#d'aulnoy fairytales

[adarkrainbow]

Names in fairytales: Prince Charming

Prince Charming has become the iconic, “canon” name of the stock character of the brave, handsome prince who delivers the princess and marries her at the end of every tale.

But... where does this name comes from? You can’t find it in any of Perrault’s tales, nor in any of the Grimms’, nor in Andersen - in none of the big, famous fairytales of today. Sure, princes are often described as “charming”, as an adjective in those tales, but is it enough to suddenly create a stock name on its own?

No, of course it is not. The name “Prince Charming” has a history, and it comes, as many things in fairy tales, from the French literary fairytales. But not from Perrault, no, Perrault kept his princes unnamed: it comes from madame d’Aulnoy.

You see, madame d’Aulnoy, due to literaly helping create the fairytale genre in French literature, created a trend that would be followed by all after her: unlike Perrault who kept a lot of his characters unnamed, madame d’Aulnoy named almost each and every of her characters. But she didn’t just randomly name them: she named them after significant words. Either they were given actual words and adjectives as name, such as “Duchess Grumpy”, “Princess Shining”, “Princess Graceful”, “Prince Angry”, “King Cute”, “Prince Small-Sun”, etc etc... Either they were given names with a hidden meaning in them (such as “Carabosse”, the name of a wicked fairy which is actually a pun on Greek words, or “Galifron”, the name of a giant which also contains puns of old French verbs). So she started this all habit of having fairytale characters named after specific qualities, flaws or traits - and among her characters you find, in the fairytale “L’oiseau bleu”, “The blue bird”, “King Charming” (Roi Charmant). Not prince, here king, though he still acts as a typical prince charming would act - and “Charming” is indeed his name. 

And this character of “King Charming” actually went on to create the name we know today as “Prince Charming”. It should be noted that, while a lot of d’Aulnoy’s fairytales ended up forgotten by popular culture, some of her stories stayed MASSIVELY famous throughout the centuries and reached almost ever-lasting fame in countries other than France: The doe in the woods, The white cat, Cunning Cinders... and the Blue Bird, which stays probably the most famous fairytale of madame d’Aulnoy ever. It even was included in Andrew Lang’s Green Fairy Book.

And speaking of Andrew Lang, he is actually the next step in the history of “Prince Charming”. He translated another fairytale of madame d’Aulnoy prior to Blue Bird. In Lang’s “Blue Fairy Book”, you will find a tale called “The story of pretty Goldilocks”. This is a VERY bad title-translation of madame d’Aulnoy “La Belle aux Cheveux d’Or”, “The Beauty with Golden Hair”. And in it the main hero - who isn’t a prince, merely the faithful servant to a king - is named “Avenant”, which is a now old-fashioned word meaning “a pleasing, gracious, lovely person - someone who charms with their good looks and their grace”. When Andrew Lang translated the name in English, he decided to use “Charming”. At the end of the tale, the hero ends up marrying the Beauty with Golden Hair, who is a queen, so he also becomes “King Charming” - but the fact Avenant is a courtly hero who does several great deeds and monster-slaying for the Beauty with Golden Hair, a single beautiful queen, all for wedding reasons, ended up having him be assimilated with a “prince” in people’s mind.

And all in all, this “doubling” of a fairytale tale hero named “Charming” in Andrew Lang’s fairytales led to the colloquial term “Prince Charming” slowly appearing...

Though what is quite funny is the difference between the English language and the French one. Because in the English language, “Prince Charming” is bound to be a proper, first name - due to the position of the words. It isn’t “a charming prince”, but “prince Charming” - and again, it is an heritage of madame d’Aulnoy’s habit of naming her characters after adjectives. But in French, “Prince Charming” and “a charming prince” are basically one and the same, since adjectives are placed after the names, and not the reverse. So sometimes we write “Prince Charmant” as a name, but other times we just write “prince charmant”, as “charming prince” - and this allows for a wordplay on the double meaning of the stock name. 

[adarkrainbow]

I was wondering for quite some times what was the fairytale associated with the “giant crab terrifying the fairies” illustration... And then, as I saw another illustrated post (I’ll reblog it afterward), it hit me.

This is actually one of madame d’Aulnoy’s own fairytale. It is the fairytale known in English as “The White Doe”, though the original French title is “The Doe in the Woods”. And this giant crab is actually the fairy that curses the princess at her birth with the fate of turning into the titular “Doe”. The reason I didn’t recognize it right ahead is because there is a fascinating translation detail...

In the English texts, you’ll find the fairy being described as a “crab” or a “lobster”. But her original name in French is “Ecrevisse”, “écrevisse”, which means “Crayfish”. So in the original French fairytale it is the Crayfish Fairy, but who somehow got transformed into the Crab Fairy in English for no apparent reason... 

The Orange Fairy Book illustrated by Tomislav Tomić

‘The stories are taken from those told by grannies to grandchildren in many countries and in many languages – French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Gaelic, Icelandic, Cherokee, African, Indian, Australian, Slavonic, Eskimo.’ In his preface to the final title in our Rainbow Fairy Book series, Andrew Lang describes the diverse origins of these tales. They vary from ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Andersen to ‘The White Slipper’ – a reversal of the Cinderella story, in which the king loses his precious white slipper and offers his daughter’s hand to whoever finds it.

The introduction to this edition is by award-winning writer Sara Maitland, whose most recent book, Gossip from the Forest, explores the provenance of fairy tales. Tomislav Tomić is a Croatian artist and children’s author, whose detailed and lively artwork includes a decorated title page, illustrated endpapers and numerous black-and-white drawings. Like all the Rainbow Fairy Books, this volume is beautifully produced, with coloured top-page edges, and luxurious Caxton Wove paper.

[a-book-of-creatures]

The Fairy of the Desert crashes Princess Toute-Belle's wedding.

Art by Walter Crane for The Yellow Dwarf by Madame d'Aulnoy.

