Abby and Alan are joined by Jon Cook of Fadò Podcast to talk through the disturbing and brutal history of Fairy Tales. Some fairy tales are thousands of years old and by examining iterations throughout history, we get insight into each culture that retold them.
Follow Fadò on Instagram and Patreon as well!
Consider donating to Mission Oxygen to help the Covid-19 crisis in India.
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Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Abby and Alan are joined by Jon Cook of Fadò Podcast to talk through the disturbing and brutal history of Fairy Tales. Some fairy tales are thousands of years old and by examining iterations throughout history, we get insight into each culture that retold them.
Follow Fadò on Instagram and Patreon as well!
Consider donating to Mission Oxygen to help the Covid-19 crisis in India.
---
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Everyone. And welcome to another episode of the lunatics radio hour podcast. I'm Abby Brinker. I'm here with Alan COO Dan. Hello, and we are also here today with John Cook of the[inaudible] podcast. Welcome John. Hi, thank you guys very much for having me on. Yeah. And I'm sure you guys have some familiarity with Fidel, just because of all of our cross-promotions and social media, uh, back and forth. But John, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about Frodo because we're huge fans. Well,
Speaker 3:Thank you. First of all, I appreciate that photo is what have basically come to sort of describe as a storytelling podcast with a bit of armchair commentary and it was sort of born out of the need to reach out and connect during the, uh, the lockdowns last year. It started in may of last year. So just came on. It came up on a year, basically every episode I read a story and then I'll, you know, give some commentary on it. Um, and I've done everything at this point. I started with fairytales exclusively, but I've done, um, you know, I've done some science fiction, some pulps from the forties, I've done some of my own work. Um, and it's, it's really gotten, it's really grown beyond just fairytales, but it's, it's mainly that. And, um, it's just a lot of fun. I think I have a good time over there and I hope that everyone listening does as well. So yeah, that's, that's photo in a nutshell.
Speaker 4:It's a very good spread of stories. Yes.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yeah. And I've tried to branch out, like I started, like I said, with just, just one, one or two types, but I found that I am really enjoying reading some of the, you know, some of the different styles, you know, the, the, the pulp science fiction is so much fun because, you know, back in the, I don't know, in the forties and such when it was being written, we didn't know as much about space and they were just filling in the blanks and having a great time with it. And it was so much fun.
Speaker 4:Isn't that great though, when they fill in the blanks and accidentally get it right.
Speaker 3:I know. I know. Yeah. And, okay, so this conversation comes up to, uh, will it has with you and Bob and me and Bob, um, Bob Don from Bob's short story, our big fans of Bob Dawn. Yes. We're big fans of Bob Don, but the idea that science fiction, particularly out of that rocket ship era has really influenced our, our science and our technology, like the, the tablets in and flip phones and things that came out of star Trek almost directly. And so it's, it's fun to see how it's influenced
Speaker 2:Us. Yeah, for sure. I also really love, I think some of the earliest episodes that I listened to a Fidessa when I first was introduced to you, was the Edgar Allen Poe cover. And you do such a good job. I've said this before in the podcast, but you really do. You and Bob both like make some, some of these older stories that are dense and written in language that might not always be accessible. It makes it really come to life and so easy to consume it. So, yeah, Frodo is awesome. Everyone go check out for DOE and I think it's a perfect introduction really, to what we're talking about today, which is fairytales fairytales. Yes. So today we're going to talk about with John, the history of fairytales, and we're also going to do of course, a really fun story episode after this filled with all kinds of fairytales, we have a modern fairytale submission, and we have tons of examples of more classic. So it's going to be really fun. I am going to say at the head of this right now, you know, we're not going to get super graphic in this episode, but the kind of overlap between fairytales and horror, which is what we do is very, is kind of the, the disturbing origin of them. Right? And, and we look back at like the Disney versions, which is probably what most people are familiar with to some extent, and it's nothing at all like the original and how brutal some of those are. So we're going to talk about some things that are a little rough. We're not going to go into any like harmful details around it, but just so that everyone knows there's going to be, you know, some mentions here and there throughout of tougher topics. So today's sources we have, of course, as always our great friend Wikipedia, which by the way, is a great resource. If you're looking for some of the original summaries of some of these old fairytales, they have pretty robust coverage of it on Wikipedia.
Speaker 4:Have you done your yearly contribution to Wikipedia?
Speaker 2:Of course good. A Phoebe. Yes. Yes. We, part of our Patrion proceeds go right into like a pedia. We, we owe them our lives, a BBC article, where do fairytales come from a Ted talk by Ann Dugan, a study from Royal society, open science, the 10 darkest and most disturbing fairytales on culture trip.com a Flavorwire article by Emily temple, the 10 most odd and creepy Hans Christian Andersen fairytales from the most ten.com and a book called the hard facts of the Grimm fairytales by Maria to tar without further ado, let's jump into defining fairytales. Most people are probably familiar with what a fairytale is, but let's try to define it, despite that thank you. Fairytales are typically short stories that include magical elements or mythical creatures, for example, which is mermaids dragons doors fairytales can either be written or passed down through generations orally. In most cases they're both fairytales may also include fairies. Yes, yes. You miss that one really?
Speaker 3:Well, I think, I don't think it was in the list, but that's okay because it's kind of there in the, in the title.
Speaker 2:Yes, I stand corrected. Yes, of course. Very tails do often include ferries. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 3:But no, I think that's a pretty fair definition. You know, I've always, I've always kind of extended it to, you know, tales of, of the unknown. Uh, there's, there's one that I did a why the sea assault that is, uh, it's um, some, some of them that sort of explain the unknown origins of the things that we see in the world, you know, why the sea is salty and that's, uh, that's another sort of, I think, facet to it, it sort of fills it like, like we were saying on the scifi, it sort of fills in the gaps, you
Speaker 2:Know? Yeah. Sort of like Greek mythology, you know, like they have gods of thunder just to, to understand why thunder, you know, that's obviously a simplified example, but it's more
Speaker 3:Of a folkloric sort of thing. It's not necessarily a fairy tale, but it's part of the, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, that's my question. Like where do you draw the line between tale, folk, tale and mythology?
