Aesop and the 'Invention' of the Fable

Aesop's Fables Poster (Found at AllPosters.com)
Artist Unknown

Of course there were fables before Aesop - in fact, according to THIS article fables are thought to be the second oldest source of stories known (myths coming before then) but apparently many think fables were all Aesop's idea.

It seems funny it should even need addressing but this article I found is a nice read with a lot of interesting things about ancient stories and when they were written down so I thought I would share.

Aesop: Fox and a Sick Lion Color Woodcut
by Joseph Low

Please note: this article does not make mention of ancient forms of story recording by Mayans, Egyptians and Australian Aboriginies among other ancient peoples. From time to time a new way of looking at these surviving 'art-writings' or 'visual stories' (in murals, cave paintings, pictographs, pottery etc) reveals our 'translation' of these artforms has been incomplete or crude. The beginnings of writing and recording stories is one of those topics that get academics a little steamed so I don't presume to present the complete historical fact for you here. Just thought I'd mention the omission.

Aesop's Lion & the Mouse
by Paned Expressions

In addition, there's a little bit of information about Aesop himself too. Here's an excerpt:

As nothing in that era was written down (except the exploits of a King or warrior), it is impossible to know exactly whether Aesop thought of the fables himself, or whether he was a wandering storyteller who collected fables. In the days of such widespread illiteracy, it is likely Aesop could not even read or write. Some have suggested he may have been blind, as Homer is suggested to be. The earliest reference to written fables we have is from the Greek historian Herodotus from around 300 BC. Unfortunately, Herodotus seemed to think everyone knew Aesop and his fables so well that he did not need to give any details of Aesop or his work.

You can read the whole article HERE.

The Gnat and the Bull
(from The Classic Treasury of Aesop's Fables)
by Don Daily

For more information on Aesop himself, WIKIPEDIA is a good place to start.

Fairy Tale Fights - The Academic Version

The Story of the Three Bears by H.J. Ford from the Green Fairy Book

(Many thanks to Heidi from SurLaLune for finding the artist! I knew that style looked familiar... :D )

Less than a week ago Once Upon A Blog published notice of an anthropological study, said to prove the ancient origin of fairy tales. (You can read that post HERE).

It would seem Dr. Tehrani's announcement and his talk at the British Science Fair last week have stirred up an old, yet apparently still hot, debate in the academic ring of fairy tale studies.

In one corner we have the oral traditionalists; in the other: the literary-origin camp.

Heavy weights from both camps have already weighed in and traded some verbal fisticuffs.

Representing the literary-origin advocates we have the highly respected Ruth Bottigheimer:
(Quotes from The Star)

"Tehrani has bought into the newest wave of biology-based understanding of literature, taking evolutionary genetics as his model. But his views are based on slippery assumptions that can't be verified and that have no legs in the real world.

Of course, all narratives have ancient origins: Aesops's fables date back to the sixth century B.C. But "modern revisionists distinguish between different kinds of traditional tales" – folk stories differ from fairy tales – "and understand that they have histories of different lengths."

Elements of a narrative told here and there over time do not a "fairy tale" make."

! (exclamation punch, er, point added by the Fairy Tale News Hound)

Dark Fairytale - Battle by Ken Wong

Keeping his cool with a smooth 'bob-and-weave' response, we have Donald Haase (also highly respected):

"Yes, there is debate in the field over dating. Fairy tales are in the thick of the culture wars."

The editor of Marvels & Tales, a twice-yearly journal of fairy tale studies, says Tehrani is right to conclude that a form of Red Riding Hood exists in many varied cultures. What's news, however, is that the story may date back further than 2,600 years: "It's intriguing, it's plausible, but tracing the ancestry of fairy tales can be very difficult. I want to see his evidence."

Arguably the most well known and respected fairy tale authority, Jack Zipes, also firmly (and famously) in the oral-traditionalists corner, doesn't hesitate to respond, or to pull his punch:

"All our storytelling originated thousands of years ago, centuries before the print editions of fairy tales," he says. "Anyone who says they arrive only with print is just stupid. People have similar experiences around the world and always have had."

Ouch.

But this is just the warm up. They're all waiting eagerly for the paper to be published before winding up for the knock-out.

If you're interested in getting up to speed you can read the original news post HERE (which links to the original Telegraph UK article) and the one I'm quoting today HERE.

I'm planning on getting a ringside seat for the next round if I can. In the meantime, this is just begging for an editorial cartoon.

New Anthropological Study Confirms Fairy Tales Are Ancient In Origin

My thanks to Diamonds and Toads for finding this article and posting about it! You can find Kate's post HERE. I couldn't help but join in to spread the news... :)

The UK Telegraph just published an article on a study by anthropologists that's 'revealed' the 'origin' of fairy tales is far older than was previously thought. There are many who already believed fairy tales have an ancient origin but this is apparently the first time this has been systematically studied with a scientific system. Quote: "the researchers adopted techniques used by biologists to create the taxonomic tree of life, which shows how every species comes from a common ancestor...".

Essentially this now proves fairy tales existed in some form in ancient times (in as much as proving such a thing is possible) - well before Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm's grandparents were around.

Here are some other quotes from the article, showing how they used the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and the many variants to do their research:

A study by anthropologists has explored the origins of folk tales and traced the relationship between varients of the stories recounted by cultures around the world.

