Fairy Tales & Folk Tales
Here you will find traditional fairy tales that you might have heard a dozen times already. It is my job to try to keep them fresh and new, so you would still enjoy listening to them. I hope you will also find a few fairy tales you might not be as familiar with. Finally, I have also included folk tales in this section.
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Source Summary Cultural Origins Audience Adaptation Ideas |
Hansel and Gretel
Heiner, Heidi Anne. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Sur La Lune Fairy Tales. May 1999. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. Adapted from Lang, Andrew, ed. The Blue Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1965. (Originally published 1889.) Hansel and Gretel live with their father and stepmother. The family has fallen on hard times, and their father can barely make enough money to feel all four mouths in the household. Their stepmother devises a plan to lead the children into the woods and leave them there. Hansel and Gretel won’t be able to find their way home, and then there would be enough food for the father and stepmother. Hansel overhears the plan, and the children plan to make a path of breadcrumbs to lead them back to their house. The plan goes awry when birds eat the breadcrumbs, and after wandering aimlessly for a long while, the children end up at the house of a witch. Although she plays nice at first, by offering the hungry children food, it soon becomes clear that the witch plans to fatten the children up with food, and then eat them for herself. After a spell with the witch, Gretel is the one to overpower her, by shoving the witch into her own oven. Hansel and Gretel find treasure in the witch’s house and take it back to their father. Their stepmother has died, leaving the three to be happy and rich the rest of their days. This story has European origins. It was written by the Brothers Grimm, and according to the history of SurLaLune Fairy Tales, this version came from a female storyteller Wilhelm Grimm would eventually marry. This version closely resembles a Charles Perrault tale from 1697 called "Le petit Poucet." This is a traditional tale, with traditional fairy tale origins. Because of this, I am going to go for a clean adaptation without a huge amount of changes. The audience for this traditional Grimms tale will be young elementary aged children, maybe 1st-3rd grades. I want to be the one to introduce them to the tale. If I was telling this to older children, I’d amp up the spookiness of the witch, but with this younger audience, I want to get across the messages of always being loyal to your siblings and giving parents a second chance when they make a mistake. I don’t want to make any major changes with this tale for two reasons: 1) It’s my favorite Grimm tale, and I want to keep it clean. 2) As mentioned in the audience section, I want to be introducing this to children for perhaps the first time. I would add two voices: one seductive, slippery voice for the stepmother and one cackling voice for the witch. When narrating, I will aim to have a neutral tone, but one that is nice to listen to and draws the children in, so they want to hear more. |
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Source Summary Cultural Origins Audience Adaptation Ideas |
Reason to Beat Your Wife
“Reason to Beat Your Wife.” Carter, Angela, ed. Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen: Fairy Tales from Around the World. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992. A man has just married, and his friend wants to know why he hasn’t beat his wife yet. However, there is no reason to beat this wife, for she is good and does all that is asked of her. The friend gives the newly-married man tasks for his wife to complete, because she will surely mess at least one of them up and then deserve a beating. The wife completes all of the tasks, and then the trickiest task is put before her. She must prepare a barrel of fish for dinner, but her husband doesn’t specify how to make the fish (on purpose, so she can get beat). The wife prepares the fish three ways, hoping one of these ways will please her husband. He is not prepared for her to be so prepared, and then in the end asks for feces for dinner. There is some left over on the dining room floor from where her son had defecated, so she serves this to her husband. She has once again completed her task in a satisfactory manner. This is an Egyptian fairy tale. It is considered to fall under the fairy tale motif “absurd wish.” Women in rural areas in Egypt would tell this tale. I would need to be careful with the audience of this tale, for the title alone could cause listeners to abandon me. An opportunity to tell this tale with other storytellers telling tales from around the globe would be best, for the audience would know they are in store for a variety of tales, and maybe they would keep their minds open that a title of a tale isn’t necessarily an indication of where it is going. I would add some sort of note before the telling of my tale to warn the audience that although the title is controversial, all will turn out fine in the end. I would also add tasks for the wife to complete, and the more absurd, the better, for each time she bests her husband is a true victory. |
