#aarne-thompson classification

[adarkrainbow]

A class on fairy tales (1)

As you might know (since I have been telling it for quite some times), I had a class at university which was about fairy tales, their history and evolution. But from a literary point of view - I am doing literary studies at university, it was a class of “Literature and Human sciences”, and this year’s topic was fairy tales, or rather “contes” as we call them in France. It was twelve seances, and I decided, why not share the things I learned and noted down here? (The titles of the different parts of this post are actually from me. The original notes are just a non-stop stream, so I broke them down for an easier read)

I) Book lists

The class relied on a main corpus which consisted of the various fairytales we studied - texts published up to the “first modernity” and through which the literary genre of the fairytale established itself. In chronological order they were: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Lo cunto de li cunti by Giambattista Basile, Le Piacevoli Notti by Giovan Francesco Straparola, the various fairytales of Charles Perrault, the fairytales of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, and finally the Kinder-und Hausmärchen of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. There is also a minor mention for the fables of Faerno, not because they played an important historical role like the others, but due to them being used in comparison to Perrault’s fairytales ; there is also a mention of the fairytales of Leprince de Beaumont if I remember well. 

After giving us this main corpus, we were given a second bibliography containing the most famous and the most noteworthy theorical tools when it came to fairytales - the key books that served to theorize the genre itself. The teacher who did this class deliberatly gave us a “mixed list”, with works that went in completely opposite directions when it came to fairytale, to better undersant the various differences among “fairytale critics” - said differences making all the vitality of the genre of the fairytale, and of the thoughts on fairytales. Fairytales are a very complex matter. 

For example, to list the English-written works we were given, you find, in chronological order: Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment ; Jack David Zipes’ Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion ; Robert Bly’s Iron John: A Book about Men ; Marie-Louise von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales ; Lewis C. Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality and Gender in France (1670-1715) ; and Cristina Bacchilega’s Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. If you know the French language, there are two books here: Jacques Barchilon’s Le conte merveilleux français de 1690 à 1790 ; and Jean-Michel Adam and Ute Heidmann’s Textualité et intertextualité des contes. We were also given quite a few German works, such as Märchenforschung und Tiefenpsychologie by Wilhelm Laiblin, Nachwort zu Deutsche Volksmärchen von arm und reich, by Waltraud Woeller ; or Märchen, Träume, Schicksale by Otto Graf Wittgenstein. And of course, the bibliography did not forget the most famous theory-tools for fairytales: Vladimir Propp’s Morfologija skazki + Poetika, Vremennik Otdela Slovesnykh Iskusstv ; as well as the famous Classification of Aarne Anti, Stith Thompson and Hans-Jörg Uther (the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification, aka the ATU). 

By compiling these works together, one will be able to identify the two main “families” that are rivals, if not enemies, in the world of the fairytale criticism. Today it is considered that, roughly, if we simplify things, there are two families of scholars who work and study the fairy tales. One family take back the thesis and the theories of folklorists - they follow the path of those who, starting in the 19th century, put forward the hypothesis that a “folklore” existed, that is to say a “poetry of the people”, an oral and popular literature. On the other side, you have those that consider that fairytales are inscribed in the history of literature, and that like other objects of literature (be it oral or written), they have intertextual relationships with other texts and other forms of stories. So they hold that fairytales are not “pure, spontaneous emanations”. (And given this is a literary class, given by a literary teacher, to literary students, the teacher did admit their bias for the “literary family” and this was the main focus of the class).

Which notably led us to a third bibliography, this time collecting works that massively changed or influenced the fairytale critics - but this time books that exclusively focused on the works of Perrault and Grimm, and here again we find the same divide folklore VS textuality and intertextuality. It is Marc Soriano’s Les contes de Perrault: culture savante et traditions populaires, it is Ernest Tonnelat’s Les Contes des frères Grimm: étude sur la composition et le style du recueil des Kinder-und-Hausmärchen ; it is Jérémie Benoit’s Les Origines mythologiques des contes de Grimm ; it is Wilhelm Solms’ Die Moral von Grimms Märchen ; it is Dominqiue Leborgne-Peyrache’s Vies et métamorphoses des contes de Grimm ; it is Jens E. Sennewald’ Das Buch, das wir sind: zur Poetik der Kinder und-Hausmärchen ; it is Heinz Rölleke’s Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm: eine Einführung. No English book this time, sorry.

II) The Germans were French, and the French Italians

The actual main topic of this class was to consider the “fairytale” in relationship to the notions of “intertextuality” and “rewrites”. Most notably there was an opening at the very end towards modern rewrites of fairytales, such as Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, “Le petit chaperon vert” (Little Green Riding Hood) or “La princesse qui n’aimait pas les princes” (The princess who didn’t like princes). But the main subject of the class was to see how the “main corpus” of classic fairytales, the Perrault, the Grimm, the Basile and Straparola fairytales, were actually entirely created out of rewrites. Each text was rewriting, or taking back, or answering previous texts - the history of fairytales is one of constant rewrite and intertextuality. 

For example, if we take the most major example, the fairytales of the brothers Grimm. What are the sources of the brothers? We could believe, like most people, that they merely collected their tale. This is what they called, especially in the last edition of their book: they claimed to have collected their tales in regions of Germany. It was the intention of the authors, it was their project, and since it was the will and desire of the author, it must be put first. When somebody does a critical edition of a text, one of the main concerns is to find the way the author intended their text to pass on to posterity. So yes, the brothers Grimm claimed that their tales came from the German countryside, and were manifestations of the German folklore. 

