rather than scaring or alienating children, the inclusion of these violent acts into the story is empowering, because fairy tales are always moral. Whatever bad thing the bad guy does, whatever suffering he or she causes, the good guy - the protagonist with which the child identifies - always wins in the end and lives happily ever after. These stories serve to recognize and give voice to the fear that kids already feel (not instill new fears) and then reassure them that things will work out in the end.

 

[jeffrey]

I remember George Carlin once said "He would rather have his children watching two people making love then trying to kill one another." Why Fairy Tales are so violent is beyond me. But even in the Bible there is a lot of violence. How do children perceive it? When It's just a story read to them, It's not that bad. But when they portray violence on tv or movies, to some it can have an adverse effect.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I always heard the violence was included in the fairy tales to scare children into behaving.

 

[Runt]

As Finnyhaha suggested, I don't think most fairytales were originally for children. I think they were simply folk-tales once, maybe even legends and myths mixed together, and over time people began changing them to make gentler stories to tell their children. Thus many fairy tales today have two versions; the bright and happy Disney version for children, and the darker original version for adults.

 

[Draka]

I always heard the violence was included in the fairy tales to scare children into behaving.

That's exactly what I was always told. Most fairy tales have to do with harsh repercussions when a child is disobedient. They were written and told to children to scare them into behaving or else...suffer these horrible consequences. It's like a "see...I told you so"

 

[lilithu]

As Finnyhaha suggested, I don't think most fairytales were originally for children. I think they were simply folk-tales once, maybe even legends and myths mixed together, and over time people began changing them to make gentler stories to tell their children. Thus many fairy tales today have two versions; the bright and happy Disney version for children, and the darker original version for adults.

If fairy tales were not originally meant for children, then why are most of the protagonists in fairy tales children? Hansel and Gretel. Little Red Ridinghood. The stories of Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel all start with the protagonists as children when the initial bad thing happens to them - the intrusion of an evil stepmother or a wicked witch into their happy home. These are the things that kids worry about, not adults.

That's exactly what I was always told. Most fairy tales have to do with harsh repercussions when a child is disobedient. They were written and told to children to scare them into behaving or else...suffer these horrible consequences. It's like a "see...I told you so"

How was Cinderella disobedient? Or Snow White? Or Rapunzel? Or Hansel and Gretel? Or Little Red Ridinghood?

 

[Draka]

[QUOTE = lilithu]How was Cinderella disobedient? Or Snow White? Or Rapunzel? Or Hansel and Gretel? Or Little Red Ridinghood?[/QUOTE]

well, of course not all were per se disobedient...but there are certain connotations. Hansel and Gretal should not have wandered off against their father's wishes...he told them not to...Little Red Riding Hood was not to talk to strangers, she talked to the wolf and told him where she was going when she should not have spoken to him...showing that you should not talk to strangers = they can hurt you. There are morals behind all of them really if you take the time to look.

Some can be quite fanciful stories though just from the creativity of the writer.

 

[Runt]

If fairy tales were not originally meant for children, then why are most of the protagonists in fairy tales children?

Perhaps they were written down after they had already begun to be changed into children's tales, but had not yet finished the process?

Even if this is not the case... many stories that are not for children begin when the protagonists are children--this is good storytelling, because it allows the readers to know "how things came to be" in the story's present, as well as how the protagonist came to be who they are.

the intrusion of an evil stepmother or a wicked witch into their happy home. These are the things that kids worry about, not adults.

Fear of witchcraft has been a part of many cultures across the world for thousands of years. I personally do not find it surprising that the tales would feature wicked witches. I do not think just children worried about them.

And even if I'm wrong, remember my above suggestion... that by the time the stories were penned down, they may have already begun the transformation from dark adult stories into children's fairy tales.

 

[Stormygale]

Fairy tales, as well as many nursery ryhmes are built off of actual things that happened years ago. Many are about disease and death, just hidden in sweet little ryhmes. I heard this, and my outlook on those little sayings completely changed. It brings a sense of morbisity to my mind. I tell my own child not to sing them.....dunno really why, nevertheless.
Example of this is, the story of Ring around the rosey, is about a disease, I believe the plague that ran rapid in Europe. The part that states, and we all fall down, signifies that everyone dies....not a thing I want my child to go around singing.

