263. Folklore and Fairy Tales

Writer and podcaster Vanessa Rogers discusses the common misconceptions of fairy tales, folk tales, and folklore and how they are still impacting the modern literary world.
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Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to writing and editing. Writer, teacher, lifelong learner, and fellow podcast host Vanessa Rogers is joining us, and we're going to talk about folklore, fairy tales, and why they still have such a huge impact on the modern literary world, and just people in general. This is "Folklore and Fairy Tales."

Jennia: Thank you for coming today. I'm so glad to have you!

Vanessa: Thank you so much for having me! I love talking about folklore, so this is exciting.

Jennia: Yeah, it's not something we've done before, but it's something that I love, and I think most of us do, even if we might not realize it just because it influences so much in media around us even now.

Vanessa: Absolutely. And, you know, when I started my podcast, my understanding of what folklore was was really limited. I started the podcast because I wanted to write a children's book for my children. That centered around folklore. And so I was kind of thinking about how I was going to do the research, and I was thinking about how to reach out to different, you know, historians or folklorists. So I came up with the idea of, why don't I do a podcast that's basically doing my research for me for writing the children's books?

Jennia: Perfect! (laughs)

Vanessa: And so that's how I started the podcast. But because I started as a novice of someone who—I didn't have a great understanding of folklore, I didn't even really understand what folklore encompassed, because my understanding of folklore was that it was just folklore, tales of folk. So I thought folklore and folk tales were synonymous, but that is not true at all. Folklore is basically an umbrella term that encompasses everything from mythology, of course folktales, even jokes, traditions—like holiday traditions—folk art, folk music, folk dance. So there's so many elements to folklore that I didn't realize were encompassed under that really wide umbrella.

Jennia: I had no idea. I mean, even now, I've just realized that my own understanding of it has been incredibly limited.

Vanessa: Yes, it was really surprising! I mean, cause I named the podcast without understanding that concept. I started writing blog posts, and I was like, "Okay, so what am I going to write about when I started my website?" And I was like, "Let's start by defining terminology." And so I was like, "What's the difference between folklore and folktales?" And I was like, "You can't compare the two, because folklore is the umbrella term that goes over folk tales." So it was really funny that when I started it, I had (both laugh) no concept.

Jennia: I would guess that's a really common misconception and that most people would not be able to really give you a definition.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Jennia: It's sort of like when we're asked to define a word that we use in everyday practice and we think we know what it means, but then as soon as we're put on the spot, we realize we don't really have words to go behind it or express what we actually believe it is.

Vanessa: Yes.

Jennia: So interesting ...

Vanessa: It is. It's true. And there's a lot of words that I still have to look up even though I feel like I use them in my daily vocabulary, like—sometimes we don't have a distinguishing idea about how it's different from other things.

Jennia: Yeah, I mean, that might be a little bit different just because this is, you know, people that are really heavy into the literary world, and so they might study words a little bit different just because they understand the reason for being specific and making sure they have the right one. But, yeah, even just—I'm thinking about university classes I've taken, for instance, and people who would throw those words into their essays and no one thought anything of it, I'm sure. You know, even me as a fellow student, I probably thought nothing of it at all at the time. But, yeah, this already is making me think differently about it. And maybe I need to look into this a little bit more. (Vanessa laughs)

Vanessa: Yeah, it's funny. Even, like, defining the terminologies between folk tale and fairy tale, it's really messy because—I mean, all these terminologies, if you ask different people, they give you drastically different definitions.

Jennia: So then how do we differentiate a folk tale and a fairy tale?

Vanessa: So there's different ways. And it gets confusing because the Grimms' brothers fairy tales are some of the most famous, right? But truly, I think that by definition—and this is by some people's definition, not everybody's definition—a fairy tale is written by an author, whereas a folk tale is an oral story that is told over and over again. But the Grimms' brothers, they were two brothers who traveled around Germany and they went from town to town and they collected folk tales from all these different villages. And then they compiled them in a very scientific way to try and figure out what was the original folktale and where it originated. And so what the Grimms' Fairy Tales are, are actually a collection of folk tales.

