The Truth Behind Fairy Tales

C. A. Asbrey

Storytelling is as ancient as humankind, and the best have always kept their audience thoroughly enthralled. They’ve used repetition, poetry, song, chants, and interaction to keep people engaged, and covered everything from religion, eulogies for heroes, myths, legends, religion, proverbs and morality tales. Stories are ubiquitous and loved by people everywhere. Every culture and continent has had them, and the storytellers themselves became revered with honoured positions in society, and often had the ear of a powerful leader. And the wealthy sought out the best, as people loved to be entertained by them. It kept people happy and acted as a kind of social cement to reinforce a pride in the ancestors, the tribe, and their ways. Some of those stories have persisted for centuries and, believe it or not, still capture our imaginations today.

We all grew up with fairy tales, and they are so ubiquitous that they seem to be universal and spread over continents with versions of the stories found in every culture. For instance, Ye Xian is a Chinese story that is very similar to Cinderella, and is the oldest known version of the story dating from the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE). There are other Asian takes on the story in the Malay-Indonesian Bawang Putih Bawang Merah tale, and stories from other ethnic groups including the Tibetans and the Zhuang. In West Africa, they have Chinye, whilst in India, Cinduri loses her anklet leaving the Navaratari Festival. In Iraq, Maha is helped by a magical fish and her Persian counterpart Settareh is helped by a pari (fairy) who lives in a magical blue jug to attend the New Year festivities and loses her anklet. Even in the New World, the Algonquins have ‘The Rough Faced Girl‘ competing for the attentions of an invisible being, while the Ojibwas have Sootface competing for the magnificent invisible warrior who is looking for a bride. Did they all come from one single root?

The stories could be related to the fact that the step-daughter/step-mother dynamic was historically problematic everywhere, with women taking better care of natural children than those inherited through marriage to a widower, but there are so many similarities, especially in the intervention of a supernatural being, that it does cause us to be curious about the origins. Another option is that these stories are genuinely very ancient and all share a common link in our distant past. An excavation in Sayburç, shows a narrative tale of humans having animal protectors during an attack in a long form reminiscent of a modern cartoon strip that is 11,000 years old. We don’t know the story depicted in the progressive scenes, but we can tell that it is one, possibly involving shapeshifters, and that the Neolithic people felt strongly enough about it to carve it into stone, so probably repeated versions of it down the generations. I do wonder if we would recognize any of the archetypes and elements in the story today. Some have linked it to The Epic of Gilgamesh due to the lions, bull, and snake held by the figure. That, in turn, is linked to the origins of Beauty and the Beast.

Researchers have published findings in The Royal Society stating that some fairy tales come to us directly from the Bronze Age. Anthropologist Dr Jamie Tehrani of Durham University collaborated with folklorist Sara Graça da Silva, from New University, Lisbon, and found that some date back to the early days of the birth of the Indo-European language, meaning that recognisable versions of Fairy Tales we still tell date back at least 6,000 years. Using techniques normally used by biologists, they examined 275 Indo-European fairy tales and found common roots that date back long before the “emergence of the literary record.” They narrowed down two as being the oldest; Beauty and the Beast and The Smith and the Devil.

They both relate to universal themes that still resonate with the human condition. The first is the young woman forced into the life of an outcast, or unattractive partner, for the good of others and finding love and kindness in the unexpected humanity of the ‘beast’. Her sacrifice was worth it, apparently. A powerful message to give to those you’d like to control or influence for the good of society at large or harmless entertainment? The second is straight out of the mysticism that surrounded the early blacksmith; the men who seemed to be able to work with dirt, stone, and fire to create metals and looked like magicians to ordinary people. Producing shining swords and intricate jewellery out of fire must have appeared astounding, so it’s no surprise that the tale of some kind of Faustian pact with the devil was invented to explain this extraordinary skill. Most of these tales involve hubris and regret, but many also involve wordplay, cunning, sacrifice, and luck.