But... in truth, if we look at the first editions of their book, if we look at the preface of their first editions, we discover very different indications, indications which were checked and studied by several critics, such as Ernest Tomelas. In truth, one of their biggest sources was... Charles Perrault. While today the concept of the “tales of the little peasant house, told by the fireside” is the most prevalent one, in their first edition the brothers Grimm explained that their sources for these tales were not actually old peasant women, far from it: they were ladies, of a certain social standing, they were young women, born of exiled French families (because they were Protestants, and thus after the revocation of the édit de Nantes in France which allowed a peaceful coexistance of Catholics and Protestants, they had to flee to a country more welcoming of their religion, aka Germany). They were young women of the upper society, girls of the nobility, they were educated, they were quite scholarly - in fact, they worked as tutors/teachers and governess/nursemaids for German children. For children of the German nobility to be exact. And these young French women kept alive the memory of the French literature of the previous century - which included the fairytales of Perrault.

So, through these women born of the French emigration, one of the main sources of the Grimm turns out to be Perrault. And in a similar way, Perrault’s fairytales actually have roots and intertextuality with older tales, Italian fairytales. And from these Italian fairytales we can come back to roots into Antiquity itself - we are talking Apuleius, and Virgil before him, and Homer before him, this whole classical, Latin-Greek literature. This entire genealogy has been forgotten for a long time due to the enormous surge, the enormous hype, the enormous fascination for the study of folklore at the end of the 19th century and throughout all of the 20th. 

We talk of “types of fairytales”, if we talk of Vladimir Propp, if we talk of Aarne Thompson, we are speaking of the “morphology of fairytales”, a name which comes from the Russian theorician that is Propp. Most people place the beginning of the “structuralism” movement in the 70s, because it is in 1970 that the works of Propp became well-known in France, but again there is a big discrepancy between what people think and what actually is. It is true that starting with the 70s there was a massive wave, during which Germans, Italians and English scholars worked on Propp’s books, but Propp had written his studies much earlier than that, at the beginning of the 20th century. The first edition of his Morphology of fairytales was released in 1928. While it was reprinted and rewriten several times in Russia, it would have to wait for roughly fifty years before actually reaching Western Europe, where it would become the fundamental block of the “structuralist grammar”. This is quite interesting because... when France (and Western Europe as a whole) adopted structuralism, when they started to read fairytales under a morphological and structuralist angle, they had the feeling and belief, they were convinced that they were doing a “modern” criticism of fairytales, a “new” criticism. But in truth... they were just repeating old theories and conceptions, snatched away from the original socio-historical context in which Propp had created them - aka the Soviet Union and a communist regime. People often forget too quickly that contextualizing the texts isn’t only good for the studied works, we must also contextualize the works of critics and the analysis of scholars. Criticism has its own history, and so unlike the common belief, Propp’s Morphology of fairytales isn’t a text of structuralist theoricians from the 70s. It was a text of the Soviet Union, during the Interwar Period. 

So the two main questions of this class are. 1) We will do a double exploration to understand the intertextual relationships between fairytales. And 2) We will wonder about the definition of a “fairytale” (or rather of a “conte” as it is called in French) - if the fairytale is indeed a literary genre, then it must have a definition, key elements. And from this poetical point of view, other questions come forward: how does one analyze a fairytale? What does a fairytale mean?

III) Feuding families

Before going further, we will pause to return to a subject talked about above: the great debate among scholars and critics that lasted for decades now, forming the two branches of the fairytale study. One is the “folklorist” branch, the one that most people actually know without realizing it. When one works on fairytale, one does folklorism without knowing it, because we got used to the idea that fairytale are oral products, popular products, that are present everywhere on Earth, we are used to the concept of the universality of motives and structures of fairytales. In the “folklorist” school of thought, there is an universalism, and not only are fairytales present everywhere, but one can identify a common core for them. It can be a categorization of characters, it can be narrative functions, it can be roles in a story, but there is always a structure or a core. As a result, the work of critics who follow this branch is to collect the greatest number of “versions” of a same tale they can find, and compare them to find the smallest common denominator. From this, they will create or reconstruct the “core fairytale”, the “type” or the “source” from which the various variations come from.

Before jumping onto the other family, we will take a brief time to look at the history of the “folklorist branch” of the critic. (Though, to summarize the main differences, the other family of critics basically claims that we do not actually know the origin of these stories, but what we know are rather the texts of these stories, the written archives or the oral records). 

So the first family here (that is called “folklorist” for the sake of simplicity, but it is not an official or true appelation) had been extremely influenced by the works of a famous and talented scholar of the early 20th century: Aarne Antti, a scholar of Elsinki who collected a large number of fairytales and produced out of them a classification, a typology based on this theory that there is an “original fairytale type” that existed at the beginning, and from which variants appeared. His work was then continued by two other scholars: Stith Thompson, and Hans-Jörg Uther. This continuation gave birth to the “Aarne-Thompson” classification, a classification and bibliography of folkloric fairytales from around the world, which is very often used in journals and articles studying fairytales. Through them, the idea of “types” of fairytales and “variants” imposed itself in people’s minds, where each tale corresponds to a numbered category, depending on the subjects treated and the ways the story unfolds (for example an entire category of tale collects the “animal-husbands”. This classification imposed itself on the Western way of thinking at the end of the first third of the 20th century.