Jennia: Oh.

Vanessa: So that's a little confusing. So I think we oftentimes use them interchangeably. But in general, folklorists try to encompass fairy tales as ones that are written by an author. So the term fairy tales were—was penned by a woman in France, Madame—I can't remember. It's a very French name. And she was writing in the 1600s, and she wrote a book called stories of fairies. And they weren't necessarily about fairies, but that was what she titled it. And so another thing that distinguishes a folk tale from a fairy tale is fairy tales are very formulaic. "Once upon a time," they start with "Once upon a time," and they end with "happily ever after," in English tales, they usually have a supernatural element.

Jennia: Mhm.

Vanessa: Those are the main distinguishes. But most fairy tales don't actually have fairies in them, which is kind of funny. They do have a supernatural element.

Jennia: Yeah, that is interesting when you think about it, because even just as soon as you said the title and that they didn't all have fairies in it, I started thinking about different fairy tales. And, yeah, there might be that supernatural or paranormal type element we were talking about. Like, even Beauty and the Beast, where she's the witch who changes her appearance. But, yeah, that's not really a fairy. That's someone who casts magic. And the same with Rumpelstiltskin. I'm not really sure what you would classify him as, but he's definitely not a fairy. And, yeah, it does seem to be really common.

Vanessa: Well, the last episode—so I've been collaborating with a woman named Donna Lee Fields, and we put together a monthly episode where we come together and we talk about one fairy tale in particular. And Rumpelstiltskin is the last one we actually spoke about.

Jennia: Oh perfect!

Vanessa: And Rumpelstiltskin, it was discussed as he is potentially a fairy. He's a fairy-like creature.

 Jennia: Oh!

Vanessa: He's more of a goblin. But, you know, all of those creatures kind of are interchangeable. Yeah. So it's potentially he is a fairy.

Jennia: Thinking about then those oral histories are, do you think there are any folk tales that are still strictly folk tales where they're only still an oral story, or do you think that they've all now been converted into fairy tales?

Vanessa: This is another misconception that happens with folklore, is a lot of people think of folklore as only old stories, but folklore continues throughout times, even like, on the Internet, right? I don't know if you heard of Slenderman. He was a very—

Jennia: Yes (chuckles).

Vanessa: —yes, and he originated from the Internet, from, like, a forum where someone asked people to come up with an image, and then all these people submitted this image and stories just created from this one forum, and it even turned into a movie and video games, and so many different things happened from this Internet—I don't know if it was a meme. And so today, we still are experiencing folklore. Any group of people who have a common tradition or trade of some sort... We think of, for instance, we call in offices, we say office culture, right? But a lot of what we're doing in office cultures are creating folklore. We're creating identity. There's a specific way that you act in different offices, right? You go to one office and you have to wear a three piece suit or, you know, be very professional. Whereas, like, if you go to a tech company, your body language is going to be different, your way of being is going to be different, and that's the culture that they've created. And through different things that are purposefully put into place, they've created this identity and folklore for the office.

Jennia: Ooh! I'm just thinking it'd be so neat if people started adopting the name "folklore" instead of company culture. And even just the mindset shift that would lead for employees who work there, because just sounds a lot cozier and more like a place you want to work. Not so stiff and formal.

Vanessa: Yeah. My son just turned eight yesterday, and we are taking him to Rainforest Cafe—he's never been there—for his birthday, and he told some of his friends at school. And he came home and he told me, "Mom, there is a tree at Rainforest Cafe. And they unplugged the tree, and it still started talking." And so I was thinking, as he's telling me this, "This is folklore, right? This is a story that he's been told from other students that have been passed through (laughs)—through different students. And I'm really curious. We're going to go tonight.

Jennia: Oh, no. I almost wish we'd had the interview after, just so I could have heard the story (both laugh). You'll have to update us.

Vanessa: Yes, I'll let you know.

Jennia: So one of the things that I personally find really interesting about this, and just as a reader and an editor who enjoys retellings a lot, your website talks about how these stories have the possibility to really bring humanity together and show us shared experiences that occur throughout time. So I wondered if you could elaborate on that or even if you have examples of stories that do a good job of depicting this?

