Reading fairy tales and folklore is so interesting, because although most tales are not actually all that deep on their own, they do really hold older versions of our cultures and mindsets. It shows us that we’ve changed, but also that we haven’t changed at all.
Many of these tales are just power fantasies or wish fulfillment, cautionary tales, edgy things filled with shock factors, funny additions added for the people listening to make it more familiar – and even if the stories themselves can be riddled with outdated and bigoted ideas, they still tell so much about our mindsets.
After researching some fairy tales listed per country, I quickly began noticing patterns within each region somewhat unique to their culture. Different creatures show up (as probably expected), but also moral values, and fears, and re-occurring fantasies. Even if two regions had two very similar sounding tales, then they would often still be distinguishable per country due to these signature ideas and feelings to them. And often these ideas are still present in our modern day. The same tone is in many old Dutch tales as in the voices of the people living around me, and I notice similar customs and expectations in Germany and England and France as in their folklore and fairy tales.
I just find it extremely fascinating how our literature keeps ending up as a self portrait, time and time again. And often more so in the silly oral tales filled with nonsense made up by anyone - it could be made up by professional story tellers as much as a random farmer or teen having to soothe a baby. Variations are added because the narrator thinks the original tale isn’t gritty enough. Other variations are made because the narrator thinks the story is too gritty. Someone adds religious values to make it a more proper tale. Someone else mentions a specific location to make their daughter point at the nearby building and say, “look, that’s where they defeated the witch!”
People will write about King Arthur’s son’s servant who slays giants and gets rewarded for it to feel powerful. Someone else will write about a treacherous fox and sloppy royals to make fun of the government without actually proposing any alternative. Someone contextualizes a flood to their children by telling them it is because humans on the land mistreated a mermaid. Somebody else explains that you shouldn’t get into caves where bears live by explaining how that once ended badly for someone.
Often we are very plain and don’t necessarily try to inspire analytical thinking or philosophy, even if such ends up happening. And I think that that’s beautiful – we accidentally preserved so many people and their thoughts and their culture just by telling stories. It’s like a footprint of our minds.