[wolfsnape]

Je tiens à dire que ça fait des semaines que je me dis que mon sujet de recherche de master ne servirait pas à grand chose dans ma vie et LÀ une pote me dit que les combats des femmes à l'époque moderne est à l'Agreg et une AUTRE me propose de faire un atelier sur Paris sur les contes et l'invisibilisation des autrices DONT MME D'AULNOY

Je suis SI CONTENTE 😭😭😭😭❤️

[mask131]

A fantasy read-list: B-2

Part B: The First Classical Fantasy

2) On the other side, a century of France... 

As I said in my previous post, for this section I will limit myself to two geographical areas: on one side the British Isles (especially England/Scotland), and now France. More specifically, the France of fairytales! 

Maybe you didn’t know, but the genre of fairy tales, and the very name “fairy tale” was invented by the French! Now, it is true that fairytales existed long before that as oral tales spread from generations to generations, and it is also true that fairy tales had entered literature and been written down before the French started to write down their own... But the fairytale genre as we know it today, and the specific name “fairy tale”, “conte de fées”, is a purely French AND literary invention. 

# If we really want to go back to the very roots of fairy tales in literature, the oldest fairytale text we have still today, it would be a specific segment of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (or The Metamorphoses depending on your favorite title). In it, you find the Tale of Psyche and Cupid, and this story, which got MASSIVELY popular during the Renaissance, is actually the “original” fairytale. In it you will find all sorts of very common fairytale tropes and elements (the hidden husband one must not see, the wicked stepmother imposing three impossible tasks, the bride wandering in search of her missing husband and asking inanimate elements given a voice...), as well as the traditional fairytale context (an old woman telling the story to a younger audience to carry a specific message). In fact, all French fairytale authors recognized Psyche and Cupid as an influence and inspiration for their own tales, often making references to it, or including it among the “fairytales” of their time. 

# The French invented the genre and baptized it, but the Italian started writing the tales and began the new fashion! The first true corpus, the first literary block of fairytales, is actually dating from the 16th century Italy. Two authors, Straparola and Basile, inspired by the structure, genre and enormous success of Boccace’s Decameron, published two anthologies respectively titled, Piacevoli Notti (The Facetious Nights) and the Pentamerone, or The Tale of Tales. These books were anthologies of what we would call today fairytales, stories of metamorphosed princes, and fairies, and ogres, and magical animals, and bizarre transformations, and curses needing to be broken, and damsels needing to be rescued... In fact, these books contain the “literary ancestors” and the “literary prototypes” of some of the very famous fairytales we know today. The ancestors of Sleeping Beauty (The Sun, the Moon and Thalia), Cinderella (Cenerentola), Snow-White (Lo cuorvo/The Raven), Rapunzel (Petrosinella) or Puss in Boots (Costantino Fortunato, Cagliuso)... 

However be warned: these books were intended to be licentious, rude and saucy. They were not meant to be refined and delicate tales - far from it! Scatological jokes are found everywhere, many of the tales are sexual in nature, there’s a lot of very gory and bloody moments... It was basically a series sex-blood-and-poop supernatural comedies where most of the characters were grotesque caricatures or laughable beings. We are far, far away from the Disney fairytales... 

# The big success and admiration caused by the Italian works prompted however the French to try their hand at the genre. They took inspiration from these stories, as well as from the actual oral fairytales that were told and spread in France itself, and turned them into literary works meant to entertain the salons and the courts. This was the birth of the French fairytale, at the end of the 17th century - and the birth of the fairytale itself, since the name “fairy tale” was invented to designate the work of these authors. 

The greatest author of French fairytale is, of course, Charles Perrault with his Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales of the Past), mistakenly referred to by everyone today as Les Contes de Ma Mère L’Oie (Mother Goose Fairytales - no relationship to the Mother Goose of nursery rhymes). Charles Perrault is today the only name remembered by the general public and audience when it comes to fairytales. He is THE face of fairytales in France and part of the “trio of fairytale names” alongside Grimm and Andersen. He wrote some of the most famous fairytales: Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella... He also wrote fairytales that are considered today classics of French culture, even though they are not as well known internationally: Donkey Skin, Diamonds and Toads or Little Thumbling. The first Disney fairytale movies (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella) were based on his stories! 

But another name should seat alongside his. If Charles Perrault was the father of fairytales, madame d’Aulnoy was their mother. She was for centuries just as famous and recognized as Charles Perrault - when Tchaikovsky made his “Sleeping Beauty” ballet, he made heavy references to both Perrault and d’Aulnoy - only to be completely ignored and erased by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for all sorts of reasons (including the fact she was a woman). But Madame d’Aulnoy had stories translated all the way to Russia and India, and she wrote twice more fairytales as Perrault, and she was the author of the very first chronological French fairytale! (L’Ile de la Félicité, The Island of Felicity). Her fairytales were compiled in Les Contes des Fées (The Tales of Fairies), and Contes Nouveaux, ou Les Fées à la mode (New Tales, or Fairies in fashion) - and while for quite some times madame d’Aulnoy fell into obscurity, many of her tales are still known somehow and stayed classics that people could not attribute a name to. The White Doe (an incorrect translation of “The Doe in the Wood), The White Cat, The Blue Bird, The Sheep, Cunning Cinders, The Orange-Tree and the Bee, The Yellow Dwarf, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks (an incorrect translation of “Beauty with Golden Hair”), Green Serpent... 

A similar warning should be held as with the Italian fairytales - because the French fairytales aren’t exactly as you would imagine. These fairytales were very literary - far away from the short, lacking, simplified folklore-like tales a la Grimm. They were pieces of literature meant to be read as entertainment for aristocrats and bourgeois, in literary salons. As a result, these pieces were heavily influenced (and heavily referenced) things such as the Greco-Roman poems, or the medieval Arthuriana tales, and the most shocking and vulgar sexual and scatological elements of the Italian fairytales were removed (the violence and bloody part sometimes also). But it doesn’t mean these stories were the innocent tales we know today either... These fairytales were aimed at adults, and written by adults - which means, beyond all the cultural references, there are a lot of wordplays, social critics, courtly caricatures and hidden messages between the lines. The sexual elements might not be overtly present for example, but they are here, and can be found for those that pay attention. These stories have “morals” at the end, but if you pay attention to the tale and read carefully, you realize these morals either do not make any sense or are inadequated to the tales they come with - and that’s because fairy tales were deeply subversive and humoristic tales. People today forgot that these fairytales were meant to be read, re-read, analyzed and dissected by those that spend their days reading and discussing about it - things are never so simple... 