 

[lilithu]

well, of course not all were per se disobedient...but there are certain connotations. Hansel and Gretal should not have wandered off against their father's wishes...he told them not to...Little Red Riding Hood was not to talk to strangers, she talked to the wolf and told him where she was going when she should not have spoken to him...showing that you should not talk to strangers = they can hurt you. There are morals behind all of them really if you take the time to look.

Hansel and Gretel did not wander off. Their step-mother took them out into the forest and left them there because she felt there was not enough money to feed the entire family. When Hansel and Gretel succesfully tricked and killed the witch, they brought her money home and thus ensured their future safety.

The original versions of Little Red Ridinghood do not have anything about her being told not to talk to strangers.

There are a few versions here:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html

In the Grimm version, she does leave the path to Grandma's house, when told not to, but does so motivated by love. In the other versions, this isn't mentioned at all. The idea that LRRH did something to warrant the violence that followed is an added bit of moralizing - as if one's suffering is always one's own fault. The authors of these fairy tales recognized that sometimes bad things happen to good people, something that we moderns seem unable to accept. But they promised the kids that even tho bad things might happen to them, there will be a happy ending. They might feel threatened and victimized by forces beyond their control but they (or those on their side) will find a way to overcome them.

Regarding the red ridinghood story, there was a quite interesting interpretation given by the famous child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. He argues that the path to Grandma's house is the path of virtue. And the wolf is actually a man - a player - after her virginity. When Red encounters the Wolf, he tempts her to stray from the path of virtue. But in the end, she is saved by the honest woodsman.

 

[lilithu]

Fairy tales, as well as many nursery ryhmes are built off of actual things that happened years ago. Many are about disease and death, just hidden in sweet little ryhmes. I heard this, and my outlook on those little sayings completely changed. It brings a sense of morbisity to my mind. I tell my own child not to sing them.....dunno really why, nevertheless.
Example of this is, the story of Ring around the rosey, is about a disease, I believe the plague that ran rapid in Europe. The part that states, and we all fall down, signifies that everyone dies....not a thing I want my child to go around singing.

Ring around the rosey - red rings are a tell-tale symptom of the plague
A pocket full of poseys - poseys were thought to help ward off the plague
Ashes, ashes - refers to the mass cremations
They all fall down - as you said, refers to mass death.

 

[Melody]

Oh, I know this one! One of my elementary ed classes was the history of children's literature.

Fairy tales were not meant to be light and entertaining. They were meant to teach morals and were not just designed for children. The intended audience included adults so they had to make them sufficiently horrifying to get the point across to people whose daily lives tended to be a bit horrifying.

Trust me...there are some really gruesome fairy tales that haven't made it into the mainstream fairy tale books, and many that are have been toned down considerably from the original.

 

[Melody]

How was Cinderella disobedient? Or Snow White? Or Rapunzel? Or Hansel and Gretel? Or Little Red Ridinghood?

They didn't have to be about someone being punished. Some are about how good triumphs over evil as in Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel. In the end, good triumphs.

 

[James the Persian]

Ring around the rosey - red rings are a tell-tale symptom of the plague
A pocket full of poseys - poseys were thought to help ward off the plague
Ashes, ashes - refers to the mass cremations
They all fall down - as you said, refers to mass death.

Your version of this rhyme is different to the one sung in England. I guess it's been corrupted a little over time. Ours goes:

A ring, a ring o' roses (a ring of roses refers to the bubons - rings of ulcerous spots)
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo, a-tishoo (sneezing sound)
We all fall down (and originally down was dead - it's been sanitised)

Your comments on the meaning are all about right, except for the glaringly different line - the most deadly (pneumonic) form of bubonic plague does make you sneeze, but plague victims weren't generally cremated but buried in mass graves - cremation was very strongly frowned upon by all Christians until about the 19th century and so wasn't used.

