About

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
—Albert Einstein

Fairy tales always have a profound impact on people. These reflections behind fairy tales come not only from their words, but also from the writing background of stories and what the author wants to express. Even if fairy tales are put into reality, some thoughts can also be reconnected.

According to Bri McCarroll, M, L., “As a young person, Cinderella struggles with identity issues, much like our teens do today.”

Joyce Marter also commented on Beauty and the Beast “This is a positive message for all of us to own our strengths and detach from negative messages from others. It’s also positive that Belle didn’t “dumb down” to make herself less threatening and more attractive to men.”

From the above comments, we can easily understand the signficance behind the story's contents. Nevertheless, the fairy tales are not only as simple as we thought, they also have certain underlying meanings that they wish to convey. A story’s writing motivation can also be greatly influenced by the era in which the author lived.

History

Fairy tales belong to a kind of children’s literature in the fiction genre. Such stories typically feature mythical entities such as dwarfs, dragons, elves, witches, etc.

Western fairy tales usually end in a happy ending.

While it exists in oral form, only the written form can be recorded. Therefore, the time when fairy tales appeared is difficult to verify.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales", "Andersen's Fairy Tales" and "Arabian Nights" are listed as the "Three Treasures of World Fairy Tales", and they have also had an impact on the culture of other countries.

Different Tales

Did you know that every country has its own characteristic fairy tales?

After introducing the basic information related to fairy tales,

we will briefly introduce famous classic fairy tales from various countries.

Denmark

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《Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales》
in Denmark

《Andersen's fairy tales》are the works of the Danish writer H.C Andersen, and one of the most famous fairy tales in the world. His fairy tales include《The Little Mermaid 》, 《The Ugly Duckling 》, 《The Little Match Girl 》,etc. Even today, many bronze sculptures dedicated to Andersen can be viewed in Copenhagen, including the bronze statue of the Little Mermaid, whose fairy-tale image became a landmark of Denmark.

《Grimm's Fairy Tales》

in the U.K.

Grimms' Fairy Tales, originally known as Children's and Household Tales, is a German collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers or "Brothers Grimm", Jacob and Wilhelm. It was listed by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Registry in 1857. These fairy tales include《Little Red Riding Hood》,《Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 》,《Cinderella 》,etc.

U.K.

Arab

《The Arabian Nights》

in Arab

" The Arabian Nights" is a literary masterpiece spanning space and time, as well as an immortal treasure of world literature. The medieval culture presented in the book covers the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Greater Syria, Persia, India, Egypt and other places. " The Arabian Nights" is also an encyclopedia, which records various aspects of Eastern society in the Middle Ages, and provides precious original materials for history and sociology. In addition to detailed descriptions of the luxurious life of princes and nobles, there are likewise many pages describing the life of people from all walks of life.

《Pippi Longstocking》
in Sweden

Pippi Longstocking is the fictional main character in an eponymous series of children's books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren.

Pippi is red-haired, freckled, unconventional and superhumanly strong – able to lift her horse one-handed. She is playful and unpredictable. She often makes fun of unreasonable adults, especially if they are pompous and condescending.

The three Pippi chapter books (Pippi Longstocking, Pippi Goes on Board, and Pippi in the South Seas) were published from 1945 to 1948, followed by three short stories and a number of picture book adaptations. They have been translated into 76 languages as of 2018 and made into several films and television series.

Sweden

Ancient Greece Region

《Aesop's Fables》

in Ancient Greece Region

Aesop's Fables, or Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources. These stories continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

The fables originally belonged to oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop's death.

Initially the fables were addressed to adults and covered religious, social and political themes. They were also put to use as ethical guides and from the Renaissance onwards were particularly used for the education of children. Their ethical dimension was reinforced in the adult world through depiction in sculpture, painting and other illustrative means, as well as adaptation to drama and song. In addition, there have been reinterpretations of the meaning of fables and changes in emphasis over time.