The next step in the history of this type of fairytale study was Vladimir Propp. With his Morphology of fairytales, we find the same theory, the same principle of classification: one must collect the fairytales from all around the world, and compare them to find the common denominator. Propp thought Aarne-Thompson’s work was interesting, but he did complain about the way their criteria mixed heterogenous elements, or how the duo doubled criterias that could be unified into one. Propp noted that, by the Aarne-Thompson system, a same tale could have two different numbers - he concluded that one shouldn’t classify tales by their subject or motif. He claimed that dividing the fairytales by “types” was actually impossible, that this whole theory was more of a fiction than an actual reality. So, he proposed an alternate way of doing things, by not relying on the motifs of fairytales: Propp rather relied on their structure. Propp doesn’t deny the existence of fairytales, he doesn’t put in question the categorization of fairytales, or the universality of fairytales, on all that he joins Aarne-Thompson. But what he does is change the typology, basing it on “functions”: for him, the constituve parts of fairytales are “functions”, which exist in limited numbers and follow each other per determined orders (even if they are not all “activated”). He identified 31 functions, that can be grouped into three groups forming the canonical schema of the fairytale according to Propp. These three groups are an initial situation with seven functions, followed by a first sequence going from the misdeed (a bad action, a misfortune, a lack) to its reparation, and finally there is a second sequence which goes from the return of the hero to its reward. From these seven “preparatory functions”, forming the initial situation, Propp identified seven character profiles, defined by their functions in the narrative and not by their unique characteristics. These seven profiles are the Aggressor (the villain), the Donor (or provider), the Auxiliary (or adjuvant), the Princess, the Princess’ Father, the Mandator, the Hero, and the False Hero. This system will be taken back and turned into a system by Greimas, with the notion of “actants”: Greimas will create three divisions, between the subject and the object, between the giver and the gifted, and between the adjuvant and the opposant.

With his work, Vladimir Propp had identified the “structure of the tale”, according to his own work, hence the name of the movement that Propp inspired: structuralism. A structure and a morphology - but Propp did mention in his texts that said morphology could only be applied to fairytales taken from the folklore (that is to say, fairytales collected through oral means), and did not work at all for literary fairytales (such as those of Perrault). And indeed, while this method of study is interesting for folkloric fairytales, it becomes disappointing with literary fairytales - and it works even less for novels. Because, trying to find the smallest denominator between works is actually the opposite of literary criticism, where what is interesting is the difference between various authors. It is interesting to note what is common, indeed, but it is even more interesting to note the singularities and differences. Anyway, the apparition of the structuralist study of fairytales caused a true schism among the field of literary critics, between those that believe all tales must be treated on a same way, with the same tools (such as those of Propp), and those that are not satisfied with this “universalisation” that places everything on the same level. 

This second branch is the second family we will be talking about: those that are more interested by the singularity of each tale, than by their common denominators and shared structures. This second branch of analysis is mostly illustrated today by the works of Ute Heidmann, a German/Swiss researcher who published alongside Jean Michel Adam (a specialist of linguistic, stylistic and speech-analysis) a fundamental work in French: Textualité et intertextualité des contes: Perrault, Apulée, La Fontaine, Lhéritier... (Textuality and intertextuality of fairytales). A lot of this class was inspired by Heidmann and Adam’s work, which was released in 2010. Now, this book is actually surrounded by various articles posted before and after, and Ute Heidmann also directed a collective about the intertextuality of the brothers Grimm fairytales. Heidmann did not invent on her own the theories of textuality and intertextuality - she relies on older researches, such as those of the Ernest Tonnelat, who in 1912 published a study of the brothers Grimm fairytales focusing on the first edition of their book and its preface. This was where the Grimm named the sources of their fairytales: girls of the upper class, not at all small peasants, descendants of the protestant (huguenots) noblemen of France who fled to Germany. Tonnelat managed to reconstruct, through these sources, the various element that the Grimm took from Perrault’s fairytales. This work actually weakened the folklorist school of thought, because for the “folklorist critics”, when a similarity is noted between two fairytales, it is a proof of “an universal fairytale type”, an original fairytale that must be reconstructed. But what Tonnelat and other “intertextuality critics” pushed forward was rather the idea that “If the story of the Grimm is similar but not identical to the one of Perrault, it is because they heard a modified version of Perrault’s tale, a version modified either by the Grimms or by the woman that told them the tale, who tried to make the story more or less horrible depending on the situation”. This all fragilized the idea of an “original, source-fairytale”, and encouraged other researchers to dig this way.

For example, the case was taken up by Heinz Rölleke, in 1985: he systematized the study of the sources of the Grimm, especially the sources that tied them to the fairytales of Perrault. Now, all the works of this branch of critics does not try to deny or reject the existence of fairytales all over the world. And it does not forget that all over the world, human people are similar and have the same preoccupations (life, love, death, war, peace). So, of course, there is an universality of the themes, of the motives, of the intentions of the texts. Because they are human texts, so there is an universality of human fiction. But there is here the rejection of a topic, a theory, a question that can actually become VERY dangerous. (For example, in post World War II Germany, all researches about fairytales were forbidden, because during their reign the Nazis had turned the fairytales the Grimm into an abject ideological tool). This other family, vein, branch of critics, rather focuses on the specificity of each writing style, of each rewrite of a fairytale, but also on the various receptions and interpretations of fairytales depending on the context of their writing and the context of their reading. So the idea behind this “intertextuality study” is to study the fairytales like the rest of literature, be it oral or written, and to analyze them with the same philological tools used by history studies, by sociology study, by speech analysis and narrative analysis - all of that to understand what were the conditions of creation, of publication, of reading and spreading of these tales, and how they impacted culture.

