Random Ramblings - Page 20

This is surprisingly the only story in which there is no princess, Jack returns to his mother, and live with her, no princess to be rescued and married. When I did the research on this, I discovered that there is another version, where it Jack's actions of killing the Giant are not justified and this is surprisingly more close to the original one.

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is a Cornish fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 and as Benjamin Tabart's moralised "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. Henry Cole, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly popularised the tale in The Home Treasury (1845), and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890). Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today and it is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralising.

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal Cornish hero and stock character Jack.

According to researchers at the universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated more than 5,000 years ago, based on a widespread archaic story form which is now classified by folkorists as ATU 328 The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure.

Story

Jack is a young, poor boy living with his widowed mother and a dairy cow, on a farm cottage, the cow's milk as their only source of income. When the cow stops giving milk, Jack's mother tells him to take her to the market to be sold. On the way, Jack meets a bean dealer who offers magic beans in exchange for the cow, and Jack makes the trade. When he arrives home without any money, his mother becomes angry and disenchanted, throws the beans on the ground, and sends Jack to bed without dinner.

During the night, the magic beans cause a gigantic beanstalk to grow outside Jack's window. The next morning, Jack climbs the beanstalk to a land high in the sky. He finds an enormous castle and sneaks in. Soon after, the castle's owner, a giant, returns home. He senses that Jack is nearby by smell, and speaks a rhyme:

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an English man:

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

In the versions in which the giant's wife (the giantess), features, she persuades him that he is mistaken. When the giant falls asleep, Jack steals a bag of gold coins and makes his escape down the beanstalk.

Jack climbs the beanstalk twice more. He learns of other treasures and steals them when the giant sleeps: first a goose that lays golden eggs (see the idiom "to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs."), then a magic harp that plays by itself. The giant wakes when Jack leaves the house with the harp and chases Jack down the beanstalk. Jack calls to his mother for an axe and before the giant reaches the ground, cuts down the beanstalk, causing the giant to fall to his death.

Jack and his mother live happily ever after with the riches that Jack acquired.

The History of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast, as far as fairy tales go, has a reasonably short history. Most fairy tales began as folklore, passed on from generation to generation, until they were eventually written down by collectors such as Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. Unusually, Beauty and the Beast does not appear in the anthologies of any of these authors (although the Grimms do have a reasonably similar version in The Singing Springing Lark). The tale has gone through many varied and imaginative incarnations, but remaining constant are the themes of envy unrewarded, of learning to love what may at first appear a beast' and the benefits which virtue and selflessness will bestow on the individual. Although the Beauty and the Beast' story certainly does incorporate folkloric elements (notably the Aarne-Thompson type of The Search for the Lost Husband') it has a discernable history, first starting with Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve (1695 - 1755).

Villeneuve's Original Beauty and the Beast Story

Villeneuve was a French author influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault and various female intellectuals who gathered in the aristocratic salons. Originally published in La Jeune Amricaine, et Les Contes Marins in 1740, Villeneuve's La Belle et La Bte was an original piece of story telling. It was over one-hundred pages long, containing many subplots, and involving a genuinely savage, i.e. stupid' Beast, who suffered from not only his change of appearance. The book explored broader themes of romantic love as well as issues surrounding women's marital rights in the mid-eighteenth century. In this period, women had no choice over who they married (it was generally left to their fathers) and had to learn to love' the men they were bequeathed to.

Other French Variants of Beauty and the Beast

Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast' story was later changed and shortened by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711 - 1780) and published in Le Magasin des Enfants (1756). It is this version which readers are most familiar with today, although many elements were omitted from the original tale. Chiefly, in Villeneuve's account (and not in Beaumont's), the back-story of both Belle and the Beast is given. The Beast was a prince who lost his father at a young age, and whose mother had to wage war to defend his kingdom. The queen left him in care of an evil fairy, who tried to seduce him when he became an adult; when he refused, she transformed him into a beast. Belle's story reveals that she is not really a merchant's daughter but the offspring of a king and a good fairy. The wicked fairy had tried to murder Belle so she could marry her father the king, and Belle was put in the place of a merchant's dead daughter to protect her.

Beaumont significantly pared down the cast of characters of Beauty and the Beast' and simplified the tale to an almost archetypal simplicity; much loved and repeated. The change from Belle as the offspring of a king and a fairy, to Belle as a simple merchant's daughter is very telling. Beaumont's version, starting with an urban setting is highly unusual in fairy tales, as is the social class of the characters, neither royal nor peasants. Such details reflect the vast social upheavals occurring in France at the time; with the story published just thirty-three years before the French Revolution. This period marked the decline of the powerful monarchy and the church, and the concomitant rise of democracy and nationalism. Popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and aristocracy grew amidst a financial crisis following two expensive wars and years of bad harvests - with demands for change couched in terms of Enlightenment ideals. That the heroine of La Belle et La Bte is a simple, working class girl - able to tame the aristocratic beast, spoke directly to the social concerns of the day.

Cupid and Psych - The First Ever Literary Fairy Tale

Despite these discernable French Enlightenment' beginnings, Bruno Bettelheim has noted in The Uses of Enchantment that this story most likely derives from Cupid and Psyche, the ancient chronicle from the Latin novel Metamorphoses, written in the Second Century CE by Apuleius. It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to love between Psyche (meaning Soul', or Breath of Life') and Cupid (meaning Desire') and their ultimate union in marriage. The myth of cupid and psyche is one of the oldest tales to evidence the search for the lost husband' trope, and is considered by many scholars to be the first ever literary fairy tale. The similarities between this legend and Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast' are so striking, it is very likely to be a direct descendant.

The Ancient Roman tale starts with Psyche's banishment (by the jealous Venus) to a mountaintop, in order to be wed to a murderous beast. Sent to destroy her, Cupid falls in love and flies her away to his castle. There she is directed to never seek to see the face of her husband, who visits and makes love to her in the dark of night. Eventually Psyche succumbs to her curiosity (prompted by her selfish sisters), but accidentally scars her husband with a candle. In attempted atonement, Psyche offers herself as a slave to Venus, and completes a set of impossible tasks. Completing the last task (seeking beauty from the Queen of the Underworld), Psyche opens the beauty in a box' and, hoping to gain the approval of her husband, opens the box a little - at once falling into a coma. Overcome with grief, Cupid rescues her. He begs Jupiter that she may become immortal, so that the two could be forever united. Here, instant resemblances can be seen with the character of the beast, banishment to a castle, the deceptive sisters, and true love (mixed with tragedy) ensuring the pair's eternal union.