# While Perrault and d’Aulnoy are the two giants of French fairytales, and the ones embodying the genre by themselves, they were but part of a wider circle of fairytale authors who together built the genre at the end of the 17th century. But unfortunately most of them fell into obscurity... Perrault for example had a series of back-and-forth coworks with a friend named Catherine Bernard and his niece mademoiselle Lhéritier, both fairytale authors too. In fact, the “game” of their “discussion through their work” can be seen in a series of three fairytales that they wrote together, each author varying on a given story and referencing each-other in the process: Catherine Bernard wrote Riquet à la houppe (Riquet with the Tuft), Charles Perrault wrote his own Riquet à la houppe in return, and mademoiselle Lhéritier formed a third variation with the story Ricdin-Ricdon. Other fairytale authors of the time include madame de Murat/comtesse de Murat, mademoiselle de La Force, or Louise de Bossigny/comtesse d’Auneuil. Yes, the fairytale scene was dominated by women, since the fairytale as a genre we perceived as “feminine” in nature. There were however a few men in it too, alongside Perrault, such as the knight de Mailly with his Les Illustres Fées (Illustrious Fairies) or Jean de Préchac with his Contes moins contes que les autres (Fairy tales less fairy than others). 

A handful of these fairytales not written by either Perrault or d’Aulnoy ended up translated in English by Andrew Lang, who included them in his famous Fairy Books. For example, The Wizard King, Alphege or the Green Monkey, Fairer-than-a-Fairy (The Yellow Fairy Book) or The Story of the Queen of the Flowery Isles (The Grey Fairy Book).

# These people were however only the first wave, the first generation of what would become a “century of fairytales” in France. After this first wave, the publication of a new work at the beginning of the 18th century shook French literature: Antoine Galland translation+rewriting of The One Thousand and One Nights, also known later as The Arabian Nights. This work created a new wave and passion in France for “Arabian-flavored fairytales”. Everybody knows the Arabian Nights today, thanks to the everlasting success of some of its pieces (Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor, The Tale of Scheherazade...), but less people know that after its publication in France tons of other books were published, either translating-rewriting actual Arabian folktales, or completely inventing Arabian-flavors fairytales to ride on the new fashion. Pétis de la Croix published Les Milles et Un Jours, Contes Persans, “The One Thousand and One Days, Persian tales” to rival Galland’s own book. Jean-Paul Bignon wrote a book called Les Aventures d’Abdalla (The Adventures of Abdalla), and Jacques Cazotte a fairytale called La Patte de Chat (The Cat’s Paw). I could go on to list a lot of works, but to show you the “One Thousand and One” mania - after the success of 1001 Nights and 1001 Days, a man called Thomas-Simon Gueulette came to bank on the phenomenon, and wrote, among other things, The One Thousand and One Hours, Peruvian tales and The One Thousand and One Quarter-of-Hours, Tartar Tales. 

# Then came what could be considered either the second or third “wave” or “generation” of fairytales. It is technically the third since it follows the original wave (Perrault and d’Aulnoy times, end of the 17th) and the Arabian wave (begining of the 18th). But it can also be counted as the second generation, since it was the decision in the mid 18th century to rewrite French fairytales a la Perrault and d’Aulnoy, rejecting the whole Arabian wave that had fallen over literature. So, technically the “return” of French fairytales. 

The most defining and famous story to come of this generation was, Beauty and the Beast. The version most well-known today, due to being the shortest, most simplified and most recent, was the one written by Mme Leprince de Beaumont, in her Magasin des Enfants. Beaumont’s Magasin des Enfants was heavily praised and a great best-seller at the time because she was the one who had the idea of making fairytales 1- for children and 2- educational, with ACTUAL morals in them, and not fake or subversive morals like before. If people think fairytales are sweet stories for children, it is partially her fault, as she began the creation of what we would call today “children literature”. However Leprince de Beaumont did not invent the Beauty and the Beast fairytale - in truth she rewrote a previous literary version, much longer and more complex, written by madame de Villeneuve in her book La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The Young American Girl and the sea tales). Madame de Villeneuve was another fairy-tale author of this “fairytale renewal”. Other names I could mention are the comtesse de Ségur, who wrote a set of fairytales that were translated in English as Old French Fairytales (she was also a defender of fairytales being made into educational stories for children), and mademoiselle de Lubert, who went the opposite road and rather tried to recreate subversive, comical, bizarre fairytales in the style of madame d’Aulnoy - writing tales such as Princess Camion, Bear Skin, Prince Glacé et Princesse Etincelante (Prince Frozen and Princess Shining), Blancherose (Whiterose)... 

Similarly to what I described before, a lot of these fairytales ended up in Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books. Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, Prince Darling (The Blue Fairy Book), Rosanella, The Fairy Gifts (The Green Fairy Book)... 

# The “century of fairy tales” in France ended up with the publication of one specific book - or rather a set of books. Le Cabinet des Fées, by Charles-Joseph Meyer. As we reached the end of the 18th century, Meyer noticed that fairy tales had fallen out of fashion. None were written anymore, nobody was interested in them, nothing was reprinted, and a lot of fairytales (and their authors) were starting to fall into oblivion. Meyer, who was a massive fan of fairytales, hated that, and decided to preserve the fairytale genre by collecting ALL of the literary fairytales of France in one big anthology. It took him four years of publication, from 1785 to 1789, but in a total of forty-one books he managed to collect and compile the greatest collection of French literary fairytales that was ever known - even saving from destruction a handful of anonymous fairytales we wouldn’t know existed today if it wasn’t for his work. In a paradoxical way, while this ultimate collection did save the fairytale genre from disappearing, it also marked the end of the “century of fairytales”, as it set in stone what had been done before and marked in the history of literature the fairytale genre as “closed off”. All the French fairytales were here to be read, and there was nothing more to add. 