[pseuddamntired]

I think it would be fun to challenge people to write stories promoted only by categories in the aarne-thompson-uther index. With the optional additional challenge that the genre/style is NOT folk tale or fable.

Categories such as “war between birds (insects) and quadrupeds” and “which bird is father?” and “innocent slandered maiden” and “suitors at the spinning wheel” and “seemingly dead relatives” and, possibly my favorite, “cases solved in a manner worthy of Solomon”

I’m finding a lot from this table of tale types: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/c.php?g=1083510

[dimetrodone]

how goes the reading of the andersen tales? also, thoughts on the aarne-thompson-uther index?

I am approximately 2/3rds done, I took a break last week to read something else for a book club I’m in.

I’m not knowledgable enough about fairlytales and folklore to have any strong opinions on the ATU index besides it being interesting and helping me find similar and “related” stories. I imagine there is some controversy and messiness with it as is the case with all classification systems, but I haven’t read into it enough to know about that

[forevermagik]

Okay so @elizmanderson asked that I talk more about my thesis. So here we are.

I wrote it on the evolution of the fairytale "Beauty and the Beast" which makes me even more annoyed that I did not know about the 1740 version as referenced in this post. Because I would have had a lot to say about things getting cut between the 1740 version and the 1756 version.

At the time I was writing my thesis, I was tracking down every version of AT-425C - Aarne Thompson classification for Beauty and the Beast. Additionally, I discussed several modern retellings. I did not include every version in my thesis because, realistically, I only had ~a year to write it, and I did have a limited thing called... time.

THAT SAID I'm still mad that nowhere was I able to find the 1740 version. To be honest, given the resources I was using, I had a hard time finding anything before the 1800's... so, there's also that. No offense to my thesis advisor, but he was not the most qualified to help me. He was just the most qualified professor who could help me who I could also tolerate. (The most qualified professor and I did not get along because drama in academia is a thing.)

Some more facts about my thesis, I was talking about how various retellings over time changed how the characters of Beauty and the Beast were given agency (or agency was taken from them) and their overall characterization. I also discussed the roles of supporting characters (should there be any) or villains. I also talked about magic's role in general, and, of course, the role of "true love".

It would have been really cool to discuss more about fae and their role in Beauty and the Beast.

Though, I mean, I haven't not been thinking about eventually writing my own retelling anyway so there's that.

[thebigcj]

Classpecting is so wild to me. For context, I’ve recently finished Homestuck and have delved deep into the mechanics and (honestly spotty) Worldbuilding, deeming myself a Mage of Heart. Like, the more I study how Aspects and classes function from all the different lenses (Hero’s journey, session role, personality, expected worldview, psychological/philosophical profile, etc), the more I fit being a Mage of Heart. Like, I had already sorta felt that that’s what I’d be but like, almost every interpretation fits me to a T.

Hussie might not be a good person, but they have crafted possibly the greatest narrative classification system this side of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hi there! I was just wondering, since you seem to know a lot about mythology and folklore, if you had any way to access the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index online? Thanks a bunch!

[unfavorableinstigation]

I somehow feel like there should be a subset of Aarne-Thompson classifications for fairy tales in which the primary moral good rewarded is 'obliviously yet doggedly minding your own fucking business'. The corollary 'your disproportionately appalling punishment for minor meddling shall be an Example To All' exists in spades, as does 'disproportionate rewards for sort of absentmindedly doing small services'. But I feel that there must he a category for the Joshua Gillespies of the world.

[rapha-reads]

So I'm reading Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, and I absolutely adore how it's a mix of all these tales I spent five months studying for my thesis. It's the entire ATU 425 tale type category at once*. A bit of Beauty and the Beast, a bit of Cupid and Psyche, a bit of East of the Sun and West of the Moon... When you know what you're looking at, it's so interesting to analyse it all.

*ATU= Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, a classification of as many of the folktales and fairytales indexed around the world and the centuries, catalogued after their structures (their type). ATU 425: "The Search for the Lost Husband". ATU 425A: "Animal as Bridegroom" -> East of the Sun and West of the Moon (and The Serpent Prince, the Pig King...). ATU 425B: "Son of the Witch" -> Cupid and Psyche (also The Son of the Ogress, Tale of Baba Yaga...). ATU 425C: "Beauty and the Beast". There are a few more types (it goes to 425E), but these three are the main ones.

[chaos-has-theories]

Do people on tumblr know about pitt.edu? I think people should know about pitt.edu.

What I mean is the folklore collection by D.L. Ashliman.

I might owe this page a piece of my soul. Whenever I need anything fairy-tale related I first google "(thing) pitt.edu", and then I'm usually done, finished, perfectly content.

There's this list of folklore and mythology sorted by tropes/types. There's a list of the Grimms' fairy tales with links to English and German versions and the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification. If you click on a specific well-known (or even lesser-known) fairy tale, it gives you the text, the sources, and then a bunch of links to related sites: like comparisons between versions, or similar folktales.

There's also a whole site of links to various folklore-related resources, and of course Ashliman's own monographs which I WILL get and read eventually. Hopefully. Maybe.