According to “ Why does Prince Charming Wander Around ?"fairy tales can be divided into four categories of writing motivation.

Writing Motivation

Are the villains in the story really bad?

We always see witches and werewolves as villains in fairy tales, but why did the authors of the fairy tales make them that way?

Take Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel as examples. Rapunzel's stepmother is the villain in the story, portrayed as a witch. In Sleeping Beauty, a witch cursed Princess Aurora because she didn't receive an invitation to the feast. In fact, the witches in the story were in reality expelled because some of the girls were good at medicine, but if their medicine didn't work, they were considered a cult. Which is why people created witches as a dangerous being who knows how to make medicine and is always a villain.

The setting of werewolves is also very similar, take the Little Red Riding Hood as example. After the big wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood'S grandma, he pretended to be Little Red Riding Hood's grandma to trick Little Red Riding Hood. The setting of the werewolf is that some people had more hair than other normal people at that time, so they were expelled from the village by the villagers and could only live in the forest. This also explains why werewolves are always on the villain's side and appear in the forest, because they are not accepted by society.

What background do the heroes in the story come from?

People during that period expected a hero to save them from dire straits and the difficult social situation led them to believe in a kind of heroism.

Take the sudden rise of Napoleon in Europe in the 19th century for example, it is because of people's discouragement and blind worship of political corruption that they have a large number of followers. So is the presence of a monarch or emperor, take the sword in the stone for example. It is about the story of Arthur in his childhood. When Wart was just a handyman, the old magician Merlin trained and educated him. He followed Merlin through different experiences and adventures, and even fought with the malicious witch. When Wart inadvertently pulls the sword from the stone in the square, the prophesied monarch, King Arthur, appears.

Reflect on or insinuate contemporary social atmosphere through stories

The characters and background settings in the story are based on the feudal system at that time, forcibly distinguishing the distinction between nobles and commoners.Take Cinderella for example.Cinderella was originally born the only daughter of an aristocratic family.But because her parents died, her stepmother and their daughter often bully her now. And it prevented her from attending the ball at the palace.

In addition to the characters, some fairy tales also affirm that no matter how poor or disadvantaged nobles are, they should maintain their dignity and honor at all times. Take A Little Princess for example. Sarah Crewe is the British rich man Lefford. Crewe's daughter. But on the day of her eleven-year-old birthday party, she was told the news of a bolt from the blue—her father passed away suddenly, and the family went bankrupt. Everything she owned was immediately confiscated, even the clothes on her body could not be kept. Sarah seemed to have fallen from heaven to hell.Changes in the family reduced her from a princess to a beggar's maid overnight, beautiful dresses turned into tattered maid uniforms, her room was located in a cold and dark attic, and her daily studies turned into endless labor. Despite this, she still insists on dressing herself exquisitely and elegantly every day. Sarah secretly insisted in her heart that she still wanted to live like an "aristocrat".

For people at that time, such thoughts were the shackles that bound the external self, and also invisibly put a psychological shackle on themselves.

Reflections on history

Take Hamelin's Pied Piper as an example.

It is divided into several versions, but regardless of whether it was taken away by pagans (if counting from June 26, this day is the day when medieval pagans held the Midsummer Festival, which means that the Pied Piper is probably Heretics. Witches used the sound of their flutes to lure children to the Midsummer Festival.) Or participated in the children's The Crusades (these missing children traveled to participate in the "Children's Crusade" that was popular in Europe in the 13th century. Thousands of children claimed to fight against Muslims and to retake the Holy Land of Jerusalem. However, they never reached Jerusalem, because many of their children were sold into slavery during the journey, and the rest disappeared.) are actually related to the historical background at that time to a certain extent.

Take Hansel and Gretel as an example. People lived in poverty in the general environment at that time. As the children of poor lumberjacks, the protagonists Hansel and Gretel, because their stepmother was afraid of lack of food, persuaded the woodworkers to take them to the forest and abandon them. Such examples of abandoning relatives in order to survive can be described as endless in terms of the miserable living environment at that time.