Ironically, Le Cabinet des Fées itself was only reprinted and republished a handful of times, due to how big it was. The latest reprints are from the 19th century if I recall correctly - and after that, there was a time where Le Cabinet was nowhere to be found except in antique shops and private collections. It is only in very recent time (the late 2010s) that France rediscovered the century of fairytales and that new reprints came out - on one side you have cut-down and shortened versions of Le Cabinet published for everybody to read, and on the other you have extended, annotated, full reprints of Le Cabinet with additional tales Meyer missed that are sold for professional critics, teachers, students and historians of literature. But the existence of Le Cabinet, and Meyer’s great efforts to collect as much fairytales as possible, would go on to inspire other men in later centuries, inciting them to collect on their own fairytales... Men such as the brothers Grimm. 

[adarkrainbow]

In relationship to the previous post, this is the post that made me realize the story with the giant crab terrifying the fairies was madame d’Aulnoy’s “The White Doe/The Doe in the Woods” - here translated the “Fawn in the Woods”. 

FAWN IN THE WOODS (New York: McLoughlin Bros., c.1890) Yellow Dwarf Series

source

[penguinofspades]

A piece of my soul dies every time someone assumes that Disney owns the entire concept of fairytales. Like people please read about a version that isn't from fucking Disney I promise you it's not hard to do.

I swear to god if I see another Cinderella's stepsister named Anastasia-

[adarkrainbow]

Evil fairies: madame d'Aulnoy

When it come to evil fairies, however, the fairytale author to go to is madame d'Aulnoy. Fairies were her preferred antagonists, and so her several dozens of fairytales offer a large cast of wicked deformed fairies, of good fairies turned vengeful and bitter, and of fairies that just happen to be villains because they are the godmothers of the wrong people...

[adarkrainbow]

This is such a strange coincidence because I precisely wanted to write a post about this and then bam, I find your post. That’s crazy X)

It is true that the idea of “A fairytale is a heroic knight saving a princess imprisoned by a dragon in a tower”, despite being so popular and widespread it is now a cliche and stereotype, is actually strangely “missing” from fairytales themselves. As you said yourself, barely anything in the Grimms, nothing in Andersen, and even in Perrault’s you don’t find any of this. It seems like this is just the projection of ancient myths (Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea-monster) and Christian legends/medieval texts (Saint George is the prototype for all the knights in shining armor killing dragons, alongside Saint Michael) onto the fairytale genre - and a scenario/situation that was then picked up by fantasy novels a la Conan and other fantasy works. It seems like the “damsel in distress rescued by a shining knight from a monstrous guardian” is one of those “false cliches” people get about fairytales... It SEEMS.

But it’s not. The idea that a fairytale is a brave prince or heroic knight saving a damsel in distress from a monster isn’t a sort of topic graft onto the fairytale genre. It has been one of the most regular and usual scenarios of fairytales for a time. The key is that these fairytales are forgotten by the general public. Because this cliche actually comes from the French literary fairytales that were all the rage from the end of the 17th century to the French revolution (an era which was basically the “century of fairytales” in France, where the genre truly grew into itself, and it was even then the very term “fairy tale” was coined!). Very unfortunately, most people, even in France, only know now of one or two names related to this vast era of the fairy tale/French literature. People remember Perrault for his massively successful fairytales - but which do not actually reflect what the genre truly was in France at a time (a real case of “Early Instalment Weirdness” to say the least, since he was one of the first to write fairytales in France and got famous and followed for it, and yet most written fairytales did not fit his style at all). People will remember Leprince de Beaumont for her Beauty and the Beast. And of course, there’s the One Thousand and One Nights.

But these were just fragments of an entire century of literature, and in this time, the genre of the fairytale, as created and existing as a literary genre of France, was mostly about heroic kings or prince in shining armors rescuing imprisoned princesses or distressed maidens. This was for example a recurring theme in the stories of the one I like to call the “mother of fairytales”, madame d’Aulnoy, who was once one of the two great faces and names of French fairytales alongside Perrault before events decided that ultimately she was to throw in the bin of history so that all the praise could go to Perrault. But madame d’Aulnoy created the genre of fairytales which were inspired by chilvaric romance and medieval tales, all about saving princesses - though she only has one dragon to be rescued from, as I recall. Most other times she had various villains - a sorcerer-dwarf, a wicked lion-fairy, a giant, an evil king... Heck sometimes she even played with the formula for the savior - sometimes it was not a husband but a father who sought to rescue the lady, and other times it was a good fairy rather than a human man... And she was just the first of several decades of writing, of several dozen of authors who copied and reused this formula again and again, until it became the widespread cliche we know today.

Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Brothers Grimm, and Afanassiev, and all the collectors of folktales and folkloric fairytales, there was a massive rejection of literary fairytales as a whole, which led to most of the “century of fairytales” in France being forgotten or ignored. Only a few survived this great oblivion, such as Perrault’s fairytales due to how iconic and praised they were ; the One Thousand and One Nights due to existing beyond the French literary frame... But even madame d’Aulnoy, who was still massively popular and well-known throughout Europe in the 19th century, got lost by the 20th, and most people don’t know about her today. Afterward the Disney movies reintroduced the theme of the “prince charming saving the damsel in distress from a monster” - such as with their Sleeping Beauty (the prince vs the dragon) or Little Mermaid (the prince vs giant Ursula) - heck, they even decided to parody and twist the formula with Beauty and the Beast (Gaston vs the Beast). However given the whole cultural and literary heritage behind this image was forgotten, people just assumed the whole “knight saves damsel from dragons” comes from either Disney or just Christian medieval stories. 