[lowkeynando]

The Bear is a fairy tale collected by Andrew

Lang in The Grey Fairy Book. [1] It is Aarne-Thompson classification system type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, Little Cat Skin, Allerleirauh, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Tattercoats, Mossycoat, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and Donkeyskin, or the legend of Saint Dymphna. [2]

[3 A king loved his daughter so much that he kept her in her rooms for fear harm would come to her. She complained to her nurse; unbeknownst to her, the nurse was a witch. She told her to get a wheelbarrow and a bearskin from the king. The king gave them to her, the nurse enchanted them, and when the princess put on the skin, it disguised her, and when she got into the wheelbarrow, it took her wherever she wanted to go. She had it take her to a forest.

A prince hunted her, but when she called to him to call off his dogs, he was so astounded that he asked her to come home with him. She agreed and went in the wheelbarrow. His mother was surprised, and more when the bear began to do housework as well as any servant. One day, the prince had to go to a ball given by a neighbouring prince. The bear wanted to go, and he kicked it. When he left, she implored his mother for leave to just go and watch. With it, she went to her wheelbarrow and used the wands CLONES

[ondessiderales]

La Belle et la Bête

« La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) est le 39e long-métrage d'animation et le 30e « Classique d'animation » des studios Disney. Sorti en 1991 et réalisé par Gary Trousdale et Kirk Wise, c'est le troisième film du « Second âge d'or » des studios Disney.

Inspiré du conte éponyme de Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont publié en 1757 tout en reprenant les idées du film français du même nom de Jean Cocteau, La Belle et la Bête mélange les genres de la comédie musicale et du fantastique. »

« Doté d'un budget de 25 000 000 dollars, La Belle et la Bête en rapporte 331 907 151 à travers le monde, dont 4,1 millions d'entrées en France. Il devient le troisième plus gros succès de l'année au box-office américain en 1991 avec des recettes de 145 millions de dollar et le troisième plus gros succès de l'année au box-office français en 1992. Acclamé de façon unanime par la critique professionnelle du monde entier ainsi que par le public, le film est récompensé de la statuette du meilleur film musical ou de comédie aux Golden Globes, devenant le tout premier film d'animation à être récompensé dans cette catégorie. Il est ensuite nommé pour l'Oscar du meilleur film et devient le premier film d'animation à être nommé dans cette catégorie avant la création de l'Oscar du meilleur film d'animation. Il obtient à cette même cérémonie l'Oscar de la meilleure musique de film et l'Oscar de la meilleure chanson originale pour Histoire éternelle, alors qu'il concourt également dans cette même catégorie pour les chansons C'est la fête et Belle. »

« Il était une fois, dans un pays lointain, un jeune prince qui vivait dans un somptueux château. Bien que la vie l’ait comblé de tous ses bienfaits, le prince était un homme capricieux, égoïste et insensible.

Un soir d’hiver, une vieille mendiante se présenta au château et lui offrit une rose en échange d’un abri contre le froid qui faisait rage. Saisi de répulsion devant sa misérable apparence, le prince ricana de son modeste présent et chassa la vieille femme. Elle tenta de lui faire entendre qu’il ne fallait jamais se fier aux apparences, et que la vraie beauté venait du cœur. Lorsqu’il la repoussa pour la seconde fois, la hideuse apparition se métamorphosa sous ses yeux en une créature enchanteresse. Le prince essaya de se faire pardonner, mais il était trop tard car elle avait compris la sécheresse de ce cœur déserté par l’amour. En punition, elle le transforma en une bête monstrueuse et jeta un sort sur le château ainsi que sur tous ses occupants.

Horrifiée par son aspect effroyable, la Bête se terra au fond de son château, avec pour seule fenêtre sur le monde extérieur un miroir magique. La rose qui lui avait été offerte était une rose enchantée qui ne se flétrirait qu’au jour de son vingt-et-unième anniversaire. Avant la chute du dernier pétale de la fleur magique, le prince devrait aimer une femme et s’en faire aimer en retour pour briser le charme. Dans le cas contraire, il se verrait condamné à garder l’apparence d’un monstre pour l’éternité. Plus les années passaient et plus le prince perdait tout espoir d’échapper à cette malédiction ; car en réalité, qui pourrait un jour aimer… une bête ? »

— Prologue du film. Texte français de Claude Rigal-Ansous.

« La Belle et la Bête est un conte-type, identifiable dans le monde entier en dépit de variantes locales (numéro 425 C dans la classification Aarne-Thompson), contenant des thèmes ayant trait à l'amour et la rédemption.

Une jeune fille que l’on appelle « la belle » se sacrifie pour sauver son père, condamné à mort pour avoir cueilli une rose dans le domaine d'un terrible monstre. Contre toute attente, la Bête épargne la Belle et lui permet de vivre dans son château. Elle s'aperçoit que, derrière les traits de l'animal, souffre un homme victime d'un sortilège. Le conte a fait l'objet de nombreuses adaptations au cinéma, au théâtre et à la télévision au cours du XXe siècle, notamment un long-métrage de Jean Cocteau et deux adaptations, l'une d'animation, l'autre en prise de vue réelle, par les studios Disney. »