Vanessa: Storytelling really is a way to bring people together, because you're able to paint a picture of your history, your identity, your viewpoint, right? And so it really helps to bind people through storytelling. I had a guest that came on, Kendall Haven, and he actually wrote two books that looked at the science of storytelling, and he talked about how our brains intake information in storytelling form even when someone's not telling us a story.

Jennia: Oh really?

Vanessa: If they hear someone having a dialogue right next to them, you are going to start piecing that dialogue together and filling in the blanks of what you think is happening there. And so our brains, regardless of if we're hearing a story or not, we intake information in storytelling. And so it's just the way that we are formed as humans to make story.

Jennia: That's just so amazing when you think that that's just ingrained into us automatically and that we have that ability even to overlay a story format onto these separate pieces to form something solid. I mean, that alone is really just almost a miracle, really, when you think about everything else going on around us, that we're able to do that.

Vanessa: Mhm. Yeah.

Jennia: Well, and going back to fairy tales and folk tales, do you have any favorites or are there any that you think have made—like, older ones, maybe, that have stood the test for time a little bit better than some others?

Vanessa: Well, going back to Rumpelstiltskin, when I was doing research for that one, I was so surprised at how old that story is. It is one of the oldest known western narratives of our time. I think—I can't remember exactly how old it was, but it was a thousand years older than Homer's Odyssey or Iliad.

Jennia: I had no idea.

Vanessa: It's comparable to the Gilgamesh Tales. So it's one of the first narratives that has continued and it's changed throughout time. One of the things that we discovered was that it wasn't always that he asked for her baby. Sometimes he asked to marry her.

Jennia: Oh.

Vanessa: And that was actually a more common one. But the one that the Grimm brothers took down was the one where he asked for her baby.

Jennia: Ah right.

Vanessa: So that one, I think, is particularly fascinating because I remember reading it for the very first time to my children and thinking, "Why? Why does he want her baby? Why? What does he want with her baby?" That's just such a weird ask. But it's common! Like, Rapunzel as well. She asked, for the baby, and it's like, "Why do all these people want to take babies?" (laughs) And they're not necessarily—

Jennia: (laughs) That's a good question!

Vanessa: (laughs) Right! They're not necessarily like good creatures. Like, Rumpelstiltskin is really interesting in particular because he is neither good nor bad. I mean, obviously an ask for a baby is not great, but he does help her three times, right? He helps her in this terrible situation where she would be basically killed by the king for not turning straw into gold. And so without his help, she would have been lost. I love those stories that have, like, a dichotomy where there's good and bad, because I think that is so true. There's not just good and there's not just bad. We all have good and bad in us, right?

Jennia: Yeah. And I do think—not so much now because now that we have like, you know, the rise of the morally gray character—but we see that here, and even Rumpelstiltskin for a while, it did feel especially like in middle grade and YA, that there was a really harsh line between good characters and bad characters. Or even if you go back to like the older fantasy that was written, like, at the turn of the last century, the same thing there, the bad guy was just pure bad. And the same thing with your hero. You're not really going to find a lot of faults with them or they're just such relatable flaws that it's really not a big deal. I see what you're saying here and I think it just makes characters more interesting just because it's really a more accurate representation of what people are like.

Vanessa: Yeah, but I think that's why, you know, people were drawn to those stories in the first place, because they were simple and they were easy, right? In all these fairy tales and folk tales, most of them, there's not a lot of complexity, right? There is a good person and there is a bad person and you know who to root for. But that's why we read them to children now, rather than them being intended for adults. In the past, I believe folk tales were just told amongst adults, and sometimes they were told to children, but they weren't intended for children, whereas today we primarily read them to younger audiences. But I think that there's, you know, been a change in how we do those types of storytelling because I think we like that complexity of characters.

Jennia: Yeah, that's a really good point too. And I think that's one thing why—and this is somewhat related—you know, when we talk now about like the villain origin stories, and so we've taken some of these popular characters and we've given them a backstory that helps explain what made them into who they are now. We see this a lot now, like people have talked about Gregory Maguire really helped spark that. But yeah, it just goes back into that whole, "We're not purely good or evil." There is always something to explain what has led someone to that point.