Sorry if this is a bit long and convoluted, I’ll try to make a clearer post one of these days, but to answer your original question: The “knight saving damsels in distress from dragons” types of fairytales did exist, and were classics of fairytales (even though it wasn’t knights, but princes and kings, and it wasn’t always dragons, it was as much giants, wicked kings and evil fairies) - but they simply either 1) got rejected and forgotten for being too literary (madame d’Aulnoy) or 2) they never gained the widespread fame and inter-continental popularity of other tales (most of the other French productions of the “century of fairytales”)

It's so interesting to me that "the hero saves the damsel" in distress is pop culture's idea of a "traditional fairy tale", yet I can think of very few fairy tales that center around a hero rescuing a damsel in distress. There are several where he goes on quests for her sake--climb the glass hill to win her hand, or find the Water of Life to cure her illness--and plenty where she's a reward for success, but that's not the same thing as seeing the princess in trouble and heading out to save her from immediate danger. The closest ones I can think of are "Sleeping Beauty", and things like St. George and the Dragon. In "Snow White" he comes too late and saves her by accident. In "Rapunzel", he doesn't rescue her--he just keeps coming until he gets caught, and she winds up saving him. I suppose "Jorinda and Joringel" involves a man saving his betrothed, but "working for years as a shepherd until he gets the answer in a dream" is a much different structure than the "knight on a white horse saving the princess from a dragon" that we think of as the "tradtional" type of fairy tale. Meanwhile, I can think of several tales that involve a woman questing to save a man--"The Wild Swans", "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", "Tam Lin", "The Black Bull of Norroway", "The Snow Queen"--but this trope isn't nearly as commonly known.

So where does the "fairy tales are about men saving women in distress" come from? Is it a product of Victorian medieval romances--Ivanhoe and their ilk? Is it a trope from other classic tales? Because the gender balance of heroism is much more equal in traditional fairy tales, and it rarely takes the form of "noble prince riding to the rescue of the helpless maiden".

[eahsayswhat]

HAPPY 50TH COMIC!!!! <3

The tale that the Charming parents hail from is unknown, but I do recall seeing something about their tale involving an ogre. Since it's obviously not Puss in Boots, the most likely candidate for their tale in my opinion is The Bee and the Orange Tree, a somewhat obscure late 17th century French fairytale by Madame d'Aulnoy featuring a prince rescuing a princess from her ogre foster parents. I decided to headcanon this as the tale of the Charming parents, with the father being Prince Aime and the mother being Princess Aimee and Darling being expected to inherit her mother's role.

Also, I love Maddie silently judging you in the last panel. Maddie knows what you did last night...

[mask131]

I was thinking about the difference between the British "fairy" and the French "fée", and suddenly the perfect comparison struck me.

The "fairy" from British folklore is basically Guillermo del Toro's take on the fair folk, trolls, goblins and other fairies in his movies, from "Pan's Labyrinth" to "Hellboy II". You know, all those weird monsters and bizarre critters with strange laws and customs, living half-hidden from humans, and coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes and sub-species and whatnot. Almost European yokai.

But the "fée" of French legend and literature? The fées are basically Tolkien's Elves. Except they are all female (or mostly female).

Because what is a "fée"? A fée is a woman taller and more beautiful than regular human beings. She is a woman who knows very advanced crafts and sciences, and wields mysterious unexplained powers. She is a woman who lives in fabulous, strange and magical places. She is a woman with a natural knowledge or foresight of the past and the future, and who can appear and disappear without being seen. Galadriel as she appears in The Lord of the Rings is basically the best example I can use when trying to explain to someone what a "fée" in French folklore and culture actually is.

(As a reminder: the fées of France are mostly represented by the Otherwordly Ladies of the Arthurian literature - Morgane, Viviane, bunch of unnamed ladies - or by the fairy godmothers of Perrault or d'Aulnoy's fairytales, to give you an idea of how they differ from the traditional "fae" or "fair folk". All female, and more unified, and so human-like they can pass of or be taken for humans. The "fées" are cultural descendants of the nymphs and goddesses and oracles/priestesses of Greco-Roman-Germanic-Gallic mythologies. That's why they are so easily confused with witches when they turn evil, and when Christianity arose most fées were replaced by the figure of the Virgin Mary, the most famous "magical beautiful otherwordly woman" of the religion)

[adarkrainbow]

Given French variations are spoken about here I can mention a few things - though this all makes me want to make a more general post about the Delarue-Ténèze classification of this fairytale type. But already what I can add is:

YES the concept of fairy godmother is French and comes from literary fairytales, I can confirm this. The very idea of a fairy godmother comes from French literary fairytales, they did not exist before - and even their medieval ancestors (not quite fairy godmothers yet, but fairies/deities of fate invited by specifically-numbered groups at meals during which one gets offended) were French (Le Jeu de la Feuillée and Perceforest being the most famous, though it all ties to an actual folk-belief/pagan practice of France in honor of "Dame Abonde", which herself became a fairy godmother from the fin-de-siècle fairytale onward)

Actually while the Cinderella variations seem not very present in oral culture and only literary, there are Cinderella ancestors in oral French fairytale tradition... But they belong to other types of fairytales. Now, it will be clearer when I make my post about the Delarue-Ténèze classification, but long story short when they made their classification they realized they couldn't make a proper category for Cinderella, because it was too intermingled with other "fairy-tale types", and as such their "Cinderella" section is one of three sub-types of one same fairytale type.

Madame d'Aulnoy having Finette be a cunning and self-reliable Cinderella is to be expected when given the two info of 1) Finette is actually meant to be a female version of the Hop-O-My-Thumb character, defined by his cunning and self-reliance and 2) madame d'Aulnoy was a feminist of her time, who was really into women being clever and self-reliable and saving themselves, compared to men who are either a danger or incompetent (something that was influenced by her very own life, since madame d'Aulnoy had herself to be cunning and self-reliable in her youth to escape first her abusive husband, and then the death threat that loomed over her).

