#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.

[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. 

[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]

All of this true! Plus:

Her husband wasn't just a gambler but also a heavy drinker and might have been physically abusive.

The plot to get rid of her husband actually was quite crazy - as to scheme to have him accused of treason against the king (and thus put to death) she worked with her mother and her lover (plus her mother's lover if I recall well?). But when the false accusations were revealed to be a scam, the two men were arrested and killed - madame d'Aulnoy and her mother barely escaped (and yes she did hid in the church - I think it was under a staircase of the church, like in a secret place under the stone? I don't remember the exact details, I haven't checked her biography in a while but she truly had a crazy life).

For the Angélique Ticquet situation we don't know for SURE madame d'Aulnoy helped her kill her husband. All that is certain is that she was friend with her, and Angélique poisoned her husband. It is suspected and it was suspected at the time, she might have influenced or helped her in the murder based on her own past of making plans to kill husbands, but nothing has been confirmed.

And you know, madame d'Aulnoy was not the ONLY fairytale author with crazy lives. With all the women-authors of fairytales are the type, it is either "We basically don't know anything about them and the few biographies we have are contradictory and nonsensical historically-wise", or "They had this crazy life of adventurers, murderers, outlaws, were daring, rebellious, very intelligent, and underwent all sorts of disguises to escape prison, and lesbian experiences, before settling in as proper court ladies in literary salons and living a quiet little life." It' s wild

some bullet points about Madame D’Aulnoy that you may want to know:

she was given by her father as a bride at the age of 15 to a man 30 years older than her, who was a known gambler and overall not good person

she was pregnant at least 4 times before the age of 20, and bid her time until she could get enough information to get her husband convicted for treason

after her husband was released, by convincing the authorities of his innocence, she ran away through a window and hid in a church (some sources say she did some time in prison while pregnant, but the child died young)

she spent years working as a possible spy to gain access to the country again

once back, and after writing spicy memoirs of life in court, she surrounded herself with literary ladies and created salons where they could tell their own stories, starring powerful characters taken from folklore like fairies, goddesses and witches, which could emancipate themselves in ways they had never been able to in real life

she helped friends deal with their abusive husbands, sometimes it went into extreme directions (Angélique Ticquet got her abusive husband murdered and she was executed for it in the end) 

the growth of the stories in her salon got her to include a story in one of her published works in 1695, though she had been telling stories like these since at least 1690

subsequently, she coined the term “fairy tales” (contes de fées) and defined the genre as we know it today

she generated a retroactive popularity of the genre, going back and forth from print to salons, which served to ignite the genre as it was known in Europe in the late 1600s and early 1700s

the majority of published authors of fairy tales during the birth of the genre as a publishing success were women, most of whom were inspired in the salons or by d’Aulnoy’s stories and some of which were friends (some of these include Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, Catherine Bernard, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Henriette-Julie de Murat and Catherine Durand)

contrary to earlier folk story works, like those of Basile or Straparola, d’Aulnoy and her storytellers were centered on ideas of magic women archetypes

in 1697 she published the first volume of her most famous compilation of stories, which would solidify the genre and its archetypes

that same year Charles Perrault would publish his first fairy tale collection (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé) under his son’s name, to avoid criticism from the “Ancients” and avoid being connected to a “lesser genre”, having been entirely aware of the salons, the genre and D’Aulnoy’s work, yet this let him be credited, to this day, as “the founder of the modern fairy tale genre”

which is why most of you don’t need bullet points to know who Perrault was, but you possibly don’t know about Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy

[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...

[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...

[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

[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)

[ravangie]

So thought you might like to know a bit about Madame d'Aulnoy

She was a slightly rebellious author from the 1600s, and she's where the term Prince Charming came from, and the very title of Fairy Tale came from her.

Not only that, but she wrote a story where a woman had disguised herself as a male knight, and women, including a queen, had fallen in love with her not knowing she was a woman. Only downside is when she revealed herself to be a woman, she married a king.

But hey! The mother of the Prince Charming title and the Fairytale name also wrote of a knightly woman and kinda women falling for women! Just thought you'd like to know about that!

Ooooh you're right! I DO like to know about Madame d'Aulnoy!!

So this is who we have to thank for having Princess Charming these days! Thank you, Madame d'Aulnoy!

Women are still falling for knight women these days, all is good 🥰💘

And thank you, anon, for interesting message, will definitely read up more on her!

[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).

[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".

[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!!❤❤

[mask131]

Magical summer: The seven-league boots

THE SEVEN-LEAGUE BOOTS

Category: French fairytales

The seven-league boots (in French “Les bottes de sept lieues”) are a very famous European magical item, that were invented by Charles Perrault for his also very famous “Mother Goose Tales”.

The seven-league boots most famously appear in the fairytale “Hop O’ My Thumb” (Le Petit Poucet) : they belong to the large and wealthy ogre in whose house Hop O’ My Thumb and his six brothers end up after being abandoned by their parents. When the little boys manage to escape the house without being eaten (but not before tricking the ogre into devouring his own daughters), the ogre puts on these magical boots to hunt them down – because their power is that, by just doing one step, the person wearing them can cross seven leagues in total. A league (or “une lieue” in the original French) was an old measurement system of France, that basically covered the distance a man could cross in one hour (roughly 4-5 kilometers), so in total the boots allowed in one step to cross either 28-35 kilometers, either the equivalent of seven hours of walk. Well the exact number of meters the boots allow to cross is not important (as the number “seven” is just a thematic number in this fairytale, the same way there are seven little boys lost in the woods and the ogre has seven daughters) – overall the idea is that the seven league boots allow you to advance very fast on very long distances.

