Pagan Fairy Tales

[Willow]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

If you really read Grimms and other collections, you can see the older stories in there quite easily. The Grimms brothers often put their own moralistic spin on things, but it's there, especially in the first editions (which they made fewer changes to....Grimms actually evolved over several years and morphed from an academic collection to a book meant for children). If you want to find other older versions of those popular stories, many are found in other, earlier collections under different names. The morals are all different there. Rapunzel gets knocked up, Cinderella had a vicious MOTHER (not step mother), etc.

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Grimms as we know it is the product of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. If you know more about their source materials, you'll know how stories changed. Many of the stories were also recent. They adapted a few from popular authors of the day, and some of their sources had made up stories as well as passed them on. I really recommend the recent edition by Philip Pullman. He weaves together various editions, and explains some of the sources of the stories.

I'd also check out Andrew Lang's collections. They're not as well written, as Lang was simply a translator and collector. However, they're interesting collections of other collections from various cultures (mostly European). Basile's Pentamerone is a much earlier collection with different versions of the most popular stories (much of Grimms sources stemmed from Italian fairy tales).

Also, if you read the Grimms collection (all of it), you'll find that while there are evil witches and bad animals, there are also good fairies, helpful witches, and helpful animals in many stories.

Adding to my reading lists... thanks!

[Kahlenda]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

ok i think were on the wrong stick here, fairy tales and myths to me are two compleatly different things.

A myth to me, is an historical story (like greek, or roman or aztec or norse) thats tells a story about gods, or mythic figures in history or culture.

a fairy tale, is a completly made up story you tell children thats supposed to teach them a lesson. like the hair and the tortoise (slow and steady) or the boy who cried wolf,

this are what im after finding/creating

[MoonRaven]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

I find that most of Grimms' fairy tales are 'salvageable'. Personally when I tell bedtime stories to my friends' kids, I have no children of my own, I use adapted version of the traditional fairy tales.
Take Little Red Riding Hood. In my version Granny is a witch, the nice kind, the wolf a spirit totem that guides Red when she gets lost and protects her from the trigger happy hunter. The climax of the story is when Granny and Red have to save the wolf from the hunter.
And that is not to mention what I did with Hansel and Gretel or Rapunzel.

My friends can't understand why their children insists that they tell the stories 'wrong'.

[Malflick]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

While these aren't exactly Fairy Tales, we were playing around with this idea a while back. You might find them entertaining:

Pagans need harsh values to teach their children

This is the best thing I've read all week XD.

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I'm curious as to why not just change the word that is used? In Greek tales for instance Medea is an Sorceress while Circe is an Enchantress, there not witches. That usage would not come for some time. Granted I would think a lot of the fairy tales one might use would be reflective of whatever mythology your gods / goddesses might hail from or you are trying to introduce your children to.

That's a pretty darn good simple solution right there.

[Wednesday]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

something i could tell my children as i tuck them into bed at night, that doesnt involve the scary bad witch
or the evil horrible animals, or the dark creepy forest. but that also doesnt deal heavily with mythology and theology making them feel like its a lesson.

The dark creepy forest is a pagan motif, at least in European cultures. And there's a good reason for it. The forest is where the goddess lives, she is the protector of the wilds. Hunters would blow horns to announce their presence and then would follow her rules in the forests so as not to anger her. Animals and people even had different relationships. They weren't dumb animals or pets, they were equal to people. They were magical. If you look at the fairy tales there's a ton of lessons about how animals and men are similar but the rules for animals are different. Their culture and spirit is different.

Nowadays we think nature is the refuge because our urban areas seem so dangerous and unpredictable. But at the time it was reversed, nature was the dangerous and u predictable place and tiny villages of people was where you'd fine refuge. We forget that even though today the wilds are still dangerous. Look at lost hikers who die and hunters that are mauled. Nature isn't sacred because it's pure and good. Nature has its own gods, laws and monsters, and fairy tales tried to teach people a bit about navigating that culture and relationship.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

A lot of people here are confusing fairy tales with fables...

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Also, the dark creepy forest thing.....if the forest near your village looks like this:


537768_10152388987745504_370288345_n by DanieMarie, on Flickr

And it's full of wind howling through the trees all the time (SERIOUSLY sounds like a ghost, I swear), you'd think creepy things lived there too.