Might I ask who wrote "The Black Cat"? I haven't hear of it as a literary story but the plot is very similar to a folkloric fairytale I once read from the Bretagne region, an oral tale known as "The Two Witches".

While both the stories of Perrault and madame d'Aulnoy highlight forgiveness, one should not ignore the irony in it all. For Perrault the forgiveness seems to be genuine, but madame d'Aulnoy adds a Moral at the end of her tale (which is interesting because, unlike Perrault, d'Aulnoy rarely writes Morals), and what does she says? That Finette's wicked stepsisters are "more cruelly" punished when Finette does them gift that when the ogre tried to kill them ; while Perrault presented a virtuous girl acting like a new Jesus if I dare be so blasphemous (she forgives with all her heart those that abused her), madame d'Aulnoy begins her Moral by pointing out Finette's apparent forgiveness is actually a "noble revenge" that puts her sisters in her debt. By forgiving them, gifting them, doing them favors, using her position to help them, they are indebted and dependant to her, while being unable to touch or harm her. It is a very mundan, courtly, "noble" (literaly) way to take revenge. Cendrillon's main virtue is kindness and endurance ; Finette's main virtue is cunning and intelligence.

An extension of the point above: we see clearly the different takes on the same character by comparing how the two authors wrote the Cinderella-in-disguise treating her sisters. Perrault's Cendrillon surprises them by chatting casually with them and offering them oranges to eat, as if they were the best friends in the world. But when Finette goes near her sisters while riding her magical horse? She makes sure her horse covers them in mud and road-filth (the text even says they have a "mask of mud") before laughing and explicitely saying "Cinderella despises you as much as you deserve it." (It is the only time the word "Cendrillon" appears in madame d'Aulnoy's story, and it is an explicit reference to Perrault. A lot of madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales were reactions or continuations to those of Perrault, including this one, so comparing the two tales is not just a game - it was always intended to be for a dual reading)

In Heidi Ann Heiner's Cinderella Tales From Around The World, I've now read the variants from Germany, Belgium, and France.

*Of course the most famous German Cinderella story is Aschenputtel by the Brothers Grimm. If you don't know it from reading it, you probably know it from Into the Woods, and if you don't know it from there, you've probably heard of it in pop culture. Too many people mistakenly think it's the "original" version of Cinderella. But there are other German Cinderella stories too – all similar to the Grimms' version, but with differences here and there.

*In nearly every German version, and in both of the two Belgian versions the book features, the heroine gets her elegant gowns and shoes from a tree. It throws them down to her, or opens up to reveal them, after she either recites a rhyme underneath it or knocks on it.

**Some variants, like the Grimms', have the archetypal "father goes on a journey and asks for gift requests" plot line, and the heroine gets a hazel twig, which she plants on her mother's grave and which grows into a tree. But in other versions, the tree is seemingly a random one, which either a dove, a dwarf, or a mysterious old man or woman advises her to ask for finery.

**That said, there's one exception: a German version called Aschengrittel, where the heroine meets a dwarf who, like the fairies in some Italian versions, gives her a magic wand to grant her wishes.

*As in the Egyptian, Greek, and Italian versions, it varies whether the German versions have the heroine abused by a stepmother and stepsister(s) or by her own mother and sister(s), whether her father is alive or not, and whether the special event she attends is a royal ball/festival or a church service. In both of the two Belgian versions, the heroine's abusers are her own mother and sister(s).

*While in the Mediterranean versions, the heroine's future husband is always either a prince or (more rarely) a king, in the German versions he's occasionally a knight or a rich merchant instead.

*Other typical German and Belgian details are (a) the (step)mother forcing the heroine to sort lentils, seeds, or grain, usually by picking them out of the ashes, which is usually resolved by birds doing the job for her, (b) the prince (or king, or merchant) having the palace or church steps smeared with pitch so that the heroine loses her shoe, and (c) the notorious detail of the (step)sisters cutting off parts of their feet to make the shoe fit, which is revealed when either birds or a dog call out that there's blood in the shoe.

**One Greek version has the prince catch the heroine's shoe by having the church steps smeared with honey, but the Mediterranean Cinderellas usually lose their shoes either by accident or by choice, while in Germany and Belgium it's usually the prince's doing.

**The foot-cutting episode is clearly typical of German and Belgian versions, but the Grimms' other notorious detail, where the stepsisters' eyes are pecked out by doves at the end, isn't typical. The Grimms themselves added that grisly detail to give the story a more "moral" ending with the stepsisters appropriately punished.

*The Grimms' footnotes for their version are included in this book. They mention several other German variants, including two that continue after the heroine's marriage and have the stepmother and stepsister try to murder her, and one where the stepmother starts out as the heroine's childhood nurse and murders the girl's mother by pushing her out a window, then claims she committed suicide.

*The German, Belgian, and French Cinderellas aren't quite so cunning and unfazed as the Greek and Italian Cinderellas. Now we see more heroines who cry over their hardships, and/or who beg to be allowed to go to the ball/festival or church, and whose magical help is more given to them and less in their own control. One notable French exception to this pattern, though, is Madame d'Aulnoy's cunning and self-reliant Finette Cendron.

*France doesn't seem to have the same pattern of culturally-distinct oral versions of this tale that other countries do. Instead, the French examples in this book are nearly all literary versions, and each one is almost completely different from the others.

**Of course the most wildly famous and important French Cinderella is Charles Perrault's Cendrillon. This is the Cinderella we all know best, with the fairy godmother, the pumpkin coach, the magic only lasting until midnight, and the glass slipper.

**Published in the same year as Perrault's version was Madame d'Aulnoy's Finette Cendron. This is an interesting, much longer variation that starts out as a Hop o'My Thumb/Hansel and Gretel story, where three sisters are abandoned in the woods and nearly eaten by an ogre, only for the clever youngest, Finette, to outwit him, but then turns into a Cinderella story when the older sisters abuse Finette after they make the dead ogre's castle their home, but Finette follows them to a ball in finery she finds in a chest.