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Source Summary Cultural Origins Audience Adaptation Ideas |
Why Moon Has One Eye
“Why Moon Has One Eye.” Bruchac, James and Joseph Bruchac, ed. The Girl Who Helped Thunder and Other Native American Folktales. New York: Sterling, 2008. Sun and Moon love to look over the earth and keep its people safe. Sun burns brightly during the day, and Moon looks over the earth at night with her own bright light. Sun and Moon start to get concerned, though, because they see the people of the earth, whom they love dearly, start to wane and struggle under the constant light they give. The plants also began to weaken, since they were growing all of the time, and the animals began to flag, too. They knew something had to be done when the birds grew hoarse from their constant chirruping and singing. After discussion, Moon decided to sacrifice one of her eyes and watch over the earth at night with only one eye. She knew it should be bright during the days. Her one eye was still very bright, and soon, she began to slowly close that eye, so there would be complete darkness for a time each month. The people of earth were so grateful of her sacrifice, and they began to look up at Moon’s gentle night light with thanksgiving. This is a Southwest Isleta Pueblo tale. In the source notes of the Bruchac Brothers collection of tales, they report that the first printed version of this tale appeared in 1894 in Charles F. Lummis’ Pueblo Indian Folktales. They also note at the beginning of the tale that Pueblo tradition longs for all things to be in balance, so the darkness and the light must receive equal time during the day. I would love to tell this story in an elementary school library to the students when they are first learning about the phases of the moon. I am not sure what grade that is, and I’m sure it varies from district to district. I would think grades 3rd or 4th. I love Native American folktales, and I believe they should be told with great reverence and respect, since they have existed in the oral tradition for so long. I would tell this tale with a calm, soothing tone that I hope would evoke a sense of awe with my listeners. Since I am telling the tale of Moon and Sun, I would employ the teacher to help me. I would ask her/him to slowly dim the lights throughout my telling, so by the end the library or classroom would be in darkness. This might require some brief rehearsal beforehand, but I hope the teacher would be up for it. At the end of the tale, I would leave time for discussion to compare and contrast the science of the moon they’re learning about and the myth of the moon they just heard. I think this could lead to wonderful discussion and an appreciation for not just science but the art of listening to and telling tales, too. |
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Source Summary Cultural Origins Audience Adaptation Ideas |
Giant Grummer’s Christmas
“Giant Grummer’s Christmas.” Smith, Dorothy Hall, ed. The Tall Book of Christmas. New York: Gramercy Books, 2006. Giant Grummer was a mean ole giant. He hated Christmas, and he hated to think of all the people in the village oh so happy on this day. He would sit at the top of the hill in his castle of Limburger cheese eating pickles and drinking vinegar. One Christmas he was so fed up that he declared to the villagers that he was going down to the village after Santa had arrived, take all of the presents, lay them out on his floor, and SMASH THEM! The villagers were worried, but didn’t know what to do, for they wouldn’t dare cross Grummer. They also couldn’t get within a mile of his castle, since it smelled so bad. It was made of Limburger cheese after all, the smelliest of all the cheeses. The village’s prince, Topsy Turvy, had an ingenious idea to stop Grummer. He found if he turned his nose upside down, the Limburger cheese would smell of cookies and gingerbread. He enlisted the help of Santa, and after turning Santa’s nose upside down, too, they snuck into Grummer’s castle and left him three huge wheels of Limburger cheese. When Grummer saw these, he was so excited, he started munching away. After eating two wheels, Grummer was so stuffed and full, that his eyes began to droop, and he ended up sleeping so soundly on his full stomach that he missed Christmas. The villagers’ presents were all in place in the morning! “Giant Grummer’s Christmas” has appeared in several Christmas collections for young kids. It is my absolute favorite Christmas story, and I have fond memories of listening to my dad tell it to my brother and me every Christmas while we were growing up. I cannot find much information on the author or where the story was written, but it does have westernized