The setting. The lovely fairy romances, old and new, like “The Frog Prince,” “Cinderella,” Andersen’s “Princess on the Pea,” occurred in the all-possible “once upon a time,” or in that delectable bygone when “wishing was having,” or in such right good kingly times as Arthur’s or Charlemagne’s. Sometimes the place was an enchanted castle shut away behind a hedge of thorns and trees, in the very heart of a forest, a hedge that sprang up in a quarter of an hour, with thorns long enough to impale unworthy suitors; sometimes it was the highroad out to the world, upon which many a stout hero set foot to seek fortune. The merry gallant history of “Tom Thumb,” fairy fledgeling, wizard-fostered, king’s jester and doughty knightling, is referred to the magical days of Merlin and the chivalrous court of Arthur. We find him, too, versatile little imp, in his mother’s practical pudding bowl, in the red cow’s mouth, in a giant’s stomach, inside a fish; and each place is capital setting for him. Who says that giants are figments of the imagination? The people of Cornwall record that it was in their land that Jack killed the giant, and they point out a castle built on a rock standing in the sea as the stronghold of the monster. (Let the folklorists find in this primitive belief, if they will; let us find, also, artistic fitness.) What a delightful plausibility the tale takes on from this minutely recorded geographical setting, as delightful in its way as the vague long ago and dim place of other tales! Here, in the apparently artless tale, is the artistic device by which Defoe hoodwinked the England of his day into believing that Robinson Crusoe was fact and not truer fiction.
Note the appropriateness in change of scene; Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling,” among the modern tales, affords a good study. The artistic principle is applied more naïvely in the old story of “The Hut in the Wood” at the transformation of the hut into a castle to be fit setting for the sovereign power and beauty of kindness; also in “Mother Holle,” at the emergence of the child from the dark well and darker despair into the lovely meadow where the sun was shining, and thousands of flowers were blooming, and wonderful little ovens and red apple-trees called out to her, and golden shower fell on her and glorified her. In “Dummling,” at the stage when enchantment is brought in, the scene changes completely to a stone castle in whose courtyard are stalls containing stone horses.
Note the narrative use made of setting. The appearance of the sea, in “The Fisherman and his Wife,” as the fisherman carries each succeeding wish of his wife to the flounder, does as much to tell the story as the action itself.
Setting, then, is part of the whole. It is not to be overdone, nor is any part in the simple story, but its appropriateness is worth appreciation.
The action. The action is of course the chief part of the story. The motive of the action is easy to find. But again note that it is faithful to life and that it paves the way for appreciation of the motives of greater literature. In the simple tales, as in the novel and the drama, the action arises from love, hate, envy, spirit of adventure, friendship, malice, spirit of fun and play. Grasp the details of the action. In some versions of “The Frog Prince” the falling of the princess’s golden ball into the well is made the occasion for the appearance of the magical frog, which, for the aid he offers, imposes the condition of companionship and love. The princess pretends agreement. Her repugnance to the frog becomes the complicating force. And (in some tales) her father’s insistence that she keep her promise to the frog makes all come out happily; the frog stands revealed a prince in disguise, and marries the princess. In “Dummling” the despised stupid third and youngest brother sets out to seek his elders; then come the three acts of unkindness he prevents; then the failure of the elders at the task set forth in the enchanted castle, and Dummling’s success, due to the aid of the creatures to whom he had shown kindness, followed by his triumphant marriage to the youngest and dearest of the princesses. In “The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership,” the story opens with the doubtful compact entered into by the mouse on the cat’s representation of friendship, and her agreement to his proposal that they lay by a pot of fat for the winter. The cat has the hardihood to propose the church as the safest hiding place for the pot of fat, hypocritically saying that no one would dare steal anything from a church. Then comes the cat’s first “gulling” of the frank little mouse with his story of having been asked to be godfather to his cousin’s remarkable child. “Beauty and the Beast” is another good character study, and from an important point of view for the little child’s story a better one, as this time virtue is unmistakably triumphant.
The student will gradually develop sensibility to the typical materials of folk story: human difficulty overcome by supernatural aid; the task of guessing a name, or the forfeit of a child, as a condition for aid, as in “Rumpelstiltskin;” trial and triumph of the despised ugly third sister or stupid third brother; doughty deeds that overcome bulk of body with nimbleness of wit, as in “Jack the Giant Killer;” greed of wishing whose indulgence precipitates loss of all, as in “The Fisherman and his Wife;” reward of kindness to animals, as in “The Hut in the Wood.”
The characters. Characterize the people in the story. In their varied company is the story-teller’s opportunity to acquaint the child with the chief kinds of persons to be found in literature and life; the child himself, cherishing mother, doting grandmother, virile father sending his sons out to find their place in the world, loving brother and sister, gentle people, hateful people, ill-tempered people, cruel people, jealous people, kind people, wily people, frank people, brave people, cowards, old people, children, sad people, merry people. Besides these, animals, pigs and bears, cows and hens and goats, inhabit the child’s world side by side with man, helping the story to make its way to the child’s affections. Then there is the host of witching fairy folk: fairies, giants, elves, pixies, witches, goblins. Music as well as language has attempted to suggest them, and with surprising agreement in artistic convention. Language makes fairies light, airy, tripping; goblins, grotesque; so does music. Language makes the giant huge, clumsy, big-handed and big-footed, but stupid; Wagner gives ponderous musical motif to the dragon, the “laidly worm,” the giant of his music dramas, and also makes him conquerable.
The workmanship, composition, and style. Much story-telling is spoiled by disregard of the composition of the narrative. By composition here is meant what is meant in painting or sculpture, the arranging, or grouping, of the materials, to build out the whole.
The method of grouping in the folk story is apparent. At the beginning of the story are the time and place, some of the principal characters, and the motive of the action. Next follows the action, easily separable into rise, course, resolution. In many of the stories, for example, in “The Frog Prince,” there is after the action an explanation of enchantment; and an assurance that all went well ever after or quaint formula like that parodied in “They stepped on a tin, and the tin bended, so my story’s ended,” whose purpose, similar to that of Shakespeare’s rhyming couplet in his earlier dramas, is to give conclusive ending to the tale. Like “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,” who stayed on at the theater after the curtain had gone down on the last scene, the children, though sensitive to artistic reserve, are not always satisfied with highly reserved ending.
The story-teller should cultivate sensibility to story-building; it is the creative principle of story-telling. It is really surprising how lacking the beginner is in consciousness of structure. He should study structure until he can feel the tale making: the scene putting in, the people coming in, the motive revealing itself, the action starting, and going forward until it arrives at climax and solution, the whole winding up with happy prophecy of the far future.