A Study of Fairy Tales

by Laura Fry Kready

There is emotional harmony displayed in the second paragraph; the words used fit the ideas:—

On the way up was a bridge over a burn they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly Troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.

The quality of personality is best described, perhaps, by saying that the tale seems to have impersonality. Any charm of the story-tellers of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an objective presentment of a reality that concentrates on itself and keeps personality out of sight. The character of the tellers is shown however in the qualities of the tale. The charm of the primitive story-tellers has given the tale inimitable morning-dew freshness. This seems to result from a fine simplicity, a sprightly visualization, a quaint picturesqueness, a pleasing terseness, and an Anglo-Saxon vigor.

Sincerity is displayed in the words of the Troll and of the three
Billy-Goats. Note the sincerity of little Billy-Goat Gruff:—

"Oh! it is only I, the tiniest Billy-Goat Gruff; and I'm
going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the
Billy-Goat, with such a small voice.

The unity in this tale is unusually good. The central idea which groups all the happenings in the tale is: Three Billy-Goats are crossing a bridge to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat. There are four characters, three Goats and the Troll. All that happens in the tale contributes to the one effect of a bridge going trip, trap! as a Goat crossed it on his way up the hillside; of a Troll roaring: "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" of the explanation of the Billy-Goat; of the answer of the Troll, "Now I'm coming to gobble you up"; and of the Billy-Goat's final petition. Unity is emphasized by the repetition in the tale, as the three Billy-Goats successively cross the bridge and reply to the Troll. The climax is the big Billy-Goat Gruff's tramp across the bridge.

This tale is characterized by perfect mass, the paragraphs always end with words that deserve distinction, and the sentences have their strongest words at the points where the eye would most readily see them; as, "But just then up came the big Billy-Goat Gruff." The coherence is fine, and is secured largely by the cumulative plan in a threefold sense. The relation of the parts is unmistakable. The similarity and contrast evident in the episodes of the three Billy-Goats makes this relation very clearly defined. To make doubly sure the end has been reached the tale concludes:—

Snip, snap, snout,
This tale's told out.

Let us examine the folk-tale generally as to its literary form. The folk-tale originally did not come from the people in literary form. The tale was first told by some nameless primitive man, who, returning from some adventure of everyday life, would narrate it to a group of his comrades. First told to astonish and interest, or to give a warning of the penalty of breaking Nature's laws, or to teach a moral lesson, or to raise a laugh, later it became worked up into the fabulous stories of gods and heroes. These fabulous stories developed into myth-systems, and these again into household tales. By constant repetition from one generation to another, incidents likely to happen in everyday life, which represented universal experiences and satisfied common needs of childhood, were selected and combined. These gradually assumed a form of simplicity and literary charm, partly because, just as a child insists on accuracy, savage people adhered strictly to form in repeating the tale, and because it is a law of permanence that what meets the universal need will survive. The great old folk-tales have acquired in their form a clearness and precision; for in the process of telling and re-telling through the ages all the episodes became clearly defined. And as irrelevant details dropped out, there developed that unity produced by one dominant theme and one dominant mood. The great old folk-tales, then, naturally acquired a good classic literary form through social selection and survival. But many of the tales as we know them have suffered either through translation or through careless modern retelling. Many of the folk-tales take on real literary form only through the re-treatment of a literary artist. Mrs. Steel, who has collected the Tales of the Punjab, tells how the little boys of India who seek to hold their listening groups will vary the incidents in a tale in different tellings, proving that the complete tale was not the original unit, but that single incidents are much more apt to retain their stock forms than plots. The combination we now have in a given tale was probably a good form once hit upon and thereafter transmitted.

Jacob (1785-1863) and William (1786-1859) Grimm, both fine scholars, incapable of any but good work, did not undertake to put the tale into literary form suited to children. They were interested in preserving folk-lore records for scientific purposes. And we must distinguish between the tale as a means of reflecting the ideals of social and religious life, of displaying all the genius of primitive man for science to interpret, and the tale as a means of pleasing and educating the child. The Grimms obtained most of their tales from the lips of people in Hesse and Hanau, Germany. They were very fortunate in securing many of the tales they were thirteen years in collecting, from an old nurse, Frau Vichmannin, the wife of a cowherd, who lived at Niederzwehrn, near Cassel, who told her story with exactness and never changed anything in repeating. Grimm himself said, "Our first care was faithfulness to the truth. We strove to penetrate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble language, watching their pure customs, recognizing their ancient freedom and hearty faith." The Grimms sought the purity of a straightforward narration. They were against reconstruction to beautify and poetize the legends. They were not opposed to a free appropriation for modern and individual purposes. They kept close to the original, adding nothing of circumstance or trait, but rendering the stories in a style and language and development of detail which was their own literary German.