Beauty and The Beast Worldwide

Even with this tale's ancient beginnings, Apuleius might also have drawn on earlier, oral renditions of the tale from Greek versions; and the Greeks, in turn, may have derived their story from Asian sources since Cupid and Psyche' closely reflects the narrative of The Woman Who Married a Snake.' This variant first appeared in the Indian Panchatantra, a work known to have existed in oral form well before its appearance in print in 500 AD. This helps to explain later Beauty and the Beast' variants, where the French beast is replaced by a snake (in the Russian, Chinese and Greek versions), and others - for example in the English variant written by Sidney Oldall Addy, where the beast' is a Small-tooth dog', a Danish narrative of Beauty and the Horse', and the Swiss variant of The Bear Prince.' Despite these intriguing discrepancies in the narrative, the best known English version (published by Andrew Lang in 1889) stays with the French roots, representing a complex mix of Villeneuve's and Beaumont's stories.

J. R. Planch and Andrew Lang - English Versions

Lang largely favours Villeneuve's elements of the story (hence its inclusion in this collection, along with Beaumont's account), but also edits out much of the extra dialogue concerning fairies and genealogies. There is another (older) English translation in evidence, that of J. R. Planch (published in 1757), which altered a small but significant part. Instead of asking Belle to marry him each night, the Beast asks: May I sleep with you tonight?' The question, whilst obviously more risque, was not simply erotic. It served to imply control and choice for Belle over her own body and sexuality - something which at that time was not legally hers, nor of any woman handed over as property to her husband. This overt sexuality is repeated in the Russian tale of The Enchanted Tsarevich, and the Chinese recitation of The Fairy Serpent. In most, the beast is no true beast and never forces his physical desires upon the woman. The Italian narrative of Zelinda and the Monster differs in this respect, as the snake persuades the young girl to marry him, only because her father will die if she refuses.

As a testament to this story's ability to inspire and entertain generations of readers, the tale of Beauty and the Beast continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions and tropes to a wide variety of artistic mediums. It has inspired some of the best fairy tale adaptations in film, from Jean Cocteau's 1946 masterpiece to Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), a nominee and winner for Best Motion Picture' by several Hollywood organisations. With regard to its wide geographical reach, as is evident from even this brief introduction, it has enthused and affected storytelling all over the globe. The story has been translated into almost every language, and very excitingly, is continuing to evolve in the present day.

~Source: http://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/beauty-and-the-beast-history/~

Below is the illustration for one of the fairy tale retellings:

I have not watched any of Disney's film versions of the above, but a reading of the same lets me know that the story has been changed to included a good looking suitor, thus having Beauty to choose between a good looking corrupt husband or a ugly beast with a heart of gold. Her attributes in all the stories are beauty and goodness, which are sort of synonymous and which is something that has the feminists up in arms😆

But then I do love the lines of the song - "A Tale as old as Time, A Song as old as Rhyme" -aahhh the feels

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This is an original story by Hans Christian Anderson, with very clear biblical references that were subsequently toned down. This is also a very long story, consisting of seven distinctive sub stories, all featuring Gerda, the main female protagonist.

By the time he sat down to pen "The Snow Queen" in the early 1840s, Hans Christian Andersen had already published two collections of fairy tales, along with several poems that had achieved critical recognition. Fame and fortune still eluded him, however, and would until his fairy tales began to be translated into other languages.

"The Snow Queen" was his most ambitious fairy tale yet, a novella-length work that rivaled some of the early French salon fairy tales for its intricacy. Andersen, inspired by the versions of The One Thousand and One Nights that he'd encountered, worked with their tale-within-a-tale format, carefully and delicately using images and metaphor to explore the contrasts between intellect and love, reality and dream; he also gently critiqued both stories. The result was to be lauded as one of Andersen's masterpieces.

Its biggest inspiration was the Norwegian fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Like Beauty and the Beast, this is another retelling of Cupid and Psyche. Andersen probably heard a Danish version from his grandmother; he may also have encountered one of the tale's many written forms.

Basically, the theme of East of the Sun, West of the Moon is that life really, genuinely sucks and is extremely unfair: here, the result of obeying her parents (her mother tells her to use the light) and trying, you know, to find out what exactly is in bed with her leads to endless months of wandering around the cold, cold north, even if she does get help from three old women and the winds along the way.

Andersen took this story, with its themes of transformation, sacrifice, long journeys and unfairness, and chose to twist several elements of it, adding themes of temptation and philosophy and intellect and Christian love and charity.

"The Snow Queen" is told in a series of seven stories. In the first, a troll (in some English translations, a "hobgoblin," "demon," or "devil") creates a mirror that distorts beauty. The mirror breaks, sending fragments of its evil glass throughout the world, distorting people's vision, making them only able to see the worst in everything. The troll laughs"

"and that's pretty much the last we hear of the troll, setting up a pattern that continues throughout the novella: in this fairy tale, evil can and does go unpunished. It was, perhaps, a reflection of Andersen's own experiences, and certainly a theme of many of his stories. By 1840, he had witnessed many people getting away with cruel and unkind behavior, and although he was certainly more than willing to punish his own protagonists, even overly punish his own protagonists, he often allowed the monsters of his stories to go unpunished. When they could even be classified as monsters.

The second story shifts to little Kay and Gerda, two young children living in cold attics, who do have a few joys in life: the flowers and roses that grow on the roofs of their houses, copper pennies that they can warm on a stove and put on their windows, melting the ice (a lovely touch), and the stories told by Kay's grandmother. At least some of these details may have been pulled from Andersen's own memories: he grew up poor, and spent hours listening to the stories told by his grandmother and aunts.

Kay sees the Snow Queen at the window, and shortly afterwards, fragments of the mirror enter his heart and eye, transforming him from a little boy fascinated with roses and fairy tales into a clever, heartless boy who likes to tease people. He abandons Gerda and the joy of listening to stories while huddled near a warm stove to go out and play with the older boys in the snow. He fastens his sled to a larger one that, it turns out, is driven by the Snow Queen. She pulls him into her sled and kisses him on the forehead. He forgets everything, and follows her to the north.

The text rather strongly hints that this is a bit more than your typical journey to visit the fjords. Not just because the Snow Queen is a magical creature of ice and snow, but because the language used to describe the scene suggests that Kay doesn't just freeze, but freezes to death: he feels that he is sinking into a snow drift and falling to sleep, the exact sensations reported by people who almost froze to death, but were revived in time. Gerda, indeed, initially believes that little Kay must be dead. 19th century writers often used similar language and images to describe the deaths of children, and George MacDonald would later use similar imagery when writing At the Back of the North Wind.