Speaker 2:There are lots of like overlap types of stories, right? So we also have legends and fables and those centered around a moral agenda, but in some cases are considered different. Like, you know, there are different like subcategories, which can overlap with fairytales, but are kind of like a different categorization in a lot of what we're going to talk about today honestly, is like folk, folk, tales, and fairytales, you know, it's kind of hard to, it would be very nuanced for us to only talk specifically about fairytales, which would include like magical elements, but there's usually they kind of go hand in hand with each other. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think they blend profusely.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's also differences between original folktales and literary folktales. In many cases, the fairytales we know were taken from local folklore and turned into works by authors, uh, which is going to be a big part of what we talk about today. Fairytales often reflect the culture at the time, meaning the lessons within them, show us how people thought about their values about good evil and punishment. You can, for example, track one fairytale throughout like different versions of it that are published or even before. And you can see like how the moral at the end changes to reflect what's the current kind of focus or need of society to address, which is very interesting, very, very academic. Very, yes, it was a very academic serious episode. Yes. One of the most fascinating things I learned in this research is that while there are a few dominant collections, one of course being the brothers Grimm and the other Charles prose tales of the olden times from 1697, there is also so much more to fairytale history stories that pass down within different regions across the globe. We've heard of Hans Christian Anderson's Danish stories and Walter Scott from Scotland, but fairytales exist across all geographies and peoples. And I will say we touch a little in this episode on a few examples of Asian fairytales, but it really is like European focused. But again, you could do a whole episode on fairytales from every single region of the world because this tradition really is kind of like a universal thing that we've seen across history, which is really cool Wilhelm Grimm of the brothers Grimm believe that some of the fairytales they transcribed were thousands of years old and actually can be used as a marker of the beginning of Indo-European language. But some folklore scholars had a different view claiming that fairytales were based in more recent history until a study was published on Royal society. Open science, the paper was written by Sarah Garcia does silver and Jamshed J Terrani. The researchers looked at the correlation between these stories with population linguistic patterns, variance and geography. They compared the tales of magic set from the biggest compendium of fairytales called the ARN thumps and author index, and were able to trace at least 76 of the 275 stories back to the invention of English, French, or Italian languages.
Speaker 4:Can we start getting into the more, you know, nuanced facts, please? This is stuff everyone knows.
Speaker 2:This is the only dense part. And then it gets more fun. I promise, but I think it's
Speaker 5:Yarn Luther, you know, no,
Speaker 3:This, this to me, this fascinates me to know it because this is the same stuff I came across. When I started my show was the idea that these, these, the fairytales are almost like they train, they travel across the world, like a language like, and you can see the language in it and you can see them travel. It's, it's fascinating to me
Speaker 4:Talking about how they travel all around the world yet. Most fairytales seem very, very Eurocentric.
Speaker 2:Well, those are the ones you're familiar with. Th they are. Yeah. And I will say like, we'll talk about this later, but Cinderella, for example, there's 60, whatever. No, and that's a made up number, but there's a lot of known versions of Cinderella across the globe. So we're going to tell the Chinese version of that, the south American version
Speaker 4:Of that. Well, okay. So that, that was, that was the up question. Do they just become, you know, appropriated by the cultures as they, for sure. Wow. And I think,
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, I think the, the important thing there is, you know, I, I personally I have a European background and so the European culture, it takes the bones of the story and they make it their own to resonate inside their own cultures. And I think that happens to all the cultures, a lot of, you know, and it's, it's, it's fascinating to see. And in some ways it's, it's a great way to learn about different cultures is to see their version of the story. And what's what sticks out. What's important.
Speaker 2:Some of these go back like 6,000 years. And so that's before we've had, we have territories and cultures as we see them now, right? These are very, very old stories. And so some of these in the tradition of, of fairytales and folk stories predates, right, like country lines and geographies and the way we think of them in 2021. And, and to see, you know what I mean? And so it's very fascinating to see how enduring some of these are Jack and the Beanstalk is actually over 5,000 years old. For example, how do we know that I read it on YouTube. This is also known as a series of iterations from the boy who stole the ogres treasure versions of Jack and the Beanstalk are categorized as a type of story called the boy who sold the ogres treasure. Right. That's kind of like the, yeah, they really just give away the whole plot and the title beauty and the beast in Rumpelstiltskin were first published in the 17th century, published in a book. But as you may guess, can actually be traced back to origins from between 20 506,000 ago. And I'm sure you're wondering, Alan, what is the oldest fairytale that's actually been identified? I mean, we all know this, but please go ahead. I can
Speaker 3:See him wondering right here. I can see him wondering
Speaker 2:A story that is at least 6,000 years old, if not older originated in the bronze age called the Smith and the devil. Oh, that this predates even the earliest version of Indo European language, I was not familiar with this story, but I'll give you the summary. I was going to say, what's that one about? So a black Smith or a metal worker of some kind sells their soul to an evil demon in return. They get the ability to weld together any and all materials, right? So they become like a master welder. He then tricks the blacksmith, tricks, the devil, and tries to leash him to a huge Boulder to get out of the pact.
Speaker 4:Now the good old Prometheus's trick
Speaker 2:And he is successful. So it's interesting, right? Like that story is 6,000 is confirmed to be at least 6,000 years old, like Jack and the Beanstalk confirmed to be at least 5,000 years old. Like how do you even wrap your head around that? You know? Yeah. And what
Speaker 3:I, what I love. So the Smith and, uh, the Smith and the devil that, that particular story is one that I have yet to do on the show. But it's one that I want to do on the show because my, so I, it's one of those that I think nobody has heard of, but everybody knows. And of course I tend to filter my commentary through a heavy lens of pop culture and things of that nature. I try to, you know, try, I don't get too scholarly or academic, but mostly it's observational and things of that, things of that nature. But the devil went down to Georgia. Yeah. What is that seventies? 1970s. The Charlie Daniels song. Yeah. But, but we have, but we still have that story and it shows up in many ways, you know, tricking the devil out of, you know, his, his whatever. And, and the devil went down to Georgia is one of, one of my favorite iterations of the Smith and the devil. It's just, you're not, you know, now he's a skilled fiddle player, not a skilled blacksmith.
