A Study of Fairy Tales

by Laura Fry Kready

(c) The Story of The Wolf and Seven Kids, if told with the proper emphasis on the climax of triumph and conclusion of joy, would lead the child to react with a water-color sketch of the dance of the Goat and her Kids about the well. For here you have all the elements needed for a simple picture—the sky, the full moon, the hill-top, the well, and the animals dancing in a ring. After finishing their sketches the children would enjoy comparing them with the illustration of Der Wolf und die Sieben Geislein in Das Deutsche Bilderbüch, and perhaps they might try making a second sketch. This same tale would afford the children a chance to compose a simple tune and a simple song, such as the well-taught kindergarten child to-day knows. Such are songs which express a single theme and a single mood; as, The Muffin Man and To the Great Brown House; or There was a Small Boy with a Toot and Dapple Gray in St. Nicholas Songs. In this tale of The Wolf and Seven Kids, the conclusion impresses a single mood of joy and the single theme of freedom because the Wolf is dead. The child could produce a very simple song of perhaps two lines, such as,—

Let's sing and dance! Hurrah, hurrah!
The Wolf is dead! Hurrah!

(d) It is a little difficult to get down to the simplicity of the little girl who will play her own tune upon the piano and sing to it just the number of the house in which she lives, repeating it again and again. But the child can compose little songs that will please him, and he can use, too, in connection with the tales, some of the songs that he knows. The first-grade child could work into Snow White and Rose Red, "Good morrow, little rosebush," and into Little Two-Eyes a lullaby such as "Sleep, baby, sleep." Later in Hansel and Grethel he may learn some of the simple songs that have been written for Hansel and Grethel to sing to the birds when they spend the night in the wood. In Snow White he may learn some of the songs written for the children's play, Snow White. In connection with music, the kindergarten child learns to imitate the sounds of animals, the sound of bells, whistles, the wind, etc. All this will cause him to react, so that when these occur in his stories he will want to make them.

(e) One of the forms of creative reaction possible to the child as a variety of expression, which has received attention most recently, has been handled by Miss Caroline Crawford in Rhythm Plays of Childhood; and by Miss Carol Oppenheimer in "Suggestions Concerning Rhythm Plays," in the Kindergarten Review, April and May, 1915. Here again the fairy tales cannot be excelled in abundant situations for rhythm plays. The sea, the wind, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars—all nature is rich in suggestion of rhythms. The social situations furnish the rhythm of simple housekeeping tasks. In Snow White and Rose Red there are the rhythms of fishing and of chasing animals. In The Elves we have the rhythm of shoe-making and in The Straw Ox, the rhythm of spinning. The story of Thumbelina, after its eight episodes have been re-told by the children, might very attractively be re-told in eight rhythms, each rhythm expressing a single episode. And for the oldest children, a union of the oral re-telling by individual children with the retelling in rhythms by all the children, would give much pleasure and social exhilaration. Thumbelina in her Cradle, Thumbelina and the Toad, Thumbelina and the Swallow and Thumbelina as Queen of the Flowers—these at once suggest a cradle rhythm, a toad rhythm, the flight of birds, and a butterfly dance. Because the rhythm is a lyric form it must be remembered that the part of a story suited to a rhythm play is always a part characterized by a distinct emotional element. In the performance of rhythm plays the point is to secure the adjustment of music, motion, and idea.

(f) Many of the fairy tales might arouse in the child a desire to originate a game, especially if he were accustomed to originate games in the regular game work. A modification of the game of tag might grow from Red Riding Hood and a pleasant ring game easily might develop from Sleeping Beauty. In fact there is a traditional English game called "Sleeping Beauty." An informal ring game which would be somewhat of a joke, and would have the virtue of developing attention, might grow from The Tin Soldier. The Tin Soldier stands in the center while the circle is formed of Jack-in-the-boxes, with lids closed. The Tin Soldier turns round and round slowly, and when he stops looks steadily at a certain Jack-in-the-box, whereupon the Jack must bob up and retort, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The Jack and Soldier then change places. Any Jack failing to open when looked at forfeits his place in the ring. Some games derived from folk-tales were given in the Delineator, November, 1914. These could not be used by the youngest without adaptation; they suggest a form of fun that so far as I know has been undeveloped.

(g) The artistic creative return of the child may sometimes take the form of objectification or representation. The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a model of the literary fairy tale which gives a stimulus to the child to represent his fairy tale objectively. As straightforward narrative it ranks high. Its very first clause is the child's point of view: "There were five and twenty tin soldiers"; for the child counts his soldiers. Certainly the theme is unique and the images clear-cut.

It makes one total impression and it has one emotional tone to which everything is made to contribute. Its message of courage and its philosophy of life, which have been mentioned previously, are not so insignificant even if the story does savor of the sentimental. Its structure is one single line of sequence, from the time this marvelous soldier was stood up on the table, until he, like many another toy, was thrown into the fire. The vivid language used gives vitality to the story, the words suit the ideas, and often the words recall a picture or suggestion; as, "The Soldier fell headlong," "trod," "came down in torrents," "boat bobbed," "spun round," "clasped his gun," "boat shot along," "blinked his eyes," etc. The method of suggestion by which an object is described through its effect on some one else, produces a very pleasing result here. You see the steadfast look of the Tin Soldier's eyes when the Jack-in-the-box says, "Keep your eyes to yourself, Tin Soldier!" The position of the Soldier in the street is given through the exclamation of the little boys who see him—"Look! there lies a Tin Soldier, let us give him a sail in the gutter!"

The setting in this story is a table in a sitting-room and the playthings on the table. The characters are two playthings. After the first telling of this story the child naturally would like to represent it. The story has made his playthings come alive and so he would like to make them appear also. This is a tale in which representation, after the first telling, will give to the child much pleasure and will give him a chance to do something with it cooperatively. He can reproduce the setting of this tale upon a table in a schoolroom. Each child could decide what is needed to represent the story and offer what he can. One child could make the yard outside the castle of green blotting-paper. Another child could furnish a mirror for the lake, another two toy green trees, one two wax swans, one a box of tin soldiers, another a jack-in-the-box, while the girls might dress a paper doll for a tinsel maid. The teacher, instructed by the class, might make a castle of heavy gray cardboard, fastening it together with heavy brass paper-fasteners and cutting out the door, windows, and tower. It is natural for children to handle playthings; and when a story like this is furnished the teacher should not be too work-a-day to enter into its play-spirit. After the representation objectively, the re-telling of the tale might be enjoyed. The child who likes to draw might tell this story also in a number of little sketches: The Jack-in-the-box, The Window, The Boat, The Rat, The Fish, and The Fire. Or a very simple little dramatic dance and song might be invented, characterized by a single mood and a single form of motion, something like this, sung to the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush, etc":—

Here we come marching, soldiers tin, soldiers tin, soldiers tin,
Here we come marching, soldiers tin,
On one leg steady we stand.
(Circle march on one leg).

This could easily be concluded with a game if the child who first was compelled to march on two legs had to pay some penalty, stand in the center of the ring, or march at the end of the line.