On a metaphorical level, this is Andersen's suggestion that abandoning love, or even just abandoning stories, is the equivalent of a spiritual death. On a plot level, it's the first echo of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, where the prince is taken to an enchanted castle"or, if you prefer, Death. Only in this case, Kay is not a prince, but a boy, and he is not enchanted because of anything that Gerda has done, but by his own actions.

In the third story, with Kay gone, Gerda starts to talk to the sunshine and sparrows (not exactly an indication of a stable mental state), who convince her that Kay is alive. As in East of the Sun, West of the Moon, she decides to follow him, with the slight issue that she has no real idea where to look. She begins by trying to sacrifice her red shoes to the river (Andersen appears to have had a personal problem with colorful shoes), stepping into a boat to do so. The boat soon floats down the river, taking Gerda with it. Given what happens next, it's possible that Gerda, too, has died by drowning, but the language is rich with sunshine and life, so possibly not. Her first stop: the home of a lonely witch, who feeds Gerda enchanted food in hopes that the little girl will stay.

The witch also has a garden with rather talkative flowers, each of which wants to tell Gerda a story. Gerda's response is classic: "BUT THAT DOESN'T TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT KAY!" giving the distinct impression that she's at a cocktail party where everyone is boring her, in what seems to be an intentional mockery of intellectual parties that bored Andersen to pieces. Perhaps less intentionally, the scene also gives the impression that Gerda is both more than a bit self-centered and dim, not to mention not all that mentally stable"a good setup for what's about to happen in the next two stories.

In the fourth story, Gerda encounters a crow, a prince, and a princess. Convinced that the prince is Kay, Gerda enters the palace, and his darkened bedroom, to hold up a lamp and look at his face. And here, the fairy tale is twisted: the prince is not Gerda's eventual husband, but rather a stranger. The story mostly serves to demonstrate again just how quickly Gerda can jump to conclusions"a lot of people wear squeaky boots, Gerda, it's not exactly proof that any of them happen to be Kay!"but it's also a neat reversal of the East of the Sun, West of the Moon in other ways: not only is the prince married to his true bride, not the false one, with the protagonist misidentifying the prince, but in this story, rather than abandoning the girl at the beginning of her quest, after letting her spend the night in the prince's bed (platonically, we are assured, platonically!) the prince and princess help Gerda on her way, giving her a little sled, warm clothing and food for the journey.

Naturally, in the fifth tale she loses pretty much all of this, and the redshirt servants sent along with her, who die so rapidly I had to check to see if they were even there, when she encounters a band of robbers and a cheerful robber girl, who tells Gerda not to worry about the robbers killing her, since she"that is, the robber girl"will do it herself. It's a rather horrifying encounter, what with the robber girl constantly threatening Gerda and a reindeer with a knife, and a number of mean animals, and the robber girl biting her mother, and then insisting that Gerda sleep with her"and that knife. Not to say that anything actually happens between Gerda and the girl, other than Gerda not getting any sleep, but it's as kinky as this story gets, so let's mention it.

The next day, the robber girl sends Gerda off to the sixth tale, where she encounters two more old women"for a total of three. All three tend to be considerably less helpful than the old women in East of the Sun, West of the Moon: in Andersen's version, one woman wants to keep Gerda instead of helping her, one woman can't help all that much, and the third sends the poor little girl off into the snow without her mittens. Anyway, arguably the best part of this tale is the little details Andersen adds about the way that one of the women, poverty stricken, writes on dried fish, instead of paper, and the second woman, only a little less poverty stricken, insists on eating the fish EVEN THOUGH IT HAS INK ON IT like wow, Gerda thought that sleeping with the knife is bad.

This tale also has my favorite exchange of the entire story:

"...Cannot you give this little maiden something which will make her as strong as twelve men, to overcome the Snow Queen?"

"The Power of twelve men!" said the Finland woman. "That would be of very little use."

What does turn out to be of use: saying the Lord's Prayer, which, in an amazing scene, converts Gerda's frozen breath into little angels that manage to defeat the living snowflakes that guard the Snow Queen's palace, arguably the most fantastically lovely metaphor of praying your way through terrible weather ever.

And then finally, in tale seven, Gerda has the chance to save Kay, with the power of her love, her tears, and her prayers finally breaking through the cold rationality that imprisons him, showing him the way to eternity at last. They return home, hand in hand, but not unchanged. Andersen is never clear on exactly how long the two were in the North, but it was long enough for them both to age into adulthood, short enough that Kay's grandmother is still alive.

Despite the happy ending, a sense of melancholy lingers over the story, perhaps because of all the constant cold, perhaps because of the ongoing references to death and dying, even in the last few paragraphs of the happy ending, perhaps because the story's two major antagonists"the demon of the first tale, the Snow Queen of the last six tales"not only don't die, they're never even defeated. The Snow Queen"conveniently enough"happens to be away from her castle when Gerda arrives. To give her all due credit, since she does seem to have at least some concern for little Kay's welfare"keeping him from completely freezing to death, giving him little math puzzles to do, she might not even be all that displeased to find that Gerda saved him"especially since they leave her castle untouched.

The platonic ending also comes as a bit of a jolt. Given the tale's constant references to "little Gerda" and "little Kay," it's perhaps just as well"a few sentences informing me that they're adults isn't really enough to convince me that they're adults. But apart from the fact that Gerda spends an astonishing part of this story jumping in and out of people's beds, making me wonder just how much the adult Gerda would hold back from this, "The Snow Queen" is also a fairy tale about the power of love, making it surprising that it doesn't end in marriage, unlike so many of the fairy tales that helped inspire it.

But I think, for me, the larger issue is that, well, this defeat of reason, of intellectualism by love doesn't quite manage to ring true. For one thing, several minor characters also motivated by love"some of the flowers, and the characters in their tales, plus the crow"end up dead, while the Snow Queen herself, admirer of mathematics and reason, is quite alive. For another thing, as much as Kay is trapped by reason and intellectualism as he studies a puzzle in a frozen palace, Gerda's journey is filled with its own terrors and traps and disappointments, making it a little tricky for me to embrace Andersen's message here. And for a third thing, that message is more than a bit mixed in other ways: on the one hand, Andersen wants to tell us that the bits from the mirror that help trap little Kay behind ice and puzzles prevent people from seeing the world clearly. On the other hand, again and again, innocent little Gerda"free of these little bits of glass"fails to see things for what they are. This complexity, of course, helps add weight and depth to the tale, but it also makes it a bit harder for the ending to ring true.