Speaker 2:Wow. That's a great connection. I didn't even think about that. I love
Speaker 3:That. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, tricking, the devil is this is an old, old, old story. And that goes way back, way back. We watched a movie
Speaker 4:Fairly recently. It sounds so familiar. And I couldn't remember the exact title. So I had to Google it, which was Aaron and Terry, the English, uh, release of that movie was called the devil in the blacksmith. We watched that we did a, it was like a year ago. I don't
Speaker 2:Think I was there for that. That's interesting. What, where, what country was it made in? Oh, it was in Spain. Got it. Interesting. Very interesting.
Speaker 4:And it's similar to the pot of the fairy tale of a blacksmith, does a pact with the devil to get something he, well, he achieves his goal, I suppose, but then he becomes Ostra ostracized by society who it would be like marked by the devil, but that's because the devil is just like, always around, like trying to with him. And so he locks up the devil and then things even get worse because like he has the devil locked up and then all the devil's little minions are hanging around causing them.
Speaker 2:What is interesting to me about this is that that's like, sounds like a one-to-one modern remake, you know? And so like, even though we weren't super aware of this story still, and you know, someone in Spain was, and they, they remade like named it the same thing and remade it in 2017. Yeah. It's crazy.
Speaker 3:There's an, and there's another story that's related to, I think it might be middle Eastern. It might even be don't quote me on this. It might be in the Arabian nights. I'm not sure, but there's another one. The, the, the genie and the fishermen where essentially the, he finds a genie bottle in a lake and, uh, tricks the genie, you know, obviously wants to give him three wishes, but the wishes don't go as planned, but he ends up tricking the genie back into the bottle by appealing to his vanity or something like that. I don't have. Yeah. You know? And so it's one of those things where like, that that's, that whole, that whole story is, is everywhere. It's in a lot of different cultures and being that old at all to be,
Speaker 2:I would think it's just so impressive that it has lasted, you know, that it is just not lost knowing that for the majority of its life, if so, to speak, it was passed down orally. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And how many things are not lost that we don't even know are not lost because we don't know they were ever written, you know, that we don't know their origins. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Which is sad. I know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's true. So we can not talk about the history of fairytales without talking about the brothers Grimm. You've probably heard of the brothers. Grimm will hem Carl grim and Carl spelt with a C was born in what is now Germany in 1786. And his brother, Jacob Ludwig, Carl Grimm, Karl with a K was born in 1785. I just love that the two brothers both have the middle name of Carl, but one is spelled with a C. And when I spelt with a K for their, for their fathers, the brothers were many things, including academics, German, language, scholars, researchers, and philosophers. However, they are most well-known for collecting and publishing folklore in the 19th century. The romantic movement at the time had inspired a renewed interest in folktales, the brothers Grimm and other scholars at the time looked to these folk tales as a way to really understand the culture that created them. You'll likely recognize some of the stories. They republished, Cinderella, sleeping, beauty, little red riding, hood, snow, white Rapunzel, Hansel, and Gretel Rumpelstiltskin, and the frog prince, just to name a few. They published their classic collection within two volumes in 18, 12, and 1815. The first additions included just over 150 stories. The seventh and last grew to 200 stories. There's a lot of stories, a lot of stories, many stories, the tails at the Grimm's collected and immortalized have seen many different uses everything from adaptations by Walt Disney to propaganda used by the third Reich, because some of the original releases seen as a quote unquote on appealing to children, the brothers eventually re edited and sanitized later versions in an attempt to reach a broader audience, which we're going to talk about more in a second.
Speaker 4:Hold on. Tell me more what these Nazi fairytales
Speaker 2:I anticipated this question from you, as I looked into it a little bit, and there was certain fairytales that they, they sort of forced people. And I don't again know a lot of the background information, but that they kind of made required reading. And yeah, I don't know what the morals of those stories were, but I'm guessing they were in line with what the, the Nazi party thought was important. Got it.
Speaker 3:I think what's interesting about them. And I, I, I only know a little bit about this from, uh, but the Nazis both, uh, forced certain tales in their own way, but then they outlawed much of the folklore and folk music that was actually alive in Germany at the time. So it was more of a controlled focus than it was an outright elimination. And I, it, you know, it's that sort of control that we've come to know from, from them, but the, the folklore and folk music really saw a resurgence because of it's, you know, it's, it's outlawing by the third Reich, which was, it backfired on
Speaker 2:Them. Yeah. It's like Footloose. Right? You tell the kids
Speaker 3:It's exactly like this. Yeah. I mean, okay. It's not exactly like Footloose, but you get what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. I do get Jimmy.
Speaker 4:I've watched that version of Footloose. Wow.