**Another French literary variant is The Black Cat, which starts out as a Cinderella tale, but then has the heroine be stranded on an island and give birth to a black cat son (long story), then turns into a Puss in Boots tale as the cat helps his mother. Yet another is The Blue Bull, where the heroine runs away from her stepmother with her only friend, a magical bull, only for the bull to be killed protecting her from lions, and which then becomes a Donkeyskin/All Kinds of Fur-type of story, where she becomes a servant at the prince's palace and gets her ballroom finery from the bull's grave.

*Perrault and d'Aulnoy's versions are the only two Cinderellas so far where the heroine has a fairy godmother. Yes, in some others there are fairies or mysterious old women who help her, but the concept of a fairy godmother seems to have French literary origins.

*These same two versions, Perrault's and d'Aulnoys are also where we first see strong emphasis on the heroine's virtue and kindness, even to her cruel (step)family. While some oral versions do have her forgive them in the end, these literary versions not only have her do that, but have her constantly be gracious and kind to them (Perrault) or save their lives even at great personal sacrifice (d'Aulnoy).

*Now that I've read Finette Cendron, I can see its slight influence on Massanet's opera Cendrillon. In Finette Cendron, instead of Perrault's choice to have the slipper taken from house to house, all the ladies are invited to the palace to try it on, and Finette's fairy godmother sends her a horse to ride there – just like Cinderella's fairy godmother transports her to the slipper-fitting at the palace in the opera. Finette Cendron's Prince Cherí also falls deathly ill with love for the mystery girl, but is cured when he finds her. (A recurring theme in many different variants, which I forgot to mention when I covered the Mediterranean versions.) In the opera, this has its parallel when Prince Charming faints in despair over the seeming failure of the slipper-fitting, and before that when Cinderella herself becomes gravely ill because she thinks she'll never see her prince again.

@adarkrainbow, @ariel-seagull-wings, @themousefromfantasyland

[adarkrainbow]

While I'm at it, I want to precise something about the language of these 17th century fairytales like Perrault and d'Aulnoy.

There is something that might be confusing to foreigners not speaking French - that is confusing even to modern-day French folks unaware of the 17th century complexities - but that might be even more confusing for Americans and other people used to a very specific word... "Race".

Race pops up regularly in Perrault's and d'Aulnoy's fairytales, and I do not know how the word was translated in English, but the word "race" of these tales does NOT translate as modern day "race". Yes, race in the racist sense of today did exist by the 17th century... But it was a minor usage not very widespread nor common. What the French word "race" actually refers in these stories is... bloodline.

"Race" was for example used very regularly when princes or princesses speak of their family or ancestors. A princess' "race" means her royal house and royal ancestors. To "perpetuate the race" simply means "having an heir", as simple as that. It is by extension that "race" went from "a specific family or bloodline" to "a specific ethnicity or species". Think of the old house of "house". Like... House Lannister in Game of Thrones? In Perrault's text, it would have been written "the race of the Lannisters".

This is a point I myself came across when doing my paper about ogres, because when talking about the mother of the prince from Sleeping Beauty, Perrault specifies she is "de race ogresse". Today we can understand it as "she was an ogress" or "she was of the ogre species" and it does work since ogres are not human beings in popular culture... But Perrault's original text is much more subtle than that - because remember, in Perrault's fairytales ogres are ambiguously humans or half-humans - and what he actually meant was "she was of ogre bloodline".

By extension, and that was another point of my paper, it is a common part of ogre lore that ogres are always about family. This is why for example the mad clan of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a good example of modern-day ogres: ogres always have a wife, sons, daughters, brothers or sisters somewhere. Perrault's ogres are a bloodline that seemingly mixes and mingles itself with nobility and royalty, and we have an ogre who has seven daughters ; madame d'Aulnoy presents us clans of ogres also with half a doen kids and who are focused on getting grandchildren. And this is even present in the uerco/orco lore of Basile's Pentamerone - for example in "The Golden Root" where the heroine has to fight or win the heart of an entire clan of ogres, mother, aunt, son and daughters (plus baby cousin thrown in a burning oven).

[traumendesmadchen]

Now that our visual novel Chronotopia: Second Skin has been released, we’re starting an event called ✨Fairytale Friday✨. Every Friday, we’ll discuss a tale from the game’s archives! 😃

Today it's Princess Rosette (by Madame d'Aulnoy).

Princess Rosette is a capricious girl. She doesn't want to marry anyone but "the King of Peacocks 👑🦚".

Her brothers still go to the trouble of finding him & negotiating said wedding. The King agrees, he just wants to be sure she's **that** beautiful 👸.

Of course her evil nurse has to plot her death even though her plan is very stupid 💀. The Peacock King is MAD 😡.

Rosette doesn't die BTW. They throw her mattress overboard but, plot twist, it's made of phoenix feathers so it floats. And then fishes carry the bed 🐟.

A peasant rescues her but she can't possibly eat regular food so her magic dog steals the King's lunch as it's the only food good enough for her 🙃. That's how he ends up finding Rosette. And the brothers are freed! Happy end, yay.

I decided to make Fleur's family the opposite of that specific character. "Golly, my food can't possibly be good enough for your Majesty" became "We only have that so you'd better not be finicky". Rosette kinda pisses me off, to be honest 😅.

💜You can buy Chronotopia on Steam💜

[theboarsbride]

What is your favorite fairy tale? Did you have a different favorite when you were a kid?

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (and all adjacent monster groom fairytales lmao), is the obvious, but I also have a soft spot for Red Riding Hood (from a more horror perspective rather than the romance angle some retellings do that i feel...feelings about), Bluebeard's Bride, and The White Cat by Madam d'Aulnoy!

