On Fairy Tales
Among the bigger news of the past week was the announcement that J.K. Rowling would be releasing another Harry Potter related book. The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of fairy tales from the Harry Potter universe. Everything old is new again, it would seem. Not having been able to secure one of the seven original hand-written editions, I’ll have to wait for the mass publication to read these stories for myself; I’m most interested to see what tone the stories strike.
The Harry Potter series aged well with its audience and J.K. Rowling’s publication of a collection of Fairy Tales might, on the face of it, seem like a way to reach out to a new generation of young readers. But the term “Fairy Tale” does not now, nor has it ever, been exclusively the province of children’s literature.
In fact, the genre of the Fairy Tale has a long history of being enjoyed by adults as well as children.
Once Upon a Time…A (Very) Brief Overview of Fairy Tales
The term “Fairy Tale” was coined by Madame d’Aulnoy, a seventeenth-century French writer, but these stories have been around far earlier than that. Fairy Tales are a type of Traditional story, like fables, parables, and other such tales. They were passed down orally and through dramatic performances before being committed to paper. In still other cases, children’s tales were adapted into something that adult members of a salon would find entertaining. Some of these tales could be rife with adult themes and were, as the MPAA would say, intended for mature audiences.
Consider Beauty and the Beast. Originally penned by Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve, the story concerns a young woman named Belle and a Prince-turned-beast. Unlike the reworked version with which we are all familiar, the original also included a seductive fairy. This fairy raised the prince after his father died and his mother left. Once he was grown, the fairy wanted the prince all to herself and when he refused, she turned him into the beast and went looking elsewhere. Who did she find? Belle’s father, who did give in. This affair produced Belle. But all wasn’t well. In an attempt to marry her father, the fairy tried to murder Belle, so the child had to be “hidden,” by switching her identity with that of a deceased shopkeeper’s daughter. On top of this, a great deal of time is spent discussing the warring fairies. Like so many other tales, Beauty and the Beast was later pared down from its original to be of a more suitable nature for children, producing the version of the tale with which we are most familiar today.
Want more? Did you know that some of the original Little Red Riding Hood stories, passed down orally, included Little Red unwittingly eating her grandmother when the wolf leaves bits of her out as a stew? Even after some revisions, Little Red Riding Hood still features the wolf being cut open and Grandma emerging from the stomach. In Snow White, hunters are still ordered to cut out the girl’s heart and bring it back as a trophy. Hansel and Gretel risk being eaten by a cannibal witch. There are visions of nightmares present in all of these stories.
These original tales were not strictly morality plays, either. They frequently concerned themselves with social commentary, history, or just pure entertainment value. There were bargains with the devil, matching wits with magical creatures, or adventures in parallel worlds. At one point, The Hobbit, Animal Farm, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (to name just a few) were all considered Fairy Tales.
The genre began to grow as more and more storytellers entered the field and, eventually, the genre of Fairy Tale was, for all intents and purposes, given a new name: Fantasy.
But the Fairy Tale didn’t just disappear, it became a sub-genre of the one that replaced it; but sharing so many characteristics, it became (and remains) difficult to explain what exactly constitutes a Fairy Tale.
A Modern Renascence
Eventually, many popular Fairy Tales were adapted to make them more suitable for children. The fantastic nature of the stories captivated children’s attention, creating a unique opportunity to provide a morality lesson on top of a good story. So more controversial, or adult elements were ripped out and replaced with a “life lesson” element. The fairy tale began to be associated more and more with children’s literature.
However, the Fairy Tale as a form of adult literature and entertainment never died away, and thank goodness. Modern writers such as A.S. Byatt and Catherynne Valente (more on her addictive Orphan’s Tales series in a future post) have reinvigorated the genre with compelling, page-turning original tales for adult audiences, while also pushing the fairy tale format in new directions. Films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Stardust (originally a Neil Gaiman book), and even The Princess Bride (originally a William Gibson novel) brought fairy tales successfully to the big screen.
And now, perhaps we’ll be adding J.K. Rowling to the list. If you have read one of these copies of Beedle the Bard, then perhaps you could tell us where her contributions will lie: children’s literature or adult? With luck, her foray into fairy tales will entice a new generation of readers to explore the genre.
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Yup, tis time to read Ms. Rowling. Once upon a time, I read the first sentence to the first book and balked immediately. If I remember right, she wrote something like, ", thank you very much." Too conversationalist for me...
... but, as I now know, the series is better written and gets darker and I'll probably like it. As I've stayed away from the movies, it will be an all new reading experience for me. Should be fun!
Nice history there too, Kyle. Great stuff!
Yeah, I have a nervous excitement about what this Beedle Bard book might be. I'm hoping there's a story in there for everyone, but I won't know until I actually get to read the book. Oh well.
I think the Harry Potter series really started to take off around the Prisoner of Azkaban. The other books were fun, but that, for my money, was when the series started to turn towards something else, something darker and, to be honest, more exciting and interesting.
Also, I highly recommend the audiobooks! Jim Dale read the series and he is magnificent (as always).
I second your Jim Dale endorsement. He is wonderful and I'm glad they gave him the narrator's role in Pushing Daisies. It adds a certain charm to the series.
Haven't listened to the audio books...
Thanks for the fairy tales write up. I love fairy tales of all sorts, but am not overly excited by this title. I often found myself skimming most of Rowling's series. I will be hunting down the first two modern writers you mentioned.