Vanessa: Mhm. Yeah. Maleficent is such a great example of that because, you know—yes exactly what you were saying, that she wasn't always this evil monster character, but in the Sleeping Beauty stories that we are familiar with, she is. She's just black and white. She's evil.

Jennia: Yeah. Then also too, that change in perspective. And so some of these events that might have been related in a certain way in the original story—quote unquote, since no one can see this on video—but (both laugh) then hearing it from, "Well, here's what really happened." And going back into some of these stories too, the first one I remember reading as a child was—it was something like the truth about the three little pigs, that picture book that's told by the wolf—

Vanessa: *in recognition* Oh!

Jennia: —yeah, and it makes the three little pigs just look awful. You know, *as the wolf* "I'm just trying to do this. And here they are destroying my path to success at every step they can take." (Vanessa laughs)

Vanessa: Yes, I absolutely love those retellings as well. I think there's so much to it, and it is very telling that we continue to go back to those stories because there's something about them.

Jennia: I think a lot of it might be just like you were saying, that we can still relate to them over and over, but also there might be something to that familiarity also, and that we find comfort in it. But then when you add the novelty of a new twist or something new is added to it, or it's told through a different lens, we're combining the two so that we have an interesting new experience.

Vanessa: Mhm. Yeah, and we're modernizing it, right? Because every time with a retelling, especially with folk tales where they were orally told, the teller would change it per their perspective. And so that's kind of what we're doing today in modern times with movies and literature that is more widespread rather than just on a one-on-one on or one-on-ten basis.

Jennia: Yeah, but from what you've said too, even just about the story of Rumpelstiltskin and how it has changed over time, and that there were variations even in what he asked. And then comparing that to what the Grimm brothers decided to write down, and then that's what became canon—

Vanessa: Mhm.

Jennia: —it sounds like that's really just been going on forever.

Vanessa: Exactly.

Jennia: But I do think a lot of people almost act like this is a new thing. We hear that all the time, like, "Well, the story really changed when Disney took it. Well, the story really changed when they made this adaptation." But no, it just sounds like it's been happening since their creation.

Vanessa: Yeah. And I had a storyteller on—she's Swedish and she does all these different retreats, especially for women, and she loves to tell the story of Snow White. And she says that every time she tells it she changes it a little bit. She changes it to how she's feeling and what's going on with her. And I was like, "Wow, that's really impressive." (laughs). Depending on what her mood is or what she's feeling or what she feels like the audience is needing, she'll change it.

Jennia: She must be really good. Just even assessing the room and picking up the atmosphere from her current audience.

Vanessa: Yes, absolutely.

Jennia: That's skill.

Vanessa: Definitely.

Jennia: Do you think with these stories, it helps to know anything about the people who originally wrote them or created them in better understanding the stories as they originally were?

Vanessa: Yeah. And that's really what my podcast is about, because I really wanted to understand the origins and the history, because I think that that gives you so much more understanding of the context, right? Like, if you're told a story that has zero context, then you're just going to take it at face value. But when you fill in all those blanks, then you have so much more understanding of what's going on and the nuance. So there's so much there. So oftentimes in my intros, I like to try and find a piece of folklore and talk about it just a little bit. And I found a little bit of the history of Beauty and the Beast, you mentioned earlier. And that was one that's, an actual fairy tale that was written by—I don't remember who wrote it, but it was based off of a prince who had a genetic disorder that caused him to have hair all over his body.

Jennia: Oh!

Vanessa: And it really was kind of a reflection of the society's—not just then, but today, our inability to accept people who are drastically different or look different or speak different. We have a hard time accepting people who are different. And that was kind of one of the messages of Beauty and the Beast.

Jennia: Mhm. See, I had no idea, and I have read so many—and edited a few—Beauty and the Beast retellings, and yet I still had not known that. Have there ever been any stories where you have found some of this historical information and it has completely changed your opinion about it or the way that you see the story?

