Universal Fairy Tale Care

The other day my daughter said something that caught me completely off guard. We were watching A Tale Dark and Grimm on Netflix (which if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend) and there was a reference to Rumpelstiltskin. She turned to me and asked who Rumpelstiltskin was.

Reader, I was flabbergasted!

How could it be that my child didn’t know a seminal character from fairy tales? I remember reading the story, among others, to her when she was little. It was the story that started my Fairytale Feminista journey asking the question where fairy tales fit in modern storytelling and life. Where did I go wrong?  

It really got me thinking about universality and storytelling. When I was a kid, my friends and I basically watched the same shows, read the same books, and went to the same movies. We had common reference points to communicate with each other. We all knew what it meant when you said, “I feel like Cinderella” or “I’m looking for my Prince Charming”. Now, everyone can have follow a sub-sub-genre of anything that caters to seemingly an audience of a hundred, a dozen, or even less. With all these “curated media experiences” we’ve lost something connective.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s wonderful and amazing that we’ve expanded the lexicon of storytelling by adding more people and experiences that were otherwise lacking (read: European and patriarchal to diverse in all senses of the word). I am happy that I finally see myself in some of my favorite genres. I also miss talking about a book I’m reading with friends and family because they’ve never heard of it.

What does this mean for something as arcane as fairy tales? Will their origins get lost or will the entire genre simply disappear? I know it’s not a dire threat, what with Disney and fairy tale retellings, but even that might one day lose its appeal.

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In the meantime, I will continue to watch A Tale Dark and Grimm and fill in any gaps in what I consider a vital education for my daughter. Wish me luck!

Reader, do you think there are still universal stories or should we let go of that idea all together?

First Three Things

Random thoughts are a given for most people. For writers they’re source material—the answer to the oft-asked question, “What inspired this story?” Here’s one of those stray thoughts that crept in during a sleepless night.

What were Snow White’s first thoughts when she woke up? Aside from the obvious—who’s this guy?

“What’s your name?”

“Prince Charming. You?”

“Snow White, so at least we have one thing in common.”

“What’s that?”

“Our parents were crap with names.”

Also…

What’s the proper amount of gratitude? Can I get away with, ‘Thanks, I owe you a drink,’ should I ask my miner friends for a small cache of silver and gold for this guy, or is this one of those ‘I am forever in your debt’ deals?

We all know what she chose.

And there’s always a third thought. Was it for her stepmother? Did I really fall for another costume change? Was it for her lost kingdom? O.M.G. what’s the address? Or was it something completely random? Did I leave a pot on the stove before I DIED?

These are the kinds of thoughts that can keep a girl up at night!

What do you think her first three thoughts were?

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Losing it

I’ve been thinking about loss and fairy tales lately. It’s the prologue to most stories, shaping the hero’s or heroine’s current misfortune. Be they motherless, fatherless, or orphans loss is the beginning of a story in fairy tales. Disney has made this fact into a cliché. It’s been joked that Frozen didn’t become a true Disney movie until (spoiler alert) the parents are lost at sea. I almost think it’s pointless to warn you of the spoiler because as I mentioned before, it’s Disney’s hallmark.So what can fairy tales tell us about loss? Is it the impetus that makes ordinary people into heroes? Do princesses (or would be princesses) jump at the chance to marry royal strangers because of “daddy issues”? Are feelings of abandonment just the push a boy needs to take on giants and consider thievery as a way of life? Maybe yes, but maybe nothing so blatant.As a historian, I’m aware that these stories were written in a time when disease, war or poverty would likely tear apart families. But fairy tales don’t care about the mundane. They focus on the fantastical, spinning tales that take us out of the everyday. Wouldn’t you want to escape a reality in which becoming orphaned probably only meant a life of impoverishment and servitude? In the real world, Cinderella would have grown old and haggard at the beck and call of those three spiteful cats. Or she would have run away to the city and been forced into prostitution to survive.But I’m not just a historian. I’m a person with whimsy who sees imprisoned souls in strangely shaped trees. All it takes is a too bright moon and I immediately start to spin a tale about a community of nightwalkers affected by its phases, collecting magical Moonshine. Not all the ideas become a full-fledged story, but more than a fair share get filed in my ideas folder. And one of the most basic things everyone wonders about is death and loss, so why isn’t it a prominent feature in fairy tales? Sleeping Beauty side-steps it with a sleeping spell meant to keep her in suspended animation for a century waiting for her “true love.” Snow White is barely cold in her glass coffin before Prince Charming comes along and dislodges the chunk of apple the dwarves were clearly too short to Heimlich. Red Riding Hood and her grandmother are swallowed whole by the Wolf only to be cut out of his belly by the Woodsman. Even the newest old story, Frozen, gives us a heroine who sacrifices her life and is rewarded by it being returned to her.In my search for loss in fairy tales, I came across a story from my childhood. It falls under folklore and legend more than fairy tale, and is a popular story in Puerto Rico. It’s called La Leyenda de la Piedra del Perro, or The Legend of Dog Rock. Not far from El Morro in Old San Juan there’s a small beach with a long natural rock wall. At its tip is a rock formation that when looked at from the right angle resembles a sitting dog.The story goes that a soldier, Enrique, from back when Puerto Rico was part of Spain, was stationed there, far from home and lonely for companionship. One day he finds an injured and emaciated puppy whom he nurses back to health with food and love. In return the dog never leaves his side and becomes his best friend. As is inevitable with all soldiers, Enrique is called to a battle which requires him to leave the dog behind. They part tearfully and as the boat carrying his human companion sails away, the dog (called Amigo) swims to the rock wall and sits there from sun up to sundown awaiting his return. There’s a brutal battle in which all hands, including Enrique, are lost. The dog overhears the news and rushes out to the wall waiting without respite. He stays so long and so still he turns to stone and remains there to this day.I’m not sure what that story teaches us. On the one hand loss is something that can’t be gotten over and you can remain stuck in a moment of despair without moving on. Or it could mean that loss forces out the very nature of a being. For the dog, it was loyalty. It could be said that for the characters of popular fairy tales, it was a desire to be more or escape their current situation. In both cases, it led to profound change. Fairy tales teach us that no matter how mundane today might seem and yesterday was, tomorrow could be extraordinary--either good or ill. They teach us that loss is not the end of the story.