« [Ce conte] apprend aux enfants à distinguer la laideur morale de la laideur physique, à favoriser le rayonnement d’une intelligence, d’un cœur, d’une âme que rend timide un extérieur ingrat. […] Les deux sœurs de la Belle ont épousé deux gentilshommes dont l’un symbolise la beauté et l’autre l’intelligence ; ce n’est pas là le vrai fondement d’un amour solide, mais la bonté. Ainsi la Belle ne peut se défendre d’aimer la Bête à cause des attentions inlassables dont celle-ci l’entoure. Le don de soi est justifié par l’estime des bonnes qualités de la personne à laquelle on veut unir sa vie ; ainsi les jeunes filles apprennent l’usage du véritable amour. La Belle, voyant à quelle extrémité elle réduit par ses refus la pauvre Bête, passe sous l’impulsion de la compassion unie à l’estime, de l’amitié à l’amour. Des sentiments purs, estime, délicatesse, élégance morale, reconnaissance en sont les motifs. On trouve ici la justification des mariages fréquents à cette époque, entre hommes mûrs, souvent veufs, et filles très jeunes. Il ne restait à ces maris âgés qu’à entourer leur jeune épouse de tous les égards, et aux jeunes femmes à respecter la situation mondaine et la valeur des quadragénaires. »

— Marie-Antoinette Reynaud, Madame Leprince de Beaumont, vie et œuvre d'une éducatrice, 1971

La Belle et la Bête - Histoire éternelle

Histoire éternelle Qu'on ne croit jamais De deux inconnus Qu'un geste imprévu Rapproche en secret

Et soudain se pose Sur leur cœur en fête Un papillon rose Un rien, pas grand chose Une fleur offerte

Rien ne se ressemble Rien n'est plus pareil Mais comment savoir La peur envolée Que l'on s'est trompé ?

Chanson éternelle Aux refrains fanés C'est vrai, c'est étrange De voir comme on change Sans même y penser

Tout comme les étoiles S'éteignent en cachette L'histoire éternelle Touche de son aile La Belle et la Bête

L'histoire éternelle Touche de son aile La Belle et la Bête

[adarkrainbow]

The fairytale world of The Witcher

The Witcher is first and foremost a work of fantasy and as such, of course, when looking at the inspirations of Sapkowski, we have to look at fantasy works. For example the early worldbuilding and characters of The Witcher world bear the heavy mark of D&D (Jaskier is a cliche D&D Bard, the classification of elemental genies is traight out of D&D, there's the handlings of "druids", etc...), while the main character clearly has parallels with Moorcock's Elric (white-haired wanderer-warrior who knows magic and uses elixirs, drugs to maintain his fighting abilities, philosophizes a lot about the ending of an age and the future of humanity and the doom he is condemned to). However, The Witcher is also, primarily, a fairytale work.

[EDIT: So I am used to call Jaskier "Jaskier" but in English he is called Dandelion apparently... So know that when I talk of Jaskier, I'm talking about Dandelion]

And I am not just saying that in the way that almost all major fantasy works are inspired by fairytales, no. It tends to be lost on people due to how they usually know derived incarnations of this series, but The Witcher stories started out as full on fairytale rewrites. More precisely: subversives parodies of fairytales using dark humor, a gritty tone proper to dark fantasy, and fantasy tropes in general mixed with some folklore sprinkled here and there.

Of all the Witcher books, the first two are the ones where this logic is on full display, forming the core of each tale. If you ever missed it, here is a little list of the fairytale references in them. [Note: I am using the French translation so I might miss some stuff or write them strangely for those used to the English translations or the original Polish]

Book 1: The Last Wish

Many people might be surprised to learn that the first story, "The Witcher", is actually the parody of a specific fairytale. It might seem to be just a take on the vampire as it appears in Eastern European folklore, but in truth Sapkowski rewrote a tale that you probably do not know. Why? Because none of the "great" collectors or writers have it: it doesn't appear in Andersen, Grimm, Perrault, Aulnoy, Basile, Straparola, or whoever else you might name. It is however a fully classified fairytale-type that is VERY present and popular in Eastern Europe, hence why it appears in The Witcher: the Aarne-Thompson classified it as type 307, "The Princess in the Shroud/The Princess in the Coffin". The closest thing you'll find to a version of this in the "classical" corpus is a Danish fairytale that Andrew Lang placed in his Pink Fairy Book: The Princess in the Chest (and Paul Delarue centered his own French-specific classification of this type around the story "La Ramée and the Phantom"). In interviews the author explained he took "a Polish fairytale" where "the royal daughter transformed into a monster because of the incest of her parents, as a punishment", but I don't known which story prcisely he used.

The second story, A Grain of Truth, is much more obvious, as it is a farcical take on Beauty and the Beast (with some flavors of Undine in it).

The third story, The Lesser Evil, introduces the Curse of the Black Sun, which is the in-universe existence for the "maidens in the tower" and all these princesses that princes have to rescue from doorless buildings (interwoven with the figure of Lilith). The cases of Fialka and Bernika are obviously inspired by the tale of Rapunzel. However the real character of the story, Renfri, is The Witcher's dark take on Snow-White.

A Question of Price is a large mix. The storyline is actually a retelling of Hans My Hedgehog, but exploring the fairytale trope that in Witcher terms is called "the law of surprise" - the episode of someone in need striking a deal with a supernatural being for help, and unwillingly selling away their children (it is most famously illustrated by Grimm's "The Girl without Hands"). One of the "historical" illustrations of this trope in the Witcher universe is a version of Rumplestiltskin (queen Metinna and Rumplestelt). There's also references to great heroes that served as an example of such "fate-striken children" sold to a mysterious stranger - but if there's a cultural nod there, I didn't get it. Finally several fairytales are referred during the discussions: Baba-Yaga and Cinderella are briefly said to exist while "A Question of Price" takes place. And Pavetta's magic is not related to fairytales, but rather to the strange cultural motif of "puberty-induced or virginity-linked psychic powers" found from poltergeists to Carrie.

