"On Fairy Stories," Part 2 ("Origins")

[cressidarambles]

* I found this section a little confusing, to be honest. Tolkien talks a lot about what the origins of fairy-stories are not, but he doesn't speculate much about what he thinks they are, aside from the fact that he believes they all have their roots in human experience. People could not imagine things if they had not seen or felt something

Comments

[lindahoyland]

I didn't like scary/gory/sad stories as a child.
I only apreciated fairy tales as an adult and still like them.That said, I think I liked some when I was little like Cinderella,but only the most popular with happy endings.

[cressidarambles]

Did you ever encounter some of the more violent versions of Cinderella, where horrible things happen to the stepmother and stepsisters? What did you think of them?

[lindahoyland]

I don't think I was troubled as I thought they were so nasty they deserved their fate!

[roh_wyn]

I think I liked fairy tales as a child, even the tales that Tolkien believes were not properly "fairy-stories". The scarier aspects of certain stories never bothered me, but to be fair, I don't think they were presented in a particularly horrific way.

For example, I never associated the woodsman cutting the wolf open with blood and gore, and I still can't quite picture it that way. It's probably because (unlike subsequent generations), we weren't really brought up in a visual media world.

[cressidarambles]

I think I liked fairy-stories when I was small, and I remember reading a big collection of gory original Grimm stories at a rather late age...ten, perhaps? But at some point, I learned to mistrust them.

For example, I never associated the woodsman cutting the wolf open with blood and gore, and I still can't quite picture it that way.

Oh yes, same here! Especially since there were other versions where the woodsman put rocks in the wolf's stomach and sewed it up again...or am I thinking of "The Three Little Pigs" now? Anyway, I had only a vague idea of what cutting the wolf open entailed. I did prefer it when the grandmother wasn't permanently eaten, though.

[jchance]

I'm pretty much of his view, and Gaiman's...Scary stuff _did_ unsettle me as a child, but I can't help but see it as an inoculation. And I have to take Gaiman's variant more--children should have _access_ to as much as possible, and they will latch onto and pursue what's "appropriate" to them, and be put off by what isn't, whether by disturbance, boredom, or incomprehension.

[cressidarambles]

I don't think Tolkien saw scary stuff as an inoculation; he just thought the tales lost their power if the gory stuff was taken out. Gaiman's idea is interesting. I don't actually really know whether I would have preferred to have things prescreened for me as a child or not.

[dreamflower02]

I loved fairy tales as a child, and I didn't mind getting the intact versions, for example with the stepsister cutting off part of her foot to fit the shoe.

Because of one certain set of books we had, I was familiar with some of the more obscure fairy tales, like Rose Red and Rose White or The King Under the Mountain or The Seven Swans, that you don't ordinarily see in most kids' anthologies.

[lilan14]

Sorry for butting in like this, but I've just noticed you named three of my favorite fairy tales! :) I really loved them all, although some bits Rose Red and Rose White sounded really creepy to me for some reason. But I absolutely adored The Seven Swans -- have always thought the heroine unbelievably cool!

[cressidarambles]

I remember the first and third of those, but not the second! I think I had a record with someone reading or telling one of them.

Here from <lj user="middleearthnews">

[fairjennet]

I loved Disney fairy tales as a child, but I absolutely hated the fairy tale books at my grandmother's house. She had a complete set of Bookhouse books, full of gory Mother Goose and Grimm, that I couldn't stop reading even though they gave me nightmares

Re: Here from <lj user="middleearthnews">

[cressidarambles]

My Book House! I read those too. I don't remember them being particularly gory versions of the stories, but perhaps that just goes to show how much went over my head at the age I read them. (The main thing that I remember is the illustrations, of which Tolkien disapproves in this essay!)

Actually, I think I've gotten to like real folk-tales less and less as I've gotten older. I feel like Tolkien's own writing gives me all the cool bits of fairy tales without the squick-inducing stuff.

And thanks for stopping by! I did say in my middleearthnews announcement that I welcome comments, and I do. :)