With these boots the ogre easily catches up to the boys, but hopefully for them the ogre is just a lazy glutton/drunkard all these efforts of walking outside his house tire him, so he falls asleep beneath a tree near them. Hop O’ My Thumb then quickly steals the ogre’s boots away and puts them on his own feet. The boots magically shrink to his size so that they would fit (and Hop O’My Thumb is named like that because he is REALLY small, so small people he was literally named after a thumb), and he uses them to cross the country – as his brothers go back home (since now the ogre is powerless and they can easily escape), Hop O’ Thumb uses the boots to go back to the ogre’s house to trick his wife into believing her husband was taken hostage during a war and she needs to give him all of their treasure to pay the ransom. Then he returns to his home with the boots, gives the treasure to his parents so his poor family would become rich – and much later he uses his magical boots to deliver messages to and for the king, becoming the official royal messenger.

 Charles Perrault also used the seven-league boots in another one of his fairytales, “Sleeping Beauty”, even though nobody remembers this because they are used in one line, as a little “funny eater egg” detail (so that those that read Hop O’ My Thumb would just wink and nod upon hearing about the boots in Sleeping Beauty) : basically, when the princess pricks her finger and falls asleep, the good fairy godmother that changed the death spell into a sleeping spell is warned of the event by a dwarf wearing the seven-league boots.

Given the French fairytales of the 17th century were actually a distraction and game of small social and literary circles, it makes sense that the other fairytale writers and tellers of the time would reuse and play with the concept : as a result, when Madame d’Aulnoy wrote her fairytale “The orange-tree and the bee”, she had her own ogre (called Ravagio) use seven-league boots to hunt down his adoptive daughter who eloped with the prince he intended to eat for supper.

  As you might know, the French fairytales became so popular that they poured into the other cultures of Europe, and so the seven-league boots became an iconic and recurring element in posterior fairytales of other cultures. The seven-league boots almost made it into the Grimm’s fairytales when they included a variation of Hop O’ My Thumb named “Okerlo” (an attempt to translate in German the term “ogre”), but they then removed the tale from their next edition of their tales because they realized it was a French tale, not a German one – but you can still find the “meilenstiefel” or “mile-boots” in the “Sweetheart Roland” story ; and magical travelling shoes in “The King of the Golden Mountain”. They also entered deeply German culture and literature by being featured in the story “Peter Schlemihl” alongside other popular elements of fairytales ; and then being used in the “Faust” play of Goethe. The boots can also be found back in several Finnish and Estonian fairytales under the name “boots of seven Scandinavian miles” (seistsemän peninkulman saappaat, or seitsmepenikoormasaapad) ; we also have in Norway the “femten fjerdinger” boots – the boots of fifteen fjerdinger, roughly 34 kilometers) that pop up in “Soria Moria Castle”. And while not exactly a copy of the seven-league boots, fast-travelling shoes do also appear in various English fairytales, such as in Tom Thumb (in which he has shoes that allow him to travel anywhere) or in Jack the Giant-Killer (an ogre has “shoes of swiftness”).

- - -

But in truth it is hard to say where Perrault's influence stop and traditional folklore begins, because there ARE magical shoes of travel in a lot of folkloric traditions and fairytales that Perrault's own tales couldn't have influenced. For example there is an Hungarian tale called Zsuka and the Devil which has the devil keep "sea-striding shoes" - but here we can draw a parallel as the tale is Hop O' Thumb but with a woman instead of a boy and a devil instead of an ogre. However, when it comes for example to the "sapogi-skorokhody" or "fast-walker boots" that appear in the Slavic fairytales, the link could be harder if not impossible to make. You see, Charles Perrault didn't "invent" the shoes that make you hyper fast or allow you to travel supernaturally. He just kept a tradition that existed before - dating back to Ancient Times, with Hermes and Perseus' flying shoes for example, or the "shoes of speed" of Loki in Norse mythology. It is a recurring element of folklore that does pop up everywhere, the same way his writing of "Hop O' My Thumb" was actually a rewrite and adaptation of a recurring traditional fairytale which had many different regional versions in France. BUT here is the thing: Perrault reinvented this archetype with the iconic name of "X measure boots" or "V measure shoes" - and this is why it is much easier to trace back Perrault's influence on fairytales that use shoes named "the 10 miles boots" or something similar. It is commonly theorized that Charles Perrault found the idea of naming these magical boots as such, because in France at the time (aka 17th century France) by reusing an actual expression of the time: the boots of post-boys at the time were commonly referred to as "seven-league boots". It was a reference to all the road and travels post-boys had to do between two coach inns (in truth it was more like four or five leagues, but anyway). Charles Perrault thought it would be funny to take back this traditional expression and apply it literaly in his fairytales. One last point might also be drawn to the importance of boots in Perrault's fairytales, as they are also a symbol of wealth and social ascension. Boots weren't worn by peasants or low-class, except if they were messengers or domestics to wealthy people : boots were usually worn by precisely these wealthy or upper-class people, either for horse-riding or for the hunt. And in both Hop O' My Thumb and another one of Perrault's fairytale, Puss in Boots, having boots also means for who wears it obtaining riches and a higher social status. In the case of Hop O' My Thumb, the titular little boy steals the boots from a very wealthy giant that has everything in abundance (tons of foods, a big treasure, a vast house, lots of daughters) and once obtained, he uses them first to make his family rich, then to find a high-positioned and well-paid job. Conclusion: if you want to become high-class, get boots.