The fifth story, The Edge of the World, is the only one of the collection not dealing with fairytales. It is rather a tale mixing on one side rural folklore, farming superstitions, field spirits and harvest gods, with on the other an exploration of the fantasy trope of "disappearing elves".

The sixth story, The Last Wish, is all about wish-granting genies, with a strong influence from the tale "The Fisherman and the Jinni".

Book 2: Sword of Destiny

The first story, The Bounds of Reason, is not deconstructing a fairytale per se, but rather the entire myth of the dragon-slaying. You find references to many elements of said myth: "You must kill the dragon to claim the princess", the saint-knight figure interpreting dragons as pure evil, the band of dwarves famed for slaying a dragon seem to me a nod to The Hobbit. But mainly, we see that the tale begins as a subversion/expansion on the legend of Smok Wawelski, the Dragon of Wawel, known to some as the Dragon of Cracovia. There's also a mention of bridge-trolls (The Three Billy Goats Gruff).

The second story, A Shard of Ice, is not linked to fairytales per se, but uses a motif taken directly from The Snow Queen (and in-universe, the fairytale of the Snow Queen is said to be an embellished version of the Wild Hunt).

The third story, Eternal Flame, has no fairytale theme, it is just a pure fantasy story.

The fourth story, A Little Sacrifice, opens and closes on the in-universe love story that caused the story of The Little Mermaid to exist (turns out it is a ballad by Jaskier, the actual romance went much happier, though not smoother). Also, the under-sea city is explicitely compared to the city of Ys, which is a big legend of France.

With the fifth story, Sword of Destiny, we go back into a lot of fairytale nods (it helps that it is a direct sequel to "A Question of Price"). The "Last Forest" of Brokelion is a nod to Brocéliande, the legendary forest of Arthurian legends. Geralt tells Ciri the fable of the Fox and the Cat. Freixenet turns out to have been the inspiration for the fairytale of "The Wild Swans", which in-universe is a ridiculous exaggeration and mistelling of what truly happened.

The sixth story, "Something More", only is "fairytale-y" as it reuses the saw "surprise-child/law of destiny" elements already prepared and presented by A Question of Price and Sword of Destiny.

Afterward, from what I understood (I haven't read the third book onward), the fairytale elements are dropped to rather put focus on the exploration of the fantasy and folkloric elements - but it is always useful to know that it started out as basically a dark humor /dark fantasy take on fairytales.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Thank you!

Meanwhile, in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Tale Type index, "A monster born from a careless wish" (Which describes Casamir) is given the index number 441.

But the story of Tom Thumb (The first fairy tale to be printed and published in English, BTW) is given the index number 700 -- even though Tom is born because his father wished for son "Even if he's no bigger than my thumb."

But Tom Thumb is not considered a monster, because he's fully human-shaped, and not a octopoid-armed boy, or half hedgehog, or someone with only a left side, or...

So in my own classification, I group Tom Thumb with Hans-My-Hedgehog and Halfman together, under "Wish-born Children."

Those of us with aesthetically acceptable disabilities have to bond in solidarity with those who drool, and grunt, and wear diapers, and have tics. You know?

Adoptin’ a blob boy

[softlytowardthesun]

Curious: what are your favorite type of fairy stories listed in the Aarne-Thompson enciclopedia classification?

First off, it's nice to meet you and thank you for asking! Secondly, I want to preface this: I'm not a student or a scholar of folklore as a genre, and my knowledge of ATU is limited to what I've managed to find online over the years. More often than not, it's either something I've found on JStor in college, something in a Maria Tatar book, or this website.

Still, I love seeing these stories and all their variations across times and places. Without further ado:

306: The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes: I love the mystery element of this story, and I'm forever intrigued by all the variations of the other world the women travel to, whether it's the palace of Indra, the court of Satan, or something else entirely. Many versions attribute their actions to some curse that must be broken to achieve a heterosexual happy ending, but it's in the in-between that this story really sings to me. And a not-quite-variant of it, "Kate Crackernuts", may just be my favorite fairy tale of all time; how often is the ugly (or at least, "less bonny") stepsister the hero of her own story?

310: The Maiden in the Tower: I'm a sucker for a magical chase, and Rapunzel's relatives absolutely provide. My favorites include "Snow-White-Fire-Red", "The Canary Prince", and "Louliyya, Daughter of Morgan".

311: Magic Flight: Stories of magical escapes from dire situations, like "Sweetheart Roland", "The White Dove", "The Fox Sister", and "The Tail of the Princess Elephant".

407: The Flower Girl: Plants who become women or vice versa, often coupled with an escape from an abusive romance. I love these stories purely for the folkloric weirdness factor: "A Riddling Tale" (shout-out to Erstwhile for introducing me to this one), "The Gold-Spinners", "The Girl in the Bay Tree", and "Pretty Maid Ibronka".

451: Brothers as Birds: This one's purely on my love for the Grimms' "Six Swans" and "Seven Ravens". I love a resilient heroine who draws her strength from her family. I admittedly haven't read many others, but these two mean so much to me they get a place here entirely on the strength of these two.