Speaker 2:Oh boy. By the 1870s, some of the stories had been adopted into school curriculums and pressure in the 20th century, the only printed book more popular was the Bible in Germany. Then the brothers Grimm's collection, the book, the hard facts about the Grimm's fairytales by Maria Totara focuses on the evolution of their versions of these works. She calls out for example, that the, so we talked about how the brothers Grimm sort of sanitized some of their later, their later additions, right? Because they wanted to reach a broader audience. It's she kind of dives into this from a modern perspective and studies that it's even harder for the brothers Grimm to tolerate pregnancy than it is for them to tolerate violence. So as they edited the stories to make them more acceptable for society, quote, unquote, their mood, what they called certain conditions and relationships in the first edition, the story of Hahn's DM is included. This character has the power to impregnate women simply by wishing it to be. So by the second edition of the nursery and household tales, the story is totally removed. Similarly, the Grimm's got hold of the story, the master hunter, and an earlier form by Dorothea Byman, the hunter finds a naked princess asleep, lays down with her. And later she discovered she's pregnant in this actual kind of like little plot moment. We see in a ton of fairytales as we go through and the Grimm version, the hunter acts as a model of restraint, right? So in the original, the hunter comes through, he sees a naked woman. He lays down with her and the grim version, they totally changed this. So he comes in, he sees her and he's like, oh, I'm, I'm going to pass on this. Right. Like I am, I am nothing. If not a gentlemen. So they kind of change the, uh, the plot to make it, what they, what they think is more acceptable. Right. They remove this, this path.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think that's a reasonable change.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm not sure I'm not judging them. I'm just calling out some of the changes that they made. You can see these changes explicitly. When you look at the Grimms drafts, for example, in the frog king, we see parts of the story changed from the draft stage to publication, explicitly removing talk of pregnancy. The brothers Grimm also removed another common theme that we see in early versions of these tails, which is incest in certain stories where removing these themes would completely change the meaning of the tale. Will him, Graham would instead include judgmental language. So in thousand firs the father proposes marriage to his daughters throughout, like over and over again, it's kind of like the plot of the story. However, in the second edition of the Grimm version, his court counsel strongly reprimands him. And in later additions, the father's actions lead to even more dramatic punishments quoting that the entire kingdom be dragged down to perdition. What's kind of fascinating about the origins of these stories is that they've become these like beloved children's tales that Disney has made super popular and, and other, you know, even like you have a fairy tale storybook, right. That is geared towards children. But when you look back at the origins of them yeah. Geared
Speaker 4:Towards children. But I it's on like the cusp of when things are sort of changing.
Speaker 2:But when you look back at really the origins of them, they're violent, they include sexual assault. And a lot of cases, there's pregnancy before marriage. And a lot of cases, there's all of these things that are just are shocking when you look at kind of the origins of sleeping beauty, which again, we'll kind of get into some more specifics, but this kind of moment in this podcast right now is to look at the Grimms specifically because they're, they're widely, like when you think about fairytales, most people, even if you don't know the history of them, you know, about the brothers Grimm, right. They made a lot of these tales incredibly popular because they publish them and immortalize them. And it's fascinating to look at like their first additions and the things that they thought were okay to keep in, which was kind of, because they were doing it originally for academic purposes. And then as they started to make money with it and they were like, oh, we could reach more people. If these were a little more PG, they dial back certain elements. And the thing that I'm kind of trying to dial in on a little is that they don't necessarily dial back the violence, but what they choose to, which I think is us also like looking at them and their culture right now and what they, you know, what was acceptable, not acceptable to them, which is what they were doing with the fairytales. But like, they choose to not include conversations about incest, which like, yeah, sure. I'm on board with that conversations about plot points about pregnancy, but they keep in some like pretty violent things. So it's just, it's just interesting to think about like what, what was going on in their society that kind of prompted this removal of certain elements. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. I think you hit, I think you hit on the, on the thing, they, they started as an academic documentation and in the end you're like, you're right. You're right. When they started to realize that this was going to be a business, this was going to be a livelihood. They, they shifted to what society wanted to read, not what history had brought them. And so I think it's a good indication of what, what the society at the time was interested in consuming entertainment and things of that nature. And, but I think we still do the same thing. I don't think that we've come too far because we still, like, we'll still, I said, that's a terrible way to say it. I think we've come. I think we've come plenty far. But, but I think that, um, we still, there are still certain things that we want to read and don't want to read. And, and violence is still very popular.
Speaker 4:Is anyone familiar with a collection of fairytales? That's like taking it back more towards the source material? Like I know there's like the whole Grimm TV show that I never saw, but I'm assuming was not made for kids.
Speaker 3:I watched some of it. Um, I don't know if you, if you, if you did Abby, but, um, they did, they borrowed from that original, some of the original flavor they didn't get to, they didn't make it too, too accurate. Um, so
Speaker 4:When it found the woman laying in the woods, they, they stay, I don't
Speaker 3:Even know if that, I don't know if that ever happened in, in the grim TV show, but, uh, I, I actually, for, I haven't seen the whole thing, but from what I watched, it was a kind of a fun adaptation. Whereas the Grimms were not simply collectors of fairytales. They were hunters of magical beasts and so forth. And it's kind of an inherited job, you know, that lands on this guy. But, um, it sounds like borrow a lot of the lore. Yeah. It is a great premise. Yeah. But they, they borrowed a lot from the lore, but they didn't really, they didn't get too gritty. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 4:Which also feels very much in line with just how folk tales are generally told or folk tale. Well, when you say, when you think of fairytales, you don't think so much embellishment as you think of a folklore because it's usually like a written down established something.
Speaker 3:Well, that would be the literary version. But yes, I absolutely believe that this, the stories that the Grimms collected were one version of the story Grimm's collected. One of the things that I think is lost when, when, so the Grimms did a great service to preserving the actual stories. They, we, we wouldn't have the knowledge of some of these things if they hadn't written them down, but we lose you lose something in the writing down of the story, as opposed to the telling of the story. That's the dynamic between the teller and the listener. And the story would have evolved from telling to telling based on who was sitting around your fire, uh, it would have changed based on what person's values wanted to come across and what story it was. It was mutable and malleable, uh, until it was written down. And then we lost the dynamic. So we're looking at it from that perspective, but it's all, it's all on paper at this point. So it never changes until it does. And someone writes it down differently,
Speaker 2:But yeah. Or until they make the HBO version
Speaker 3:Yes. The HBO version. And then we get back to the basics, go back
Speaker 2:To that whole. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I will say Alan, if you, cause I think originally you were asking about like, is there a collection of the originals
Speaker 4:Or not the originals, but just like made for adults again,
Speaker 2:I think a lot of these collections right now that we're talking about, like Perot's collections, the grim collections weren't necessarily made for children. Like they weren't being sanitized at this point because of kids, right? Like Perot was writing them down for like French high society. They were being marketed towards adults, but society was at whatever level of comfortability they were with some of the topics. Right. And so that is coming through and then later they become like a children's focus when we get to Disney and more modern versions. But I will say if you are anyone else's interested in, in reading some of the earlier unsanitized versions, they're all very accessible online. Like you can find them, there's tons of there's websites for cons Christian Anderson's collections. You can also find them on project Gutenberg. You can also find them on Wikipedia. And some, you know, the originals or like early versions are very accessible online. So if there's any, as we go through that, we don't, we don't go into as much as you would like to learn about. You can very easily Google it and read like a bunch of different versions. And, and most of them are pretty short to be honest. Cool. The interesting thing is they, they started as in an effort to, I think, study and preserve German folklore specifically. So also part of this is what they preserved and what has become really popular are the German versions of these. Right. Um, and they already existed orally in tons of other areas, which would have had to your point, totally different versions of them because they were the people who chose to do it. Right. That's kind of like those have become written on the tablet, so to speak. And then again, as these became more broadly appealing and, and kind of people wanted mass per mass produced versions, they got kind of whitewashed. So to speak a little bit until they became like a more palatable version of what they originally were.