notions of Santa. I have assumptions that it was written in the US or UK. Because of the familiar idea of Santa, what he does, and because Grummer is akin to Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch, I don’t think I’d have to do much introduction before this tale. I would love to share this with Kindergarten-2nd grade classes in a school library. I know it’s getting trickier and trickier to share Christmas tales in a school setting, but this tale is non-secular, and it’s just so fun! It has a giant, Santa, and a clever kid saving his village’s Christmas gifts. I think the kids would love to hear this around the holiday season. This is a jovial tale. I love it so much. I would be extremely animated while telling it. Most of my adaptations would be of the physical variety. With this young audience I would be using over-the-top, grand gestures to get them into the story and get them laughing. When Topsy Turvy and Santa sneak in Grummer’s present of Limburger cheese I would tiptoe across my telling stage. When describing the Limburger cheese I would hold my nose. I would also feign throwing up when talking about Grummer’s Christmas meal of pickles and vinegar. I would add a day after to the end of this tale. The tale ends with Grummer asleep on his floor, but I would add what happened the next morning when Grummer woke up. He was so angry he missed stealing the presents that he stomps down to the village, but there is Topsy Turvy waiting for him. He has turned all of the villagers’ noses upside down, so they can’t smell the cheese, vinegar, and pickles on Grummer’s being. Topsy Turvy declares that as prince of this village, he will not abide by Grummer’s antics anymore, and unless he wants his castle of cheese torn down bite by bite, he should leave the villagers alone. After this confrontation Grummer slinks back to his castle never to be heard from again. But, Topsy Turvy remembers him each Christmas by sending three huge wheels of Limburger cheese to the castle. |
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Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Heiner, Heidi Anne. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Sur La Lune Fairy Tales. Jan. 2002. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. Adapted from Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, 1890. One morning, three bears take a morning walk while their porridge cools in their kitchen. A young girl, Goldilocks, is wandering through the forest this same day, and she finds their house, thinking it’s an abandoned cottage. Well, it looks abandoned, but inside there are bowls of piping hot porridge. The smallest of the three bowls is just the right taste and temperature for her. Next, she wants to rest a bit in a comfy chair. The smallest chair fits her perfectly, and she rests a bit. Finally, she finds herself tuckered out from all of this trying and testing activity. She heads up to the beds, and once again, the smallest bed is just right for her. She tucks in for a nap. When the Bears get home, they are shocked to see their dining room and living room ransacked. They head upstairs, and Baby Bear finds the culprit in his bed! His shrill cry wakes Goldilocks up, she stumbles out of the house, and eventually she is picked up in the woods by officers of the law. They take her to a House of Corrections for her vagrant nature. This is an English fairy tale. The version of the tale I read was from the Sur La Lune Fairy Tale website, and this version included the corrections facility at the end of the story. I had never seen this before, and it tickled me. Because this is a well known, popular fairy tale, I would keep the telling rather traditional, too, in spite of the adaptations I am making (see below). I am adapting this tale for my three children, and they are my sole audience. I will be telling them tale before bedtime. I have plans to stomp through all of their bedrooms, testing all of their beds, and making this story as interactive and fun as possible. The only problem? It might make them too hyper before bed…but it’ll be worth it! For my children I would call this “Mummy and the Three Bears.” The bears would be named after them: Alba, Kean, and Skye. We would start downstairs, and I would have their three bowls on the table. In the living room, I would have three of their favorite books set out. And, in their bedrooms, all of their beds would be tested. As I tell the story, the kids would follow me around the house. I would test the (imaginary) oatmeal in their bowls, and I would pick Skye’s as the best. Next, I would want to read a book from the living room, and I would find Kean’s to be the most enjoyable. Finally, I would test their beds and pick Alba’s as the most comfortable. When the three bears would find me, I would say how lonely and sad I was, and that I really wish I had three bears I could take care of forever and ever. It would be a happy ending, when they would accept me as their Mummy, and we would all live happily ever after! |