510B: All-Kinds-Of-Fur: The story of a woman's escape from her incestuous father who then gets a Cinderella ending. I admire the heroine's courage in face of an all too real type of monster. Grimms' is a favorite, as is "Florinda" (which could also qualify as 514), "Princess in a Leather Burqa", "The She-Bear", and "Nya-Nya Bulembu".

514: The Shift of Sex: I first came across this story when I stumbled on Psyche Z. Ready's terrific thesis some years ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. All of these variations from all over the world -- I find it cathartic to know that we've been asking these questions about gender and sexuality forever, and a happy ending is an imaginative possibility.

709: Fairest of Them All: This I owe squarely to Maria Tatar's anthology from a few years ago. Unfortunately, this also means that there are several I can't find online, including "Kohava the Wonder Child" (a rare Jewish heroine in a genre infamous for how it absorbs anti-Semitism) and "King Peacock" (one of the few African American fairy tales I know, also included in Tatar's collaboration with Henry Louis Gates). I love "Princess Aubergine", "Little Toute-Belle", and especially "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree" - my little bi self was elated to stumble across a princess who lives happily ever after with her kind and gentle limbo husband and her cunning and resourceful wife.

Even as a hobbyist, I love folklore and fairy tales. I love these little glimpses into other cultures, and I love the way these story structures act as magnets for so many nuances of people's lives across history. Still, I hope this answers your question, gives a glimpse into my experience with fairy tales as a genre, or (at the very least) gives you some new and interesting stories to read!

[lowkeynando]

The Bear is a fairy tale collected by Andrew

Lang in The Grey Fairy Book. [1] It is Aarne-Thompson classification system type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, Little Cat Skin, Allerleirauh, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Tattercoats, Mossycoat, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and Donkeyskin, or the legend of Saint Dymphna. [2]

[3 A king loved his daughter so much that he kept her in her rooms for fear harm would come to her. She complained to her nurse; unbeknownst to her, the nurse was a witch. She told her to get a wheelbarrow and a bearskin from the king. The king gave them to her, the nurse enchanted them, and when the princess put on the skin, it disguised her, and when she got into the wheelbarrow, it took her wherever she wanted to go. She had it take her to a forest.

A prince hunted her, but when she called to him to call off his dogs, he was so astounded that he asked her to come home with him. She agreed and went in the wheelbarrow. His mother was surprised, and more when the bear began to do housework as well as any servant. One day, the prince had to go to a ball given by a neighbouring prince. The bear wanted to go, and he kicked it. When he left, she implored his mother for leave to just go and watch. With it, she went to her wheelbarrow and used the wands AND

[absynthe--minded]

Homecoming Husband??

the easiest explanation of a lot of this that I can find in one place is ATU 974 THE HOMECOMING HUSBAND, THE RETURNS OF ODYSSEUS, AND THE END OF ODYSSEY 21 (link to JSTOR, can be read online, yes the title is in all caps) - it won't be the only thing I'm referencing, but it gives a pretty good and accessible rundown of the basics and contains a few excerpts from non-Greek versions of the story that I think are relevant.

the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index is a folklore classification system designed to group different stories into similar types or motifs, with an eye to showcasing how the variations of a story don't change the fundamental pieces of it. this is of course an extreme simplification, but the idea is that it can demonstrate deeper cultural connection or shared influence as well as provide an organizational tool for folklorists and other academics. it's not without controversy but it's what we're working with here.

ATU 974, the Homecoming Husband, is the story of a man who's been away from home for a long time and returns in disguise to find his wife about to be married off to someone else. He infiltrates his home, now grown hostile, and reveals himself to his wife and her suitor(s) at a key moment. she recognizes him, her faithfulness is proved by her fidelity and joy at their reunion, and he overcomes the obstacles keeping them apart and reasserts his place at the head of the household. other versions include the husband killing the wife for being unfaithful, but we're going to focus on the happy ones.

as indicated by the title of that article, there are some theories that suggest Odysseus fulfills this motif, and some evidence for the idea that pre-Homeric or additional versions of the story of his return existed at one point. particular attention is drawn to Odysseus stringing his bow and the comparison in the poem to song and singing; in most versions of the story the husband reveals himself through song. the paper I linked details an Uzbek version (appropriately told in song) about a husband whose wife recognizes him after he sings to her and she reaches her hand through a lattice to hold his.

now I'm not going to make this about the Odyssey, so where this is relevant with regard to Tolkien and specifically to Fingon and Maedhros becomes evident when you consider both bow and song. Fingon has been isolated from Maedhros by war and tragedy, he sets out to save his spouse from calamity and facilitate their reunion, he reveals himself in song and Maedhros answers to prove his fidelity, and then Fingon of course tries and fails to shoot him while calling for help. they then vanquish the obstacles keeping them apart and are reunited in comfort and joy, for a time. you see something similar with Frodo and Sam in Cirith Ungol, though in this case the violence and bloodshed associated with murdering suitors has already been accomplished by the orcs themselves.

Túrin and Beleg are proof enough that Tolkien was familiar with Greek epics on a scholarly level (something something accepted tropes of gay relationships being inverted and played with, Beleg does the cooking and is the elder and dies first, boy I wonder if you read the Iliad in school Ronald) so arguing that there's a potential link between both the ATU motif and specifically its manifestation in Homer strikes me as reasonable. IANAC (I Am Not A Classicist) so I can only say that nothing ever happens by accident in these stories, and Tolkien was very good at reinterpreting existing inspirations into something wholly his own.