And reading this now, I'm aware that, however much Andersen hated his years at school, however much he resented the intellectuals who dismissed his work, however much he continued to work with the fairy tales of his youth, that education and intellectualism was what eventually brought him the financial stability and fame he craved. He had not, to be fair, gained either as he wrote "The Snow Queen," which certainly accounts for the overt criticism of rationality, intellectualism and, well, math, and he was never to emotionally recover from the trauma of his education, and he had certainly found cruelty and mockery amongst the intellectuals he'd encountered, examples that helped shape his bitter description of Kay's transformation from sweet, innocent child to cruel prankster. At the same time, that sophistication and education had helped transform his tales.

But for young readers, "The Snow Queen" does have one compelling factor: it depicts a powerless child triumphing over an adult. Oh, certainly, Gerda gets help along the way. But notably, quite a lot that help comes from marginalized people"a robber, two witches, and two crows. It offers not just a powerful argument that love can and should overcome reason, but the hope that the powerless and the marginalized can triumph. That aspect, the triumph of the powerless, is undoubtedly why generations have continued to read the tale, and why Disney, after several missteps, transformed its core into a story of self-actualization.

~Source: Article by Mari Ness for http://www.tor.com/2016/06/23/fairy-tale-subversion-hans-christian-andersens-the-snow-queen/~

"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Rapunzel by Friedrich Schulz published in 1790. The Schulz version is based on Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698, which in turn was influenced by an even earlier tale, Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile, published in 1634. Its plot has been used and parodied in various media and its best known line ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair") is an idiom of popular culture. In volume I of the 1812 annotations (Anhang), it is listed as coming from Friedrich Schulz Kleine Romane, Book 5, pp. 269-288, published in Leipzig 1790.

In the Aarne-Thompson classification system for folktales it is type 310, "The Maiden in The Tower".

Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book. Other versions of the tale also appear in A Book of Witches by Ruth Manning-Sanders and in Paul O. Zelinsky's 1997 Caldecott Medal-winning picture book, Rapunzel and the Disney movie Tangled.

Rapunzel's story has striking similarities to the 11th-century Persian tale of Rudba, included in the epic poem Shahnameh by Ferdowsi. Rudba offers to let down her hair from her tower so that her lover Zl can climb up to her. Some elements of the fairy tale might also have originally been based upon the tale of Saint Barbara, who was said to have been locked in a tower by her father.

Plot

A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an evil witch named Dame Gothel. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices some rapunzel (or, in most translated-to-English versions of the story, rampion), growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. One night, her husband breaks into the garden to get some for her. She makes a salad out of it and greedily eats it. It tastes so good that she longs for more. So her husband goes to get some more for her. As he scales the wall to return home, Dame Gothel catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and she agrees to be lenient, and allows him to take all the rapunzel he wants, on condition that the baby be given to her when it's born. Desperate, he agrees. When his wife has a baby girl, Dame Gothel takes her to raise as her own and names her Rapunzel after the plant her mother craved. She grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When she turns twelve, Dame Gothel lockes her up inside a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. When she visits her, she stands beneath the tower and calls out:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb thy golden stair.

One day, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he searches for her and discovers the tower, but is naturally unable to enter it. He returns often, listening to her beautiful singing, and one day sees Dame Gothel visit, and thus learns how to gain access to Rapunzel. When Dame Gothel leaves, he bids Rapunzel let her hair down. When she does so, he climbs up, makes her acquaintance, and eventually asks her to marry him. She agrees.

Together they plan a means of escape, wherein he will come each night (thus avoiding Dame Gothel who visits her by day), and bring Rapunzel a piece of silk, which she will gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan can come to fruition, however, she foolishly gives him away. In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, she innocently says that her dress is getting tight around her waist (indicating pregnancy); in the second edition, she asks Dame Gothel (in a moment of forgetfulness) why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her. In anger, she cuts off Rapunzel's hair and casts her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.

When the prince calls that night, Dame Gothel lets the severed hair down to haul him up. To his horror, he finds himself staring at her instead of Rapunzel, who is nowhere to be found. When she tells him in a jealous rage that he will never see Rapunzel again, he leaps from the tower and lands on some thorns, which blind him.

For months, he wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel now lives with the twins she has given birth to, a boy and a girl. One day, as she sings, he hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other's arms, her tears immediately restore his sight. He leads her and their twins to his kingdom, where they live happily ever after.

In some versions of the story, Rapunzel's hair magically grows back after the prince touches it.

Another version of the story ends with the revelation that Dame Gothel had untied Rapunzel's hair after the prince leapt from the tower, and it slipped from her hands and landed far below, leaving her trapped in the tower.

The seemingly uneven bargain with which "Rapunzel" opens is a common trope in fairy tales which is replicated in "Jack and the Beanstalk", Jack trades a cow for beans, and in "Beauty and the Beast", Beauty comes to the Beast in return for a rose. Folkloric beliefs often regarded it as quite dangerous to deny a pregnant woman any food she craved. Family members would often go to great lengths to secure such cravings. Such desires for lettuce and like vegetables may indicate a need on her part for vitamins.

An influence on Grimm's Rapunzel was Petrosinella or Parsley, written by Giambattista Basile in his collection of fairy tales in 1634, Lo c**to de li c**ti (The Story of Stories), or Pentamerone. This tells a similar tale of a pregnant woman desiring some parsley from the garden of an ogress, getting caught, and having to promise the ogress her baby. The encounters between the prince and the maiden in the tower are described in quite bawdy language. A similar story was published in France by Mademoiselle de la Force, called "Persinette". As Rapunzel did in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm, Persinette becomes pregnant during the course of the prince's visits.

Literary adaptations

Anne Sexton wrote an adaptation as a poem called "Rapunzel" in her collection Transformations (1971), a book in which she re-envisions sixteen of the Grimm's Fairy tales.

Cress the third book in the Lunar Chronicles is a young adult science fiction adaptation of Rapunzel written by Marissa Meyer. Crescent, aka "Cress" is a prisoner on a satellite who is rescued and falls in love with her hero "Capt. Thorn" amidst the story about "Cinder" a cyborg version of Cinderella. Lunar Chronicles is a tetralogy with a futuristic take on classic fairytales which also include characters such as "Cinder" (Cinderella), "Scarlet" (Red Riding Hood) " and "Winter" (Snow White).

Kate Forsyth has written a book that contains both commentary on the story and a retelling, set in the Antipodes. She described it as "a story that reverberates very strongly with any individual -- male or female, child or adult -- who has found themselves trapped by their circumstances, whether this is caused by the will of another, or their own inability to change and grow".