Speaker 4:I don't know if this is true or not, but it I'm going to say it anyways. Okay. When I was in college and taking a, you might know this, cause you, you went to college for English. Yeah. When I was there, when I took my first writing class, the professor was giving so much credit to the brothers Grimm, uh, for establishing a lot of things like for, uh, literary structure coining, uh, like the three-act structure, the rules of threes pro protagonist, antagonist inciting incident. Huh. And how this was there, all these things existed previously, but they just really baked it down to a formula when they wrote it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I had never heard that before. Had you done,
Speaker 3:Uh, not specific to the brothers Grimm, but for, you know, for fairytales and things in general, I've, I've heard things like that before, but I don't know how true it is either I'm with you, but um, at least in my observation, that's, they, they certainly did well with that. I don't know if, um, I don't know if they were the first ones to do it. I couldn't tell you,
Speaker 4:I mean, highly doubted they're the first ones to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And it may be that they're, they may be they're the first ones to really codify it in that, that succinctly. But I D I don't even know that I couldn't venture to guess you
Speaker 4:Might've identified earlier when you're saying how their book was second only in popular to the Bible. Yeah. So, yeah. That's fair. Yeah. So if, yeah, if everyone is familiar with it, of course, they're going to get the credit for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, that was in Germany, but yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 3:Certainly the credit for popularizing it in Germany.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's know. So here comes, what I, what I think is the fun part of, of this let's look at a few specific fairytales and track. Some of the changes, John actually did an episode on Frodo about little red riding hood, which is where we're going to start. So go listen to that as well, because he has beautiful readings of the versions of both that we're going to talk about. And I think it's a, uh, an awesome companion to this little section here. So a little red riding hood though, this tale is often attributed to Charles Perrow, who was the first person to officially write and publish it. But it actually is over 2000 years old, it's believed to have originated between Europe and the middle east. The pro version was published in the 17th century. There's also a grim version of the story, and it originated along with its author pro in France. So like I said earlier, it was written for an audience of prose peers, meaning the French aristocrats and societal elites pro is actually a prominent figure in France during the reign of Louis the 14th, not just because of his fairytales. He also held positions in government, not just because of his fairytales. I find that hard to believe. I meant to say like, he, you know, he was a society, man. He was involved in the government. He was well off. He kind of had a little group of elite people that liked to hang out at his house and hear him tell fairytales. But it's also interesting that, that, like, he was like a creative and he was also like a government official, you know, it's kind of like an interesting position to have
Speaker 4:That's hope. That's how he was announced. Every time we went into a room fairy tale and society, man
Speaker 2:Pro would have written this version of little red hood to be told to his impressive and wealthy group of friends. He was writing fairytales, not for children at all. At this point, the part of this fairytale you may be less familiar with is the moral that pro includes at the very end. So I'm going to assume everybody is mostly familiar with the story of little red riding hood. So this fairytale actually brings us full circle and allows us to understand the story and the context it was originally written for. Pro's moral. We see here that young children, and this is quoting, sorry. We see here that young children, especially young well-bred ladies should not listen to any sort of person. It isn't strange that a Wolf eats so many of them up. I say Wolf for not all wolves are the same kind. Some are of a calmly humor who follow young ladies into their homes, into their salons. But alas, who does not know that these smooth talking wolves are the most dangerous wolves of all in little red riding hood, the Wolf tricks or dresses up as the grandmother gets her into the grandmother's house Perot's version. He's explicitly admitting. And I do like that in pro all of pro's versions of fairytales. He includes like a moral that's like called out separately at the end, just in case he missed. Exactly. Yeah. He's like, Hey, he's admitting right? That, that this version is meant to be a warning to women specifically at this time to avoid smooth talking wolfish men, right? Who are going to try to get them to get them home. This bit gets dropped in most retellings, but you can see that it gives us context pros talking about smooth talking wolfish, men who follow women uninvited into their homes. So he's talking about sexual assault and rape. We also see this echoed in the violence throughout the story. And I will note that some scholars still believe that this tale is about seduction, but I think given the nature of the story, there's also a good case to be made about it being a more violent allegory. The other theme here that rings true to society is that red riding hood is almost blamed or given some responsibility for what is happening to her and more modern versions. We often see her sexualized, especially texts Avery's animation, red, hot riding hood from 1943. So there's a ton of versions of, I mean, even till this day, right? There's so many recent live action movies of, of red riding hood in, you often see her as a sexy Halloween costume. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what I think that kind of relates to we earlier, we talked about, uh, you know, taboo subjects and things that, that, that we don't like to talk about in society and, and the things that they didn't like to talk about in society. I think nowadays, in order to make this tale palatable, we grow her up and make her a kind of sexual being so that we're not bothered by the fact that she's a little girl. Right. So we give her what society sees as a good deal of power so that she can face the Wolf on modern society's terms. And yeah. So, but, but yeah, and even like once a time they made her this sexy diner worker, like, I don't know if you've seen once upon a time, like, she's like, I don't know. She likes, I can't even remember it. She likes motorcycles and it's like, you know, but they give her. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, uh, but I think that's what we've done. Like we've, we've done that so that we can handle the fact that riding hood has to deal with all of these things. And if she's a little girl, we can't handle that,