And as for Grimm's fairy tales, they are old folk tales, all the Brothers Grimm did was collect them and write them down. That's why the originals read more like adult tales than the Disney style kiddies versions you get now. And some are based on true stories as well - the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, for instance if memory serves, is based on the kids going off on the Children's Crusade. I can check that with my mother (she's a German literature teacher) if you like.

James

 

[Original Freak]

Rock a bye baby in the tree top
when the wind blows the cradle will rock
when the wind stops the cradle will fall
down will come baby cradle and all.

Now I can almost understand the reasoning behind the scary fairy tales, but why do we hear so many scary songs, including lulabies.

I sing this to my kids.

Rock a bye baby in the tree top
when the wind blows the cradle will rock
when the wind stops the cradle will too
don't forget baby Daddy loves you.

 

[michel]

I found this interesting;

The DNA of Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning

By Renee Hall

These fairy tales are not senseless stories written for the amusement of the idle; they embody the profound religion of our forefathers, . . . -- W. S. W. Anson, Asgard and the Gods, p. 21​

In this new millennium, fairy tales are flourishing. The children's sections of libraries and book shops are bursting with beautiful editions of well-known fairy tales, with exotic, vivid illustrations. Their collections are worldwide: Russian, German, Japanese, Chinese, Persian, Scandinavian, African, Australian, North American, Yugoslavian, British, and more. To have survived over the ages, the traditional fairy tales must have very strong and special genes -- mere entertainment is very short lived. What is the secret of their longevity?

Let's look at an Indian version of a perennial favorite: Once upon a time a Hindu Rajah had an only daughter who was born with a golden necklace. In this necklace was her soul, and if the necklace were taken off and worn by someone else, the Princess would die. One birthday the Rajah gave his daughter a pair of slippers ornamented with gold and gems. The Princess went out upon the mountain to pluck flowers, and while there one of her slippers fell down into a forest. A Prince hunting in the forest picked up the lost slipper, and was so charmed with it that he desired to make its owner his wife. He made his wish known everywhere, but no one claimed the slipper, and the poor Prince grew very sad. At last some people from the Rajah's country heard of it and told the Prince where to find the Rajah's daughter. He came and asked for her to be his wife, and they were married. Sometime after, another wife of the Prince, jealous of the Rajah's daughter, stole her necklace and put it on her own neck. The Rajah's daughter died, but her body did not decay nor did her face loose its bloom, and the prince went every day to see her, for he still loved her very much. When he found out the secret of the necklace, he got it back again and put it on his dead wife's neck. Her soul was born again in her, she came back to life, and they lived happily ever after.

The lost slipper is also found in an ancient Greek legend which tells that while a beautiful woman, named Rhodope (the "rosy- cheeked") was bathing, an eagle picked up one of her slippers and flew away with it. The eagle carried it off to Egypt and dropped it in the lap of the king of that country. The slipper was so small and beautiful that he fell in love with the wearer of it, had her sought for, and when she was found he made her his wife.

As you will have guessed, Cinderella is the English variation of this story -- "Little Polly Flinders who sat among the cinders." I don't know if it came to England from the German Aschenputtel, the French Cendrillon, or the Scandinavian Askungen -- "ash child." Here we have Indian, Greek, French, German, Scandinavian, and English versions of the same tale, with each country leaving its particular imprint or flavor on a basic story. In an interpretation offered by Elsa-Brita Titchenell in her Masks of Odin, she calls Askungen (Cinderella)

a scion of the "noble ash tree," Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, which bears the worlds with all their life forms on its branches. All living beings are children of the cosmic Ash Tree from the minutest particle to the largest. What is more, each of us is not only a member of the cosmic tree, but a tree of life in his own right.​

The ash child is also cyclically reborn from the ashes of its former self, like the phoenix. -- pp. 6-7​

Such fairy tales belong to an oral tradition handed down by country people from generation to generation, and only relatively recently written down. Who were their original authors? Scholars of comparative philology and mythology agree that there is indeed a common source. John Thackray Bunce, author of Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning (1878), says that "Celtic, Teutonic and Nordic myths echo the eternal and universal themes and vivid imagery found in sacred books of the Hindus and Persians -- the Vedas and the Zend Avesta . . ." Swedish scholar Fredrick Sander, who published his Rigveda-Edda about 1890, was convinced that Norse mythology came from India and preserves Hindu myths more faithfully than do the classic Greek and Roman, which are much disfigured (Masks of Odin, p. 22).