This region where the photo was taken was a home for a lot of German folklore.

[Lilium of the Valley]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

A lot of people here are confusing fairy tales with fables...

agreed there is a huge misunderstanding going on here...we wanted pagan fairy tales that are NOT scary, that you tell your children to teach them something...
plus i have read the original story's of the 2 german brother's and they are #1 not fairy tales but fables and #2 portrait witches, magick (paganism) in a scary
and bad way...which is not what i want to teach my children.....
so that's why we started making some up...for fun and with a good reasoning behind it

[Wednesday]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

I wasn't trying to say there's anything wrong with that. Just hoping you don't think fairy tales that *do* include bad witches, monsters, and scary forests are wrong either. Because all of those things exist, too and for good reason.

[Lilium of the Valley]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

I wasn't trying to say there's anything wrong with that. Just hoping you don't think fairy tales that *do* include bad witches, monsters, and scary forests are wrong either. Because all of those things exist, too and for good reason.

no i do agree with you...those things of course exist as well...and it's appropriate to let kids know about them as well. just not tiny kids lol
plus nothing good comes without the bad...

[DanieMarie]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

I wasn't trying to say there's anything wrong with that. Just hoping you don't think fairy tales that *do* include bad witches, monsters, and scary forests are wrong either. Because all of those things exist, too and for good reason.

I've read a lot of Grimms over the years, as well as quite a few other collections. I think I missed my calling as a fairy tale scholar (I had no idea something like this existed until a few years ago). Pouring over them and figuring out their origins is somewhat of a hobby of mine, and I get excited when I find new books, new editions, and so on.

If there's anything I've learned about Grimms (and similar stories), it's that magic is neither good nor bad as a whole in the books. Sometimes, it rears its ugly head as a curse, but sometimes, it serves as a protective force (in "Twelve Brothers," for example). Sometimes it also rewards people. Even when it's bad, it's not always a matter of "good" and "evil." Though fairy tales can often be black and white, there are some surprisingly human elements to them. The fairy (not witch) in Briar Rose casts her sleeping curse because she was slighted (the king and the queen failed to invite her to their party because they only had 12 gold plates and there were 13 fairies). The witch in Rapunzel takes Rapunzel away because the girl's parents stole from her, and she banished the two lovers because she didn't approve of their relationship. Sometimes, there is no real good reason for negative actions, but I never got the feeling that the stories were trying to tell me magic was "bad." It just is...some times it can be good, sometimes it can be bad. It isn't a positive or negative thing; like all forces in the world, it's just there and can go either way depending on the other circumstances.

I think it's important to read these stories to kids. I don't really think they serve any moral purpose in this day in age; nor were they really intended to. Many of them were told by adult women to each other while they carried out tedious work such as spinning...they were always vehicles of entertainment to some degree. That's not why I'd read them to my kids. I'd do so for two reasons: the stories are simply good, and they represent an important part of cultural heritage.

[Kahlenda]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

hmmmm, i understand what your saying DM, but i wasnt trying to say that the grimm's tales arent good stories or relavant to magic, but very young children dont want to be thinking about evil mothers or bad witches or cursing fairies or bad kings and queens before bed

as i child i remember my mum telling me stories and the always had a happy ending and werent in the least scary, but the most prominient one i remember were christian orientated and painted magic and witchs in general in a bad light, i just though it would be nice to find or make up some fairy tales that fit todays neo pagan out looks,

[DanieMarie]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

I was read Grimms since before I could speak, and they never bothered me.

Anyway, I do recommend you actually read the entire collection. There are a lot more stories than just the popular ones, and they're rich and varied. Not all are scary either. Some are even outright funny. I know I said this earlier, but I highly recommend the Philip Pullman edition released last year.

[Kahlenda]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

ok ill down load on my kindle and have a read

[Wednesday]

Re: Pagan Fairy Tales

DanieMarie, that's a great insight.

I don't think magic is shown as 'bad' either, but that there are people (usually a stepmother ) that utilize it in a bad way. But a lot of it does seem to be about a person's obligation to contribute and abide by cultural norms, and how a failure to do so invites retaliation by a supernatural function that oversees those obligations. I'm thinking, like you, of the Frau Holle tale, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella.

This has been an interesting discussion, thanks for bringing it up OPs.