Speaker 2:We're remaking this story in modern terms. And the solution is to make her just like someone who could handle it, you know, versus changing the nature of, you know, versus like putting belay, like we're just making her stronger so she can fight for her. You know, it just it's. What would you
Speaker 3:Prefer? Like if you were writing fewer retailing, red writing code, how would you retell it? What would, I'm curious? I just
Speaker 2:Loved it. This, this brings me back to, uh, our conversations. We've had many times on this podcast about she Wolf.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping we'll go there. Yeah. Which,
Speaker 2:Uh, is, uh, if somehow anyone doesn't know, it's a silly script that I wrote and the first lunatics film that we made. And also, uh, we have an episode where there's a different version of it that I wrote. Um, and essentially it's a short story or short film that I wrote. And the idea is that there's a woman who is a werewolf and she only prays on men who are trying to assault her or hurt her in some way. I've done the same thing essentially. Right. Like, okay. But what we're saying is that in the same thing? No, I'm just saying I've done the same thing that I'm telling John. I wished that, you know, once upon a time didn't do, which is that like, the response is, oh, women need to be a certain way in order to survive men in order to handle men in order to not be assaulted by men, like women need to be violent and prepared to fight to the death in order to, which is like, okay, maybe true. But like also don't you wish that, that was it. That the story we were saying, wasn't okay. Women, you need to be really strong and not just women, but I'm just talking about this example specifically, right. Women, you need to be super strong to defend yourself versus the moral of the story being men don't rape women. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I, well, and I think more specifically what you did was she Wolf and I watched she Wolf. I was, I was, I went and after you guys talked about it, I was like, well, I got to see this, first of all, the nails, the manicure, so good. But a sec, second of all, I think what, what she Wolf does is actually flipped the script a little bit and turns the Wolf into the woman. Yeah. And so the man becomes red riding hood in that story. Um, which is interesting. And I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm here for it. It was super fun. Um, it was, it was cool, but I, I think that the only way out of that story, the only way out of red riding hood is where the Wolf is not so Wolfie and the girl is not so clueless. If you're going to tell a story that talks, you know, healthy relationships between the Wolf and the girl, then you've got to have, you know, a less Wolfie Wolf and a less, whatever red is. I don't know, they need to meet in the middle somewhere, in my opinion. And that's, you know, if I was going to, if I was going to tell a different story, that's what I would do, but no, I think you're, I think you're right. I think, you know, it's easy. It's an easy way out to just say, well, clearly they can handle it. So let's just make them, you know, and I think that gets in your too, in your face. Like nobody wants to be, you know, assaulted with that. But
Speaker 2:Femininity and masculinity is very fluid, but that like women almost need to be masculine. You know, women need to be men almost in order to, you know what I mean? Yeah. And,
Speaker 3:And I've, I've never been one to agree with with that particular thing. Like, you've gotta be this way to solve the problem. And I think that's the wrong way to,
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's actually interesting though, because there is a later version of a later, early version of red riding hood that does not flip the script as dramatically as we're talking about, but, but does a little bit, which we'll talk about it
Speaker 4:Really has. You really have to like take a step back and like, what is the moral lesson that is being discussed in the story? Most people in order to learn a moral lesson, you have to identify with the protagonist, usually see their journey in some facet. And so if you're trying to teach a lesson about making the Wolf less Wolfie, then, uh, you would have to, this story would almost have to be from their perspective. You would have to see their emotional journey or turmoil. Right.
Speaker 3:I'm more of a Frankenstein's monster sort of scenario. Exactly.
Speaker 4:But instead the lesson is that there's always going to be predators. Right. Which is true. And
Speaker 3:Yeah. In the best of cases, somebody's still going to be a problem.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, and you have to be able to identify the predator before it causes danger. And I don't want
Speaker 3:To, I don't want to blame any victims. I, but I would love it if the victims were prepared. I, yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 4:I also play devil's advocate in, I, I love, I love the trope of you have the very stereotypical victim who is in a lot of trouble and then you just arm them with, you know, high powered weaponry or something. And like that's act two of the film. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or, and for me, like, I agree with you. I, I like, I like a vulnerable protagonist because I, I love an underdog. Um, but I also love, uh, an underdog who discovers that they have the skills or the tools to solve the problem, uh, whatever it is. And it doesn't, it doesn't have to be loaded riding hood it's. But any of those scenarios, I love an underdog story, but I like, but I hate it when they give me an underdog and promise they're going to win. And then they don't. I hate that. Don't do that to
Speaker 2:Me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree with, I agree with you both. I think to me, even looking outside of the story of little red riding hood, right. Looking at Perot's specific that he called out that to me is like his specific moral was women be aware of like young girls be aware of wolfish men, what is his specific moral? And again, like, I'm not going to rewrite history, but what if his specific moral was men don't assault and stalk women? To me, that's the key, right? The world itself is the key. Right. That's an excellent
Speaker 3:Point. And, and who's to say that that wasn't out there, but it just didn't get, didn't get written and written down. I hope so. I hope it was, but I think that's a great point. We should definitely be addressing both sides of that coin. The, the young, innocent girl in the court definitely needs to know what's already there, but we also need to take some sort of step on the other side of that coin
Speaker 4:As a side note. Oh boy. So we, we, we were discussing how the, you have, like, you have the story of a Wolf being like super creepy and luring someone into their home for nefarious reasons. Right. Sort of, yeah. Sort of, but it reminds me of the movie creep. Oh my goodness. When the guy puts on a Wolf mask, what was this? Snuffles buttercups search peach fuzz. That's what, uh, yeah, he, he calls himself peach fuzz when he wears the Wolf mask and he lures them in with this false sense of security before conducting his, uh, nefarious plot. John, have you seen creep? I know that sounds scary.