So our humble fairy tale has a royal -- or rather divine -- lineage. In The Secret Doctrine we read that "the Rig Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the occult teachings in almost every respect" (2:606), and that the Vedas are "the mirror of eternal Wisdom" (2:484). Is this the reason that fairy tales managed to survive the arrival of Christianity in Europe? Fanatics of the new religion caused a devastating blow to folklore and old traditions, which were outlawed and banished as pagan. We are all too familiar with the cruel intolerance and harsh treatment of so-called heretics who dared to show any allegiance to their old customs and beliefs. Perhaps disguised by the fairies themselves, these simple nuggets of pure wisdom escaped the persecution, dogma, and deterioration of formal religious institutions over the ages. Fortunately, distant Iceland escaped this persecution, and there "Saemund the Wise lived and wrote down the poetic Elder Edda. . . . The myths have given rise to numberless folktales and fairy tales which have been adapted to various media for expression, from nursery rhymes to grand opera, . . . and they include collections made by students of folklore such as the brothers Grimm in the nineteenth century" (Masks of Odin, pp. 23-4).

While the ancient records of the Veda and Edda are recognized as the reservoir for myths and their smaller cousins, the fairy tales, the clue to their primary source of inspiration may be found by considering hints in some of the world's oldest traditions, which tell of humanity's golden age of innocence when higher beings impressed our minds with primal truths. This reminder gives us the freedom and confidence to interpret and understand the fairy tale according to our own wisdom.

Many well-known fairy stories share a common format: a forlorn, orphaned young person, cast out from his or her former home, after various trials and tribulations is rescued and united with a loved one -- a parent or royal personage. Cinderella serves as a good model: the orphaned child is trapped and bullied by her wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters, meaning that the human soul is estranged from its spiritual nature or "father in heaven" and comes under the unpleasant control and influence of the lower side of nature. These are not her natural blood relatives, suggesting that the human soul rightly belongs to its better side. Dislodged from its proper status, the soul struggles to recover its legitimate state. By purity and virtue it gains the support and help of its fairy godmother, the spiritual soul. Many tales use the godmother and giver of gifts to represent the soul's finer qualities unfolded through merit. "This elven power uniting the human soul with its divine source is the channel (or elf) which confers on its child all earned spiritual endowments" (Masks of Odin, p. 6).

The analogy of our dual nature thus provides the key for decoding these fairy tales. What a brilliant method of teaching and passing on knowledge of our composite nature, which can be applied on a macrocosmic level as well. Maybe that's the reason why the tales feel comfortable and familiar to us, as if we've always known them -- and of course we have. Whatever the story, it is simply a mirror image of ourselves. The cast of king, queen, prince and princess, father, fairy, witch, frog, giant, ogre, elf, dragon, white horse, beast, orphan child, is part and parcel of each one of us. Our strengths and frailties are portrayed in separate roles, each playing a part in our evolutionary growth, until after the struggles and obstacles -- the unfolding of the story -- we finally find the prince or princess, our higher self, and marry to live happily ever after . . . until we turn the page to the next story.

Did you realize that ancient wisdom was told to you when you were at your mother's knee? And that you parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts are in turn passing on these eternal and vital truths to the next generation of children whenever you tell one of these classical fairy tales, show a video, or take them to see a pantomime or Walt Disney film? Snow White, Aladdin, Puss in Boots, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Beauty and the Beast, and the rest show no sign of waning in popularity even in our busy, noisy age. Unalloyed, these tales continue to enchant, puzzle, teach, and inspire, not only with ethics and altruism, but the esoteric meaning of life itself. Let's hope that like the Sleeping Beauty, those who are still slumbering will wake up to their message: "know thyself."

(From Sunrise magazine, August/September 2000; copyright © 2000 Theosophical University Press)