As a kid I LOVED Sleeping Beauty solely because the Disney movie was my all-time favorite movie growing up😭😭🥺

Thank you for the ask!!❤❤

[adarkrainbow]

I think I'll use this post to share a brief recap of a very brutal "gory slapstick fairytale" but not of Grimm... of madame d'Aulnoy. Madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales are very often disdained as being the archetypal "salon fairytales" all about pretty princesses and handsome knights and courtly romances and beautiful castles and costly dresses and talking dolls and whatnot... But people tend to ignore that she created some very BRUTAL fairytales. It wasn't meant to horrify the audience, it was more of a gory and bloody violence meant to be a dark, extravagant, burlesque slapstick-type of humor - but precisely because it was used for extravagant humor, madame d'Aulnoy went to very dark places.

For example, one of the darkest fairytales and most horrifying one would be "La Bonne Petite Souris" (The Good Little Mouse). Summed up very fast...

The story opens with the utopian, marvelous, happy land of... well Land of Joy ruled by the Joyful King. It is all dances and laughs and games and feasts. But its neighbor is the king of the Country of Tears, and its antithesis. The wicked king is an ugly, skinny, dark-dressed man filled with only negative emotions, and who only finds pleasure in killing and torturing his subjects (his crimes ranging from hanging himself his country's criminals with a great joy to.... When he sees a other who loves too much her child, he had her summoned et before her very eyes he broke the arms or the neck of the child.)

One day, the King of Tears waged war against the Kingdom of Joy - invaded it, killed the king, and planned to also kill the queen until he discovered she was pregnant. He decided that, if the queen gave birth to a daughter, he would gave her in marriage to his own son (who is an ugly, deformed prince with all sorts of flaws, such as him being a whiney coward and a capricious spoiled brat). To make sure the queen will have a daughter, the King of the Country of Tears summons a fairy to check the gender of the unborn child. The fairy confirms a daughter will be born, a very beautiful daughter. The king is happy - though he warns that if the daughter is not beautiful, he will hang the mother, and then hang the baby by her mother's neck.

The queen of the land of Joy is kept imprisoned in the wicked king's castle, with barely anything to eat, so that she grows dangerously skinny. However a little mouse frequently visits her in her cell, and the good mother always feeds the mouse a bit of her own food, and in return each time a grand feast appears magically in the queen's cell. The queen, determined to save her child, starts using the straw/hay in her cell to weave a basket with which she'll lower her newborn child through the window. As she does so, a little old woman appears below her tower-prison and offers to save the child... in exchange of a mouse to eat. The queen refuses to sacrifice the life of the little mouse that visited her in her cell, and so the old woman leaves... But the next time the little mouse comes, it turns into a beautiful woman. As it turns out, the mouse is the fairy that the king of Tears had summoned - she took pity on the queen and decided to help her. She also was the old woman, a disguise under which she tested the queen's good heart.

Once the little princess is born, the fairy helps remove her from the tower-prison. When the king of Tears hears that a fairy took away the child, he gets so angry he tries to hang the queen, but as he is about to do so, the fairy returns (invisible), pushes the king on the ground so hard he breaks FOUR TEETH, and she takes away the queen on her flying chariot back to her castle. Now, the queen lives happily with the good mouse-fairy... But the little baby princess gets stolen away by a wicked fairy, and the good fairy searches for her for many years... Until she finally discovers a poor girl guarding the turkey-herd of the King of Tears, who turns out to have been the baby princess, that escaped the wicked fairy's lair only to end up as a lowly servant at the court of the Kingdom of Tears.

Problem is - the prince of Tears is in love with her, but the turkey-girl refuses his advances, no matter how many gifts and jewels he gives her (because he is a badly-tempered, vicious and ugly prince). The prince, sad and angry, throws a tantrum and his father the king summons the turkey-girl to his castle, telling her: either you marry my son, that wants you, either I skin you alive. The turkey-girl/hidden princess asks for a few days to think about it, and during this respite, the good fairy decides to act and get rid of these awful royals once and for all. Upon this night, the fairy takes the shape of a little mouse, goes to the king's bed, and bites off his ears and his nose, and gnaws on his lips, tongue and cheeks. The mutilated and bloody king, brutally waking up in pain and full of anger, takes his sword and goes searching for the person trying to assassinate him. Meanwhile, the fairy went to the prince's bedroom, and there devoured his ears and his eyes, leaving him deaf and blind. (Well she devoured his eye, singular, because he only had one eye). The prince also takes his sword and goes searching for his "murderer".

The king, seeing his son, tries to talk to him, but his mutilated nose and mouth prevent him from doing so. The prince, unable to see and hearing badly, misinterprets his father's sounds for the voice of his murderer and attacks him. The king tries to defend himself and ultimately father and son end up killing each other.

The fairy quickly frees the little princess and reveals to her the whole story ; she summons the Queen of Joy to the castle ; and the fairy puts the queen and her daughter onto the throne of the Country of Tears, which became the new Land of Joy. The fairy even finds a handsome and benevolent prince-suitor for the little princess, and the fairytale ends with their wedding.

Honestly, A Song of Ice and Fire is nothing compared to French 17th century fairytales Xp

Inspirations behind Shared Beauty - Grimm's other brutal Fairy tales

While making the outline for our game "Shared Beauty", which was always planned to be a dark fairy tale, I've looked into Grimm's fairy tales, especially some of the lesser known ones. I wanted to see just how brutal some can be, as I've always loved the dark twists behind the original fairy tales. And oh boy, did I found some.

So today I'm gonna show you some snippets from "The Girl Without Hands", and "The Juniper Tree".

In The Girl Without Hands for example, the devil threatens to take a miller in place of his daughter unless he cuts off the girl's hands. (The hands are too pure and free of sin, that they make him unable to take her). And out of fear, the miller and his daughter agree to this!

In The Juniper Tree on the other hand, when a boy reaches down a chest for an apple, the stepmother slams the lid onto his neck, decapitating him. These are just a few examples and yeah, they definitely helped me get ideas for Shared Beauty.

What kind of other brutal fairy tales have you heard of? Do you have a favorite one? Please tell me!