East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjrnsen and Jorgen Moe.

It involves a white bear that offers to take the youngest child to fix a family's poor situation. They accept and the bear takes the young girl to a castle where a man slept in the same room as her at night in the dark. As such, she could not see who it was. When she was homesick she was allowed to go home with one condition: She is not allowed to stay with her mother alone. Of course, the young girl doesn't listen and takes a magical candle from her mother. When she returned to the castle, she was able to see the face of the man that has been visiting her bed at night " who was actually the bear. After a what have you done moment he gets taken away by his troll stepmother to marry a troll princess. Before leaving, he tells her that he will be at a land East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

She sets off to find him and meets a woman and her daughter on the way. This woman gives her a golden apple and lets her borrow a horse. Next, she meets a woman who gives her a golden carding comb. A third woman gives her a golden spinning wheel and tells her that she should go find the east wind who might take her to the place that she seeks. The east wind could not help her as he never blew that far so he tells her to visit the west. After facing the same scenario, she visits the south and finally the north wind. The girl then gives up all of her golden items to the princess in exchange for a night with the prince. On the first two nights, she could not wake him. Eventually the servants tell the prince about the girl and he tosses away the drink " actually sleeping potion " from the princess that night. In the end, the girl defeats the trolls (the stepmother and the princess) by washing out the tallow of one of the prince's shirts, because the prince refuses to marry someone unable to do something so simple. The story ends with all the trolls exploding. Everyone lives happily ever after.

It's Aarne-Thompson type 425A, the search for the lost husband, a type of which there are many variants. Compare The Feather of Finist the Falcon and Pintosmalto, and for the Gender Flip Soria Moria Castle and The Blue Mountains.

The tale, with all related versions, is reckoned to be related to the tale of Amor and Psyche, as re-told in the book The Golden Ass by the author Apuleius, from the Roman era. This version is probably the Ur-Example of the story. As everyone will understand, the girl has the role of Psyche, while the prince has the role of Amor.

For a modern novel version, see East by Edith Pattou or Once Upon a Winters Night by Dennis L. McKiernan. There is also one that adds in some Inuit legends into the mix called ICE by Sarah Beth Durst.

A number of famous illustrated versions of this fairy tale have been published, including by Mercer Mayer, among others. All of the versions are slightly different. Do not confuse with the Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun.

Tropes in East of the Sun and West of the Moon:

Animorphism / Involuntary Shapeshifting: The result of a Curse placed upon the prince by his Wicked Stepmother.

Beast and Beauty: For a while.

Big Fancy Castle: Where the bear takes her.

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In this and many of the story variations, the groom's animal form is often white. This ties into the cross-cultural concept that white animals are believed to have magical properties.

Curse

Curse Escape Clause

Disproportionate Retribution: Poor girl makes one mistake, then must trek all over Scandinavia to right it.

Dogged Nice Guy: The groom, who is always described as treating his bride extremely well when they get to his palace"servants to tend to her every need, great food, etc. This is a strange variant in that he already has the girl; she's just repulsed by his animal appearance.

Earn Your Happy Ending: And how!

If I Can't Have You...: The groom is cursed because he won't marry another princess, who is unpleasant and often hideous.

Involuntary Shapeshifting

It Was a Gift

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: While it's understandable that the bride's parents would feel squicked that she's married a bear/wolf/some other huge and intimidating animal, they often have an iron grip on that Idiot Ball when the bride herself isn't carrying it.

The Quest: The wife has to search for her husband by going east of the sun and west of the moon. This may or may not be an allegory for finding a nonexistent place through The Power of Love.

Textile Work Is Feminine: The final thing she had to do was wash his shirt clean.

Villainesses Want Heroes: The troll bride.

What Beautiful Eyes!: The prince nearly always has gorgeous blue eyes, yet rarely is his hair color even mentioned, which is possibly so he doesn't outshine his wife in the looks department.

Wicked Stepmother

Youngest Child Wins: The bride is the youngest child in a very large and poor family.

"Sleeping Beauty" (French: La Belle au bois dormant "The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood") by Charles Perrault, or "Little Briar Rose" (German: Dornroschen) by the Brothers Grimm, is a classic fairy tale which involves a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment, and a handsome prince. The version collected by the Brothers Grimm was an orally transmitted version of the originally literary tale published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps pass in 1697. This in turn was based on Sun, Moon, and Talia by Italian poet Giambattista Basile (published posthumously in 1634), which was in turn based on one or more folk tales. The earliest known version of the story is found in the narrative Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344 and first printed in 1528.

~Source: Wikipedia~

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The folk lores and folktales have been an eternal part of every culture since ages. When it comes to Indian folk tales, the country of diverse religions, languages and cultures has a complete range of tales and short stories. Indian folklore has a wide range of stories and mythological legends, which emerge from all walks of life. The interesting stories range from the remarkable Panchatantra' to Hitopadesha', from Jataka' to Akbar-Birbal'.

Not only this, the great Indian epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are full of didactic stories inspired from the lives of great souls. Being full of moralistic values, Indian folklore makes for perfect stories for children, who are required to be instilled with right values. All these ancient stories have been passed from generation to generation, creating bondage of traditional values with present-day generation.

Indian folktales may be used to teach religious precepts or moral lessons to the young, or simply to entertain. The oral tradition is one of the oldest continual traditions in the world. Several written compilations of Indian folk tales have been in existence for more than a thousand years, and have circulated through the Indo-European world, inspiring numerous translations and derivatives.

India possesses a large body of heroic ballads and epic poetry preserved in oral tradition, both in Sanskrit and the various vernacular languages of India. One such oral epic, telling the story of Pabuji, has been collected by Dr. John Smith from Rajasthan; it is a long poem in the Rajasthani language, traditionally told by professional story tellers, known as Bhopas, who deliver it in front of a tapestry that depicts the characters of the story, and functions as a portable temple, accompanied by a ravanhattho fiddle. The title character was a historical figure, a Rajput prince, who has been deified in Rajasthan.

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the two greatest and most widely read epics of India. Other noteworthy collections of Indian traditional stories include the Panchatantra, a collection of traditional narratives made by Vishnu Sarma in the second century BC. The Hitopadesha of Narayana is a collection of anthropomorphic fabliaux, animal fables, in Sanskrit, compiled in the ninth century.