Speaker 2:So here, let me, let me tell you about creep. Uh, we're big fans of creep and creep too. Over here at Lynn. It takes radar creep is a mark Duplass film, which he made with his brother. And it's fascinating from like a filmmaking perspective because mark Duplass is like a really famous actor. Uh he's in like, you know, he's, he's, you, you might not know his name, but if you saw him, you'd be like, ah, that guy, and as like a side fund project with his brother, they made this film creep, which for like$30$30, which they had like no script, they kind of had an outline and they use, it's kind of like a found footage film, and it, you know, but it does it really well. And they, it works really well. It's a horror film. It's it's scary. Yeah. And then arguably, I would say creep two is even better. They're both on Netflix, I believe, but I think is always better, right? Yeah. Always in a horror movie. They're interesting because not only are they found footage, horror films that are good, which is a genre of horror film that I really like, and they're actually affectively scary more. So the first one, the second one is a comedy, I would say, but I think Alan, you're making a good point. And we even were watching like, like Scooby doo this morning and we're like, Hey, or Looney tunes. They're like, Hey, the plot of this is just like the pot of Hansel and Gretel. And to see like kind of the basics of storytelling structure. And they say, right, there's only like six stories you can tell, but the basics of some of these plot points are, you know, are still just being retold and recycled over and over and over again forever. You know, you're not really telling an original story you're telling the, the part about starting telling that. So fun is the thing that you bring to that story as the writer, you know? Absolutely. The punchline is that my therapist made me watch it. So what does that say? I don't know.
Speaker 3:So, and she knows, of course you're into this whole thing, like up to your elbows. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. So there's a later version of little red riding hood called the story of grandmother, which was taken from local peasant folklore in the 19th century and transcribed by Paul Della Ru over a hundred years after the pro version, a major call out is that this version includes cannibalism. Oh, what a twist? The little girl's mother sends her to bring milk and bread to her grandmother. She encounters the Wolf who asks her, which path she's taking. He then beats her to her grandmother's house and kills the woman kills the grandmother. But in this case, he chops up her body and puts some of her blood into a bottle. When writing code arrives, he offers her some of the meat and blood to drink and eat, which he disguises as bread and wine.
Speaker 4:Oh, sure. Classic move
Speaker 2:The Wolf then asks her to take off her clothes, burn them in the fire and get in bed with him. She does so and remarks on how hairy her grandmother feels before he has a chance to strike hover. She has to use the restroom. So the Wolf ties rope around her ankle and sends her outside. And she escapes. She actually outwits him and escapes the call-out with this version beyond the shockingly brutal cannibalism are the connections we see to the wine, being blood in the bread, being the body, because this version originated in the Catholic countryside of France, many believed this is symbolic of the Eucharist. You don't say in Catholicism, it's believed, it's believed that this ritual brings about strength. And some scholars believe that because riding hood ingest her grandmother, she has given the strength to escape from the Wolf. Like she's literally taking on the grandmother's wisdom and strength by eating part of her body. But look how different the meaning behind this tale is than prose version. The story leaves us with an empowered woman who learns how to outwit a predator and survives.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure that grandmother's wisdom. Did her any good?
Speaker 2:No, it didn't. It wasn't enough for grandmother to survive, but it was enough for
Speaker 3:Writing the wisdom of grandmother and red. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And why, why did you have to get naked and burned her clothes, but a
Speaker 2:Thing cause she was cold or, you know, whatever. There was like a, I dunno. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I th I think part did, I, I'm trying to remember if the part, the one that I read it had parts of this in it, I think, but not all of it. Um, I decided on my, on my episode to do two of the five or six that I, and I don't remember exactly what shoe it was, but yeah. I remember this version and I'm like, I clearly I have, I am missing something culturally that I don't have all of the cultural context to understand this one fully. I remember thinking that and like, yeah, but I did, I picked on the whole, the whole bread and wine thing as well. I wondered how red could be so clueless. She clearly doesn't know what wine tastes like, bread, bread, bloody seriously. And so I, yeah, but I'm sure there's some cultural contexts there that I don't have that probably made that resonate with whoever heard it or told it to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I think this is just conjecture, but I think if you live, you're sort of like in a peasant society and it's cold and you're in the woods and you come home and like you all huddle in one bed, you know, to me, I'm like there could be some sort of warmth thing happening there, but the burning the clothes, I'm not, I did not trace that
Speaker 3:Gathering in one bed is certainly nothing. That's not weird to me, the, the burning. I'm not sure why we're burning the club
Speaker 4:With your grandmother. I think Freud would have a lot to say about that.
Speaker 3:And the thing is, it may not even be that like burning your clothes may be the overt. You, she may have an under shirt, like a, like a slip, a nightclothes or something, or a slip underneath. We don't know. But I I've thought that I've thought through that. I was like, that's a really strange to burn your clothes maybe. Yeah. Maybe for fleas. I don't
Speaker 2:Know. Yeah. Yeah. I
Speaker 4:Mean a Wolf that, that was foreshadowing, very, uh anti-family and
Speaker 2:Definitely, which
Speaker 4:Is the, when I think of like old brutal riddle, little red riding hood, I think of the one where the woodcutter shows up, cuts, open the Wolf and then shoves him full of rocks and throws them in the river.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That, and I did read that one, the woodcutter and that one, the woodcutter shows up and, uh, yeah, cuts them out of the Wolf. Then they fill the Wolf with rocks and everybody is fine. But then I, there was even an addition and this, this is actually kind of interesting, related to what we were talking about, but there's an addition to that story afterward, where then another Wolf comes and grandma and red actually take care of that one on their own.
