Fairy tales why

Instead, we see how the characters face their fears and we learn from their experiences. Bad things do happen. Read the stories with your kids and talk about them. Fairy tales introduce children to the genre of fantasy.

In fact, fairy tales are beloved by many fantasy authors, like J. Tolkien and C. Read the great fairy tale authors to see for yourself. Who knows? Whether folktale or true, epic or flash, her stories captivate and amuse audiences around the world. Laura has told, taught, ranted, raved, consulted and considered storytelling around the world. For her story and more, go to www. For her blog go to www. And to learn more about her organizational storytelling work go to www. I was just thinking about this same question recently after viewing a trailer for the upcoming movie, Jack the Giant Slayer…coming soon to a theater near you.

It is indeed both a bit perplexing and interesting to observe all of the old fairy tales currently being filmed for the big screen. I think it says something about the difficult and uncertain times we are living. Laura, you hit the nail on the head. Folk tales are like pebbles at the beach, all the rough edges have been worn off leaving the smooth center for us to find. Your words echo that center, your words are that center, giving from the middle of the middle of you to the middle of the middle of me.

And I am grateful. I know this happened in the 20s and likely other times, too. Yeats and his crowd were great fans of folk tales. I think that just underscores the value of these old stories that help us remember who we are at our most basic.

Fairy tales are the only path I ever found over the world of whine, kvetch, weep and mourn and beg for help…. A fairytale saves lives…. Thank you for your article about why we need fairytales. In the Disney version? Carolita, I entirely agree. One television series of fairy tales was simply called The Storyteller Written and directed by Anthony Minghella with the puppeteer Jim Henson, each episode opened with a fireside scene in which a storyteller, played by John Hurt, dramatized the fairy tale we were about to watch, presenting it as part of a living tradition come down through the centuries.

A third defining characteristic of fairy tales follows organically from the implied oral and popular tradition: the combination and recombination of familiar plots and characters, devices and images. They might be attached to a particular well-known fairy tale — such as Puss-in-Boots or Cinderella — but fairy tales are generically recognisable even when the exact identity of the particular story is not clear.

Fourthly, the scope of fairy tale is made by language: it consists above all of acts of imagination, conveyed in a symbolic Esperanto. Its building blocks include certain kinds of characters stepmothers and princesses, elves and giants and certain recurrent motifs keys, apples, mirrors, rings, and toads. The symbolism comes alive and communicates meaning through an imagery of strong contrasts and sensations, evoking simple, sensuous phenomena that glint and sparkle, pierce and flow.

The suspension of natural physical laws produces a magical state of reality throughout this form of narrative, which leads to wonder, astonishment. Supernatural agency and the pleasure of wonder are interwoven in the character of fairy tales — this interrelationship presents a fifth defining characteristic. Wonders shape plots that promise all kinds of riches; fairy tales typically offer hope of release from poverty, maltreatment, and subjection.

A happy ending is one of their generic markers. The agents who bring about miracles of hope in the stories vary from place to place, as they rise from local belief systems which belong to tradition. The tradition may contain imaginary elements but also traces of history: fairies and goblins on the one hand, cunning beldames and stepmothers on the other.

The history is itself often an imagined history: King Arthur inspired romances that in turn carry into fairytale motifs and plot devices — enchanted objects swords, mirrors, cups , tests and riddles, dangers from monsters and forests, dream journeys, and a sense of the other world near to hand.