...Dr Jamie Tehrani, a cultural anthropologist at Durham University, studied 35 versions of Little Red Riding Hood from around the world.

Whilst the European version tells the story of a little girl who is tricked by a wolf masquerading as her grandmother, in the Chinese version a tiger replaces the wolf. In Iran, where it would be considered odd for a young girl to roam alone, the story features a little boy.

Contrary to the view that the tale originated in France shortly before Charles Perrault produced the first written version in the 17th century, Dr Tehrani found that the varients shared a common ancestor dating back more than 2,600 years.

...He said: “Over time these folk tales have been subtly changed and have evolved just like an biological organism. Because many of them were not written down until much later, they have been misremembered or reinvented through hundreds of generations. By looking at how these folk tales have spread and changed it tells us something about human psychology and what sort of things we find memorable.

You can read the rest of the fascinating article HERE.

Red Riding Hood by Sanjai Bhana

Dr Jamshid (Jamie) Tehrani of Durham University presented his findings at the British Science Festival on Tuesday in his talk "Fairy Tales and Chinese Whispers: Towards a Darwinian analysis of descent with modification in oral traditions", during the Darwin's Theory and Cultural Sciences event. (If anyone has access to the talk, - video, notes or report - I'd be very interested in looking at it!)

If this subject interests you, you may want to check out the article on "The Quest for the Earliest Fairy Tales: Searching for the Earliest Versions of European Fairy Tales with Commentary on English Translations" (by Heidi Anne Heiner) and the Fairy Tale Timeline at SurLaLune.

I also recommend the book shown below, "Fairy Tale in the Ancient World" by Graham Anderson. Here's the description from Amazon.com:

Graham Anderson examines texts from the classical period which resemble "our" Cinderellas, Snow Whites, Red Riding Hoods, Bluebeards and others, and argues that many familiar fairy tales were already well-known in antiquity in some form. Examples include a Jewish-Egyptian Cinderella, complete with ashes, whose prince is the biblical Joseph; a Snow White whose enemy is the goddess Artemis; and Pied Piper at Troy, with King Priam in the role of the little boy who got away. He breaks new ground by putting forward many previously unsuspected candidates as classical variants of the modern fairytale, and argues that the degree of cruelty and violence exhibited in many ancient examples mean such stories must have often been meant for adults.

While well researched and excellent for students of fairy tales and folklore it's a quick and enjoyable read for non-academics too. I recommended it. You can buy it HERE.

NOTE: I couldn't find the artist to credit for the European tole (?) painting in the center of the post. If anyone knows please let me know so I can correct this.

Unusual Sleeping Beauty Art

We're looking at how different people have interpreted the tale of Sleeping Beauty this week and I thought I'd share some unusual art I found during my research.

This first piece is a gigantic work, painted on a wall by graffiti artist El Mac (you can find out more about him and his work HERE). His sleeping beauty, actually titled 'Phoenix Goddess', implying she'll wake sometime, gives a distinct sense that Beauty has slept so long and so soundly that the world has changed around her. In the background he has painted a cityscape, something we don't normally see in a picture with Beauty asleep. (You can see the patio table in the foreground for perspective on just how big this work is.)

The second is a piece, by Sasha Foster, that I was surprised - and glad - to find (you can find her blog, her comments about this piece and more of her work HERE). If you know your Sleeping Beauty, you probably also know that the popular version is only half of the first written record of the tale, called 'Sun, Moon and Talia' and that Talia (left anonymous by Perrault, though he was the first to use the story title 'Sleeping Beauty'*) wasn't woken by a kiss at all. When the Prince found her, hidden in the wood for safety, he found he so beautiful that he, after being unable to wake her up, raped her - while she was asleep! I know: wrong, wrong, wrong! Anyway, she eventually had twins (the mind boggles at the logistics required), and was woken by one of the babies looking to nurse but, finding her finger instead, sucked on it, removing the splinter of flax that had caused her sleep in the first place.

And I haven't even mentioned the Ogress yet, even though she came after the jealous wife of the Prince... Phew! I think I'll leave that for another time.

In the meantime if you're aware of unusual Sleeping Beauty illustrations or artwork that show an 'often-unconsidered' side of the tale, please feel free to leave a comment and point us all in that direction. From each retelling and each artistic interpretation there's a little more to learn.

*It was the Brother's Grimm who named the sleeping princess Briar Rose or, in a variant Rosamund, and, though their retelling of the tale is probably taken from Perrault's it's thought they would deny their version had anything to do with his. Their's was also the first version to cut the tale in half, ending with the Prince arriving and waking the princess with a chaste kiss. This was also the first time the magical kiss apeared. In the Perrault retelling, the twin children are named Morning (or Dawn, which in French is L'Aurore) and Day. The name of the girl child L'Aurore is likely where Disney got the name for the Sleeping Beauty most well known today. You can read all about these variants and how the story was shortened HERE and HERE.

Think You Know Your Fairy Tales?

Take this quiz by Trivia Park!

This isn't your basic fairy tale quiz. This one is for the real fairy tale enthusiast!

Find out some interesting historical facts and discover similarities across cultures while you have a bit of fun testing your knowledge.

Just click here to start.

Enjoy!