We all understand the phenomenon of stories altering slightly on retelling, so it’s no surprise that there are so many different versions spread throughout Europe of these stories, all slightly changed and subtly enhanced until they could eventually be captured in the age of writing. However, being stories told primarily to children meant that they were not seen as important enough to study and note until the 16th and 17th centuries, although some do appear in ancient Greek and Latin texts. But these tales were not originally intended just for children. They were not just entertainment, but a method of communicating social values, oiling the wheels of social interactions by rewarding those who adhered to the morals expected, inspiring budding warriors through tales of heroes, and by repeating these lessons in a memetic method that excited the emotions. Not all the ancient tales had happy endings, some played with dark themes like death, cannibalism, and gruesome fates, and operate to warn the unwary, ruthless, and over-bold. After all, we all remember stories that made us feel something, and the original stories played with lust, fear, relief, and desire before they were later sanitized when they were collected. People like Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are the most famous of those who compiled books of what they essentially saw as folklore, and did so out of an academic interest in protecting folklore in danger of dying out. They thought of the work as an academic treatise, and saw fragments of old faiths and customs represented in the symbolism and themes, repeated and mutated, until less recognisable as reflections of the past and becoming more harmless tales told to children as simple entertainment. Scholars note that the brothers, and particularly Wilhelm, added Biblical themes to the stories, removed sexual elements, and changed the language to make the books more popular. Some of the tales were actually of French origin, collected from Huguenot immigrants and French territories disputed by Germany such as Alsace-Lorraine, and were altered to make them more German in the face of rising German nationalism at home.

The approach to women’s work over men’s is interesting to note. Many tales begin with a male occupation such as, “there once was a miller/soldier/farmer”, but women’s work like spinning is often depicted with more menacing, mystical undertones, with stories being told by women engaged in tedious work while casting spells. Spinning, in fairy tales, may be avoided because of a threat, or social status might mean a woman is unfamiliar with the work. They may also just be too lazy to do it themselves. All of those kinds of women often enter into another Faustian deal to have a supernatural being do the work for them at a price. Sometimes they trick their way out, and other times a hero rescues them.

The stories have continued to be sanitized, especially when Disneyfied and turned into animated movies that have delighted families for decades. Gone are the gruesome elements like Snow White’s step-mother demanding the huntsman bring back Snowwhite’s liver and lungs so she could eat them. Cinderella’s step-mother is no longer forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes that will kill her, in The Goose Girl a servant isn’t stripped naked and forced into a barrel filled with nails pointing inwards and rolled down the street, the Frog Prince is no longer thrown against a wall and killed instead of being kissed, the three bears aren’t visited by an old lady who escapes them, Sleeping Beauty isn’t raped by the king and subsequently gives birth to twins that the king’s wife wants to cook, and Little Red Riding Hood isn’t cut from the belly of the wolf. They are clean and child-friendly moral tales.

Or are they? Have they simply morphed into sub-genres? Remember that these were stories designed to entertain and enthrall the whole clan; from drunken hunters and warriors, powerful rulers, farm labourers, women rearing children and working with food, creating fabrics, tending livestock, to the young children able to stay awake. They were the entertainment of the day, and the best stories were told and re-told over and over again until they became part of the culture. People lived in a time of food insecurity, dark forests inhabited by fierce animals, short lives, and threatening strangers. The fears were tangible, but it’s clear they never went away. However, people have always loved exploring fear in safe space.

Have the scary and thrilling elements morphed into horror stories designed to meet that same primal need our distant ancestors had? Do we adore being scared to death in the safety of their own homes in front of a roaring fire while it’s cold and dark outside? After all, horror stories are also filled with archetypes, both natural and supernatural, that play on our fears. They often deliver a moral tale, give us a hero to root for, a villain to hate, and innocents to mourn. They have also morphed to reflect our cultural shifts and go from the unnatural or evil, to reflect the slashers, the serial killers, the fear of outer space or deep water, and most of all, we seek them out to enjoy as a group activity just like people did in ancient times. We flinch and hide, we’re appalled, and we cheer as the stars walk away from it all at the end.

Is that really so different to the original aim of the old storytellers?