Speaker 2:So now let's talk about what I think might be one of the most famous fairytales in Western society, at least, which is Cinderella. Cinderella is an interesting fairytale to examine because its earliest known origin is known. Oh, and because it's such an enduring classic modern audiences can thank Walt Disney for its extreme popularity. The story of Rhoda PIs is believed to be the first instance of this classic tale, which has been traced back to the sixth century BCE. It was written down somewhere between seven BCE and 24 Ady by Strabo who's a Greek geographer. The story goes, and this is quoting Strabo. They tell the fabulous story that when she was bathing and Eagle snatched, one of her sandals from her made and carried it to Memphis. And while the king was administering justice and the open air, the Eagle, when it arrived above his head, flung the sandal onto his lap and the king stirred both by the beautiful shape of the sandal and the strangeness of the occurrence sent men in all directions into the country in quest of the woman who wore the sandal. And when she was found in the city of NOK Cruddas, she was brought up to Memphis. She became the wife of the king. The first European literary version of Cinderella was released in 1634 in Italy, by GM Battista bustle. However, the version that is most recognizable to modern audiences comes from our friend Charles pro in 1697. And of course not to be left out in 1812, the brothers Grimm released their own version of this classic fairytale though. This story exists in folklore, across regions and territories with different cultures and languages. The core of this tale remains the same focusing on a character who starts off in a poor socioeconomic situation, largely unimportant to society and rises through the ranks to some level of success or wealth or importance. There are several prominent non-European versions. Each is a Chinese fairytale. First written down around 858 D there are of course, many oral versions that predate this written version. The story goes that yeesh Gian is the daughter of a tribe leader who passes away. She is then left in the care of her stepmother who mistreats her. She befriends a fish who ends up being the reincarnation of her mother who had long since passed away her evil stepmother and stepsisters brutally killed the fish, but[inaudible] is able to find the bones and use their magic to help her prepare for a local festival. A magical golden shoe. Yes, exactly. We have reincarnation in this story, we have necromancy in this story pest romancey yeah, exactly. Fish necromancy. Yeah. Her evil family recognizes her at the festival and as she is running away, she loses the shoe. The king from another sea island finds the shoe and searches for its owner. When he reaches her house, she tries it on and joins the king. Her evil family is killed by flying rocks. The pro version is much nicer than the grim version in the grim version. The sisters cut off parts of their feet in order to fit into slippers. And by the end they have their eyes pecked out by doves. Yeah. That's the part, that's the version I read so brutal. Right? Like that's the interesting thing is just like how even today, like writing a story like that, you would be, it would be like, it would be pretty intense. It happens, but yeah. Well, to me,
Speaker 3:That, that version of the story. So first to, first of all, I have so many thoughts on Cinderella, but first of all, it makes so much more sense that the, that, that the, uh, the king or whoever found a shoe and then went looking for the owner of the shoe without knowing what the shoe owner looked like. What never made sense to me was the fact that the prince spent the entire evening with this girl. And then couldn't tell other than with her shoe size, what she looked like, never made sense to me. This other thing is like the idea that I I've always thought that the commentary is a kind of satirical on Cinderella for the fact the mother and stepsisters or the stepmother and stepsisters are so bent on attaining status, they'll do anything to get what they want, including cutting parts of their feet off, which I think is probably some sort of satirical commentary. It's kind of what it reads to me that, you know, like, this is ridiculous. Why, why are we, so self-important in this way? W
Speaker 4:Was the slipper glass, or was that only the Disney version
Speaker 3:Or glass? I can't remember, but it's not always glass.
Speaker 4:Cause I mean, golden would make sense.
Speaker 2:It starts off in like the earliest version as a sandal. And then in the Chinese version, it's a golden shoe and yeah, I think there's probably a ton of different versions. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's a tough one. Oh. Who, who can fit into this? Flip-flop
Speaker 2:It's also interesting that she's the only one, you know, in the whole, like what unique foot size is she that no one else could get close with 17 and a half.
Speaker 3:Oh, I've never considered that. Yeah. Yeah. I think he keeps saying it's because her feet are so small, but no, maybe they were like, if she was hello, Neil. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 2:That's it. I mean,
Speaker 4:Can you blame the prince then? You know, no, I guess I can't the whole time he's just staring at her one huge, huge foot.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is I, I read two versions of this as well. I did one, uh, and then did a bonus episode, which was a different recording in one Cinderella is while she is, um, probably the best among many characters in terms of grace and kindness and all of those things in both versions of the story in one, she is sort of a victim of, of society. Like, like a lot of these stories, but in another, uh, it's very clear that she has some sort of supernatural power that she utilizes to sort of direct her, her, uh, her path. Yeah. The other Cinderella, which it might, I can't remember if it was the John Battista bustle. It might've been his version, but he basically, his, her, her mother dies. Right. But she dies and becomes a tree in the backyard and where Cinderella, waters her and grows her into this tree. And so she ends up spending a lot of time talking to her mother who is a tree. She also speaks a lot to birds. She speaks in rhyme and she basically does a lot of evocations and makes things happen. She creates her own dress, goes to the ball. It's essentially a witchcraft sort of set up, but, but she's given kind of some sort of agency over over the story instead of it just happening to her. So she she's a better protagonist. In my
Speaker 4:Opinion, I liked that a lot more that
Speaker 3:I did too. I said the same thing. It's just a cooler story,
Speaker 4:Fuller story. And it's, it's a little hard to be able to identify with someone that's just basically nothing special about them, except that their life sucks.
Speaker 3:The story of Cinderella and the story of sleeping beauty. It's more or less it's named for them, but it's really a story about the people around them and not them directly. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:I would like to redact my statement. Uh, it's very easy to identify with someone who, you know, there's nothing special about them except their life sucks. Oh boy. It is. However, not the type of escapism that makes for a good story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. It's also interesting when we talk about common themes that we see, right. Parents passing away, especially mothers, and the idea of those mothers then being, you know, like in, in the, one of the versions I just referenced, the mother was the dead fish or the fish, right. She was reincarnated to a fish and this version, she's a tree with a scale of Nancy. Right. So, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, that the Chinese version and a European version have like kind of the same core, but like different skins kind of a thing, you know? Yeah. 100%. So we're going to put a pin in this fascinating conversation with John Cook for this week and we're going to come back next week with part two of the disturbing history of fairytales. Thank you guys so much for being here. John, it's been an honor to have you on the show. Thank you very much for having me. If you aren't already subscribed to[inaudible], please do that on any podcast platform and John, where can people find you on social media? You
Speaker 3:Can find me I'm on Facebook and Instagram at[inaudible] podcast, and you can also go to Fidel podcast.com and that'll direct you to the show or to my merchandise or anything that you'd like to find out about Fido. And also, if you are interested in becoming a backer, you can join the Patrion at patrion.com/photo podcast and become a member of the rule of three. I'll send you a personal letter. It'll be really cool. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Perfect. So yeah, come back next week and we will have, we'll have more disturbing details for you then. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Is there anything else you want to add? No. All right. That's perfect. Okay.