Panchatantra Tales

The Panchatantra is a legendary collection of short stories from India. Originally composed in the 2nd century B.C, Panchatantra is believed to be written by Vishnu Sharma along with many other scholars. The purpose behind the composition was to implant moral values and governing skills in the young sons of the king. The ancient Sanskrit text boasts of various animal stories in verse and prose. During all these centuries, many authors and publishers worked hard to make these fables accessible and readable by a layman. The grand assortment has extraordinary tales that are liked, perhaps even loved by people of every age group.

The Panchatantra [2][3][4][5] (also spelled Panncatantra, Sanskrit: 'Five Principles') or Kaliileh o Demneh (in Persian) or Anvaar-e Soheylii (another title in Persian: 'The Lights of Canopus') or Kalilag and Damnag [9] (in Syriac) or Kaliilah wa Dimnah (in Arabic) or Kalila and Dimna (English, 2008) or The Fables of Bidpai (or Pilpai, in various European languages) or The Morall Philosophie of Doni (English, 1570) was originally a canonical collection of Sanskrit (Hindu) as well as Pali (Buddhist) animal fables in verse and prose. The original Sanskrit text, now long lost, and which some scholars believe was composed in the third century B.C.E.[14] is attributed to Vishnu Sarma. However, based as it is on older oral traditions, its antecedents among storytellers probably hark back to the origins of language and the subcontinent's earliest social groupings of hunting and fishing folk gathered around campfires. It illustrates, for the benefit of princes who may succeed to a throne, the central Hindu principles of Raja Niiti (political science) through an inter-woven series of colourful animal tales. The five principles illustrated are:

Mitra Bhedha (The Loss of Friends)

Mitra Laabha (Gaining Friends)

Suhrudbheda (Causing Dissension Between Friends)

Vigraha (Separation)

Sandhi (Union)

Hitopadesha Tales

The Hitopadesha is a remarkable compilation of short stories. Composed by Narayana Pandit, the only clue to the identity of the author of Hitopadesha is found in the concluding verses of the work, which gives us the name Narayana, and mentions the patronage of a king called Dhavalachandra, of Bengal. No other work by this author is known, and the ruler mentioned has not been traced in other sources. Hitopadesha, derives from two words, hita and upadesa, and means "to counsel or advise with benevolence." The author, Narayana, says that the main purpose for creating the Hitopadesha is to instruct young minds in the philosophy of life so that they are able to grow into responsible adults. Hitopadesha had its origin around a thousand years ago and in Indian Literature, the Hitopadesha is regarded more or less similar to the Panchatantra. In the vein of Panchatantra, the Hitopadesa was also written in Sanskrit and following the pattern of prose and verse and the stories feature animals and birds as the protagonists and are written so that the moral lesson of each tale is clear and obvious.

Hitopadesh tales are written in reader-friendly way, which also contributed to the success of this best seller in India. Since its origin, Hitopadesa has been translated into numerous languages to benefit the readers all over the world.

Originally compiled in Sanskrit, it was rendered, by order of Nushiravn, in the sixth century C.E., into Persic. From the Persic it was translated into Arabic in 850, and thence into Hebrew and Greek. It circulated widely in its homeland. The Emperor Akbar, impressed with the wisdom of its maxims and the ingenuity of its apologues, commended the work of translating it to his own minister Abdul Fazel, who put the book into a familiar style, and published it with explanations, under the title Criterion of Wisdom. An English translation by Sir Edwin Arnold, then Principal of Poona College, Pune, India, was published in London in 1861. From its numerous translations came Aesop's Fables, The Instructive and Entertaining Fables of Pilpay. (1709) and Goethe's Reineke Fuchs. It has some representative in all the Indian vernaculars.

Jataka Tales

In 300 B.C, the Jataka Tales were written for the mankind to gain knowledge and morality. The Jaataka Tales (Sanskrit and Pali, Malay: jetaka, Lao: satok) is a voluminous body of folklore-like literature concerning the previous births (jaati) of the Buddha. The word Jataka most specifically refers to a text division of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka, comprised of 547 poems, arranged by increasing number of verses. A commentary of prose stories provides context for the poems. Alternative versions of some of the stories can be found in another book of the Pali Canon, the Cariyapitaka, and a number of individual stories can be found scattered around other books of the Canon.

Epigraphic and archaeological evidence, such as extant illustrations in bas relief from ancient temple walls, indicate that the Jataka Tales had been more-or-less formally canonized from at least the fifth century. The fables of Jataka are intended to impart values such as of self-sacrifice, morality, and honesty and have become story books that are both enjoyable as well as knowledgeable. Originally written in Pali language, Jataka Buddhist tales have been translated in different languages around the world.

Many of the stories found in the Jataka have been found in numerous other languages and mediamany are translations from the Pali but others are instead derived from vernacular traditions prior to the Pali compositions. Sanskrit (see for example the Jatakamala) and Tibetan Jataka stories tend to maintain the Buddhist morality of their Pali equivalents, but re-tellings of the stories in Persian and other languages sometimes contain significant cultural adaptations. Some of the apocryphal Jatakas (in Pali) show direct appropriations from Hindu sources, with amendments to the plots to better reflect Buddhist morals.

Folk epics

India possesses a large body of heroic ballads and epic poetry preserved in oral tradition, both in Sanskrit and the various vernacular languages of India. One such oral epic, telling the story of Pabujii, has been collected by Dr. John Smith from Rajasthan; it is a long poem in the Rajasthani language, traditionally told by professional story tellers, known as Bhopas, who deliver it in front of a tapestry that depicts the characters of the story, and functions as a portable temple, accompanied by a ravanhattho] fiddle. The title character was a historical figure, a Rajput prince, who has been deified in Rajasthan.[17]

In the south of India, the Telugu the folk epic, The War of Palnadu, translated into English by Dr. Gene Waghair, tells the story of Balachandra and the Andhra Kurukshetra War, which weakened the power of Vengi Chalukyas and paved way for the emergence of Kakatiyas as a great Telugu dynasty. The Tulu folk epic Siri tells of Siri, a royal heroine who, during an annual Siri festival, is believed to confer her powers on women in trance.

Indian folk heroes

Ancient heroes of the Sanskrit epics, historical figures and modern heroes of the Indian independence movement are well known to everyone and occupy a place in written literature, but their greatest presence is in the Indian cultural sub-system. Indian folk heroes are most popular. Regional heroes, local and tribal folk heroes are alive in the collective memory of the people with diverse language, religions and cultural traditions. "Beer Kherwal" and "Bidu Chandan" are heroes of the Santals[18], one of the earliest tribal groups of India known to have migrated southward from the Northwest. "Chital Singh Chatri" is the folk hero of the Gonds. "Lakha Banjara" and "Raja Isalu" are Banjara folk heroes. The Banjara epics feature heroines, reflecting the "Sati" cult.