Vanessa: No, I can't think of something that really struck me. One of the things that did strike me from one of my guests—I was trying to look up some of the things that my guests have said, and I had a guest, Tok Thompson is what his name is. And he talked about ghosts specifically, but he was interesting because he's a folklorist and an anthropologist. And I like to have my guests define things because everyone, you know, defines things differently. And because he's both an anthropologist and a folklorist, he defined kind of the difference, and he said that the field of anthropology was created primarily by colonizers. So they would go into the places where they were colonizing to understand that culture, so they would better colonize it. Whereas folklore, their origin is countries really trying to shape their identity and trying to hold onto those roots.

Jennia: Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, I can see that. Just like, that's kind of what binds you together. And it's almost like a subtle sense of revolution in a way too, you know? Like still putting that in your window or still telling these stories or something where you can still hold onto your own identity instead of being assimilated into whatever place has conquered you at that moment.

Vanessa: Absolutely. And actually, one of my last guests that I had on, Ronald L. Sharps, he wrote a book about black folklorists collecting folklore directly after the Emancipation Proclamation. And so it was freed black people coming together to collect their own folklore so that their history and their roots weren't lost.

Jennia: Oh wow.

Vanessa: And so it took a couple decades before there was a concerted effort, but they realized that this was really important before all these people who, you know, were slaves before or had possibly come over from Africa, to get those histories, to get those stories, to get those parables together and have it help them shape their own path.

Jennia: Wow, that's amazing. It's so, like, humbling, almost, in a way, to think about not just how many stories there are and how long they've been around, but even when you think about how many stories have potentially been lost just because someone hasn't taken up that effort or just because maybe, like, that culture has died out or that people is no longer around. And just how much has been lost compared to how much we have.

Vanessa: Yes. And you really see this with, like, Celtic tribes or druids. There were a lot of old civilizations that didn't have written languages, and so we've lost so much of their history and their stories. And so it's really such a shame because they had rich storytelling traditions, but it was only written down by, like, outsiders, not themselves.

Jennia: Well, that feels like a sad note. But (both laugh) before we end, if you have any favorite resources you'd like to share, or maybe even mention the name of your podcast so people can look that up too?

Vanessa: Yeah, so my podcast is Fabric of Folklore, so you can find me there. And like I was saying before, I'm collaborating with another podcaster. We're doing a monthly podcast called Fairy Tale Flip, so it's very much within the same realm. But instead of interviews, this one is just a discussion of one fairy tale. Anyways, it's been really fun. We've only had four episodes out so far, but it's been great.

Jennia: Oh, good. Well, do you have any other resources that you have on your map or that you really recommend?

Vanessa: So if someone is really interested in folklore, the American Folklore Society is the top one in the United States, obviously. And then there's different folklore societies in most states. Not all states have continuous folklore societies—

Jennia: Did not know that!

Vanessa: —Texas, where I am, has one of the oldest continuous. Some of them have stopped and then, like, are re-picked up. Yeah, so like, if you are in the United States—I don't know where all your listeners are, but different countries and different—

Jennia: Everywhere (both laugh).

Vanessa: —a lot of different states have folklore societies that you can look up.

Jennia: Very fun! I'm going to look for ours after this.

Vanessa: Yeah, you'll have to tell me if there is one, and I'll get their contact information.

Jennia: Or I'll just talk to one of the neighboring states since we're so small (laughs).

Vanessa: Yeah, I had someone from the Louisiana one—and she was super interesting because she had practical folklore. So, because of deterioration of the seawall, because of climate change, a lot of people are being displaced in Louisiana, so they're having to move, and so entire villages are having to change where they are. And so her job is to help people who have a dying art to teach other people so that it doesn't die out. So the more I learn about folklore, the more I love it.

Jennia: Aww, that's perfect.

Jennia: Well, thank you again!

Vanessa: Yes, well, thank you so much for having me!

Jennia: And that's all for today. Thank you for listening! And please check out the show notes for more information. And we'll also have a link to that podcast in there. And then please join me next week as Susan Day comes to explain the ins and outs of conducting research for your nonfiction manuscript. Thanks again!