[Bards] bardic for children

[willow Taylor]

Dear  Ly Madelina de Lindesaya

I love fairy tales so they are near and dear to my heart. I have
researched them extensively but I have found a problem with them.
Giovanni Straprola in his "The Delectabe Nights" was the first to
published fairy stories in 1550-53. We don't know if he wrote them or
just retold them. Other writers came after him. The literary fairy tale
flourished in Italy and spread all through Europe. The Puritan hostility
stopped it in England but the genre bloomed in France from 1690-1714. The
ancient French court went crazy over fairy tales. Fairy tales recitations
and games were created by the French salons and lead to their
publications of the tales in the 1690s. Many famous fairy tales came  out
at this time: "Donkey Skin", "Tom Thumb" Little Red Riding Hood" Sleeping
Beauty". What we do not know is whether these were retelling of tales or
original works. Charles Perrault, who published many of these pieces,
tried to establish the literary folk tale as  an innovative genre. The
introduction of the "The Thousand and One Nights " made folk tales an
accepted literary genre. The name fairy tale came into existence in the
17th century. The church was out of vogue so people used fairies as the
supernatural powers in stories. The tales reflected the values of the
17th century. Even people who were working with period collections of
tale added to them. Antoine Galland who translated the "The Thousand and
One Nights" and other tales from the original Arabic manuscripts from the
14th  century introduced many changes influenced by French culture. These
tales became very popular and were put into Chap books and sent out all
over Europe. By the 1800s they have become oral tradition and when people
like the brothers Grim started recording the oral stories they found
these stories in the folk stories. As you see it is very hard to verify a
fairy story. Most fairy stories reflect the values and norms 16th and
17th centuries and have little to do with the middle ages.

Early fairy stories are a little long winded and hard to tell. Fairy
tales that have become folk tales in the oral tradition are easier to
tell. If I was going to find stories for children to tell I would look to
the later versions in children books because they have been honed to the
best parts.

Willow de Wisp

> How do you think fairy tales hold up when performed by
> children?  I don't know how far back they can be
> documented, but I suspect some are known from time out
> of mind.


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