Oral epics have resulted in "counter texts," variations of classical epics in which the heroes and heroines do things that would be impossible in a classical epic, such as a younger brother becoming a hero and killing his elder brother. Folk heroes are sometimes deified and are worshiped in a village or region. The protagonists of Indian folklore are often romantic as well as mythical heroes.

Like formal classical epics, which are often performed in a religious context, oral epics such as the Kalahandi epics are performed as both sacred ritual and social entertainment.

Indian folklorists

The scientific study of Indian folklore was slow to begin: early collectors felt far freer to creatively reinterpret source material, and collected their material with a view to the picturesque rather than the representative.

Folklorists of India can be broadly divided into three phases. Phase I were the British Administrators who collected the local knowledge and folklore to understand the subjects they want to rule. next were the missionaries who wanted to acquire the language of the people to recreate their religious literature for evangelical purpose. Third phase was the post independent period in the country where many universities, institutes and individuals started studying the folklore. the purpose was to search the national identity through legends, myths, and epics. In course of time Academic institutions and universities in the country started opening departments on folklore in their respective regions, more in south India to maintain their cultural identity and also maintain language and culture.

The scientific study of Indian folklore, using anthropological disciplines and methods to conduct systematic surveys, began after Indian independence. Under the British Raj, administrators reported on local cultural knowledge and folklore in order to better understand the people they wanted to rule. Christian missionaries sought to learn folklore so that they could create religious literature for evangelistic purposes. Early collectors felt more freedom to creatively reinterpret source material, and collected their material with a view to the picturesque rather than the representative.

The British writer Rudyard Kipling, who had dealt with English folklore in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, created similar works with Indian themes. Kipling had spent a good part of his early life in India, and was familiar with the Hindi language. His two Jungle Books contain stories written after the manner of traditional Indian folktales. Indian themes also appear in his Just So Stories, and many of the characters have names from Indian languages.

During the same period, Helen Bannerman wrote the now notorious Indian-themed tale of Little Black Sambo, which represented itself as an Indian folktale.

After Indian independence in 1947, scholars began to search for their national and local identities through legends, myths, and epics. Devendra Satyarthi, Krishna dev Upadhayaya, Jhaberchand Meghani, Prafulla Dutta Goswami, Ashutosh Bhattacharya, Kunja Bihari Dash, Somnath Dhar, Ramgarib Choube, Jagadish Chandra Trigunayan, and others pioneered the collection of Indian folklore, although their approach was more literary than scientific.

During the 1970s, Indian folklorists trained at universities in the United States began to employ modern theories and methods of folklore research. Academic institutions and universities in India established departments to study the folklore of their respective regions, particularly in south India, with the aim of preserving their cultural identity and languages. They have produced thousands of trained folklorists, and in the last five decades, much has been done to collect and preserve folklore.

It was during the 1980s the Institute of Indian Languages and the American Institute of Indian Studies began a systematic study of Indian folklore. Contemporary Indian folklorists include Jawaharlal Handoo, V. A. Vivek Rai, Komal Kothari, M.D. Muthukumaraswamy, Birendranath Dutta, B. Reddy, Sadhana Naithani, P. Subachary, Mahendra Mishra, Molly Kaushal, and Raghavan Payanad. Finnish folklorist Dr. Lauri Honko conducted important field work on the Siri Epic, and by analyzing tales and Indian art, classified rituals into three main categories, rites of passage, calendrical rites and crisis rites, stressing the importance of interpreting these within the context of the religious culture. American Peter J. Claus made a critical study of the Tulu Epic, which originated in the Tulu language, which never had a written form, and derive from non-Vedic sources. The tales are enacted as narrative songs in the Mysore area of Southern India, traced back to the sixteenth century, based on rice paddy songs of the women who are in trance.

An emerging trend among folklorists, initiated by A. K. Ramanjuan (1929 - 1993), endeavours to interpret folklore from an Indian point of view instead of using a Western model. Folklore is still alive and functional in Indian communities, continuing to develop and fulfil an active social role. Folklorists prefer to acquire an understanding from those who create and consume folklore. The National Folklore Support Center in Chennai supports the continued study and development of Indian folklore and attempts to bridge the gap between academic folklorists and the active folklore community.

A. K. Ramanujan's theoretical and aesthetic contributions span several disciplinary areas. Context-sensitivity is a theme that appears not only in Ramanujan's cultural essays, but also appears in his writing about Indian folklore and classic poetry. In "Where Mirrors are Windows," (1989) and in "Three Hundred Ramayanas" (1991), for example, he discusses the "intertextual" nature of Indian literature, written and oral...He says, "What is merely suggested in one poem may become central in a 'repetition' or an 'imitation' of it.[2] His essay "Where Mirrors Are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Reflections" (1989), and his commentaries in The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology (1967) and Folktales from India, Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages (1991) are good examples of his work in Indian folklore studies.

Now the National Folklore support Center, Chennai since last ten years has created a space for the new scholars who are pursuing the study of folklore with their commitment. One important breakthrough in the field of folklore is that it is no more confined to the study in the four wall of academic domain, rather, it has again found its space within and among the folk to get their true meaning.

The linguistic diversity of India, with 24 officially recognized languages, and hundreds of non-official living languages, is such that the folklore of different regions can only be compared by translating it into a common language. Since 1990, a number of epics have been collected and translated into English, with critical notes and introductions.

Sources

~http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-folktales/~

~http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Folklore_of_India~

~Wikipedia~

Pinocchio, the name a variant of common pinolo ("pine seed"), is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi. Carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a village near Florence, he was created as a wooden puppet but dreamed of becoming a real boy. He often tells lies.

Pinocchio is a cultural icon. As one of the most reimagined characters in children's literature, his story has been adapted into other media. Pinocchio's characterization varies across interpretations, but some aspects of his character are consistent across all adaptations. He is consistently shown to be a creation as a puppet by Geppetto, and the size of his nose changing due to his lies or stress

Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of The Talking Cricket (Italian: Il Grillo Parlante), a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book The Adventures of Pinocchio, which Disney adapted into the animated film Pinocchio in 1940.[4] Originally an unnamed, minor character in Collodi's novel, he was transformed in the Disney version into a comical and wise partner who accompanies Pinocchio on his adventures, having been appointed by the Blue Fairy (known in the book as The Fairy with Turquoise Hair) to serve as Pinocchio's official conscience. He is different from real crickets, which are black or dark brown, with very long antennae. Since his debut in Pinocchio, he has become a recurring iconic Disney character and has made numerous other appearances.

Kaa is a fictional character from The Jungle Book stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends.

In the 1967 Disney film, Kaa is markedly different from the Kipling character. Rather than being a mentor, he appears as a minor antagonist who twice manages to trap Mowgli in his coils in an attempt eat him. He does this through the use of hypnotic eyes as opposed to the original version, in which he uses a serpentine dance to control his prey. Both of his attempts to eat Mowgli end in comical failure because he is interrupted right before he can swallow him. Kaa is depicted as cowardly, attempting to curry favor with Shere Khan whenever he is around.

This particular version of Kaa drew inspiration from previous Disney characters that followed a similar trope, such as Tick-Tock the Crocodile from Peter Pan and the Wolf from The Sword in the Stone. Both are fixated on a specific character (namely Captain Hook and Wart, respectively) as food and comically attempt to eat them throughout the film, without success.

"Master Cat, or The Booted Cat" (Italian: Il gatto con gli stivali; French: Le Matre chat ou le Chat bott), commonly known in English as "Puss in Boots", is a European literary fairy tale about a cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his penniless and low-born master. The oldest record of written history dates from Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 155053) in XIVXV. Another version was published in 1634, by Giambattista Basile with the title Cagliuso, and a tale was written in French at the close of the seventeenth century by Charles Perrault (16281703), a retired civil servant and member of the Acadmie franaise.[1] The tale appeared in a handwritten and illustrated manuscript two years before its 1697 publication by Barbin in a collection of eight fairy tales by Perrault called Histoires ou contes du temps pass. The book was an instant success and remains popular.

Perrault's Histoires has had considerable impact on world culture. The original Italian title of the first edition was Costantino Fortunato, but was later known as Il gatto con gli stivali (lit. The cat with the boots); the French title was "Histoires ou contes du temps pass, avec des moralits" with the subtitle "Les Contes de ma mre l'Oye" ("Stories or Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals", subtitled "Mother Goose Tales"). The frontispiece to the earliest English editions depicts an old woman telling tales to a group of children beneath a placard inscribed "MOTHER GOOSE'S TALES" and is credited with launching the Mother Goose legend in the English-speaking world.[2] "Puss in Boots" has provided inspiration for composers, choreographers, and other artists over the centuries. The cat appears in the third act pas de caractre of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty, and appears in the sequels to the animated film Shrek (film). Puss in Boots is a popular pantomime in the UK.

Although the character of Puss in Boots originated in a European fairy tale in 1697, the film follows the character Puss in Boots on his adventures, accompanied by his friends, Humpty Dumpty and Kitty Softpaws, Puss is pitted against Jack and Jill, two murderous outlaws in ownership of legendary magical beans which lead to great fortune.

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland.

Peter Pan is a cultural icon. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie's works. These include a 1953 animated film, a 2003 dramatic/live-action film, a TV series and many other works.

The following is a list of names of the Seven Dwarfs from multiple versions of the Snow White story. There are many adaptations to the story of Snow White; including animation, film, books, plays, etc. This is a listing of the Seven Dwarfs names based on release date. The original Snow White story, written by the Brothers Grimm, did not feature names to any of the dwarfs. Snow White & the Huntsman and Once Upon a Time feature eight dwarfs, while the 1991 animated Snow White only featured six.

1912 play -Blick, Flick, Glick, Plick, Quee, Snick, Whick

1937 animated Disney film - Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey

Schneewittchen (1961) - Huckepack, Naseweis, Packe, Pick, Puck, Purzelbaum, Rumpelbold

Mr. Magoo's Little Snow White (1965) -Axlerod, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dexter, Eustace, Ferdinand, George

Faerie Tale Theatre (1984) - Bertram, Bubba, Barnaby, Bernard, Boniface, Bruno, Baldwin

1987 film - Biddy, Diddy, Fiddy, Giddy, Iddy, Kiddy, Liddy

Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics (1988) - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

1991 film - Grouchy, Klutzy, Lazy, Sloopy, Smiley, Chubby

Happily Ever After (1993) - Blossom, Critterina, Marina, Moonbeam, Muddy, Sunburn, Thunderella

The Legend of Snow White (1994) - Boss, Gourmet, Woody, Goldie, Chamomile, Vet, Jolly

2001 film - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Sydney White (2007) - Terrence, Gurkin, Spanky, Embele, Jeremy, Lenny, George

Schneewittchen (2009) - Gorm, Knirps, Niffel, Quarx, Querx, Schrat, Wichtel

My Fair Godmother (2009) - Reginald, Percival, Cedric, Edgar, Cuthbert, Ethelred, Edwin

Once Upon a Time (2011) - Doc, Grumpy/Dreamy (Leroy), Happy, Sleepy (Walter), Bashful, Sneezy (Tom Clark), Dopey, Stealthy

Mirror Mirror (2012) - Butcher, Will Grimm, Half Pint, Napoleon, Grub, Chuck/Chuckles, Wolf

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) - Beith, Coll, Duir, Gort, Muir, Nion, Quert, Gus. (All but Gus map to letters in the Ogham alphabet)

The 7D (2014-2016) - Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy

Other dwarfs

The 80s sitcom The Charmings contained one of the dwarfs, whose name was Luther.

The T.V. series Once Upon a Time (2012) uses the same names as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937). There is also an 8th dwarf called Stealthy, and a 9th honorary dwarf called Tiny. Grumpy was initially called Dreamy. Tiny (The Honorary Dwarf) was actually a Giant in the series (Once Upon a Time) before being cursed by Cora (The Evil Queen's Mother) at which time, he became human sized.

The Six Dwarfs in Sesame Street Episode 279 consisted of Sparky, Snooky, Flakey, Drippy, and Sneaky.

In Episode 2787, the Seven Emotional Dwarfs are named Cheerful, Sad, Angry, Proud, Fearful, Lovey, and Surprised.

In Episode 18/10, the Seven Dwarfs were Clumsy, Vertigo, Gassy, Itchy, Smelly, Sensitive-Nose, and Hammy.

> A fable! A fable! Bring it! Bring it!(Kanuri)

> A great while ago, when the world was full of wonders...

> A long time ago - and yet perhaps it wasn't such a very long time ago - there lived...

> A long time ago in Estonia, people didn't have bathtubs in their houses.

> A long time ago, the old people say...

> A long time ago, long ago, so long ago that no one can remember, and no tree can remember, and no rock can remember; so long ago that there were no people, and there were no trees, and the rocks had not been made...

> A Saam told this tale as he sat with his friends by the fire at night. He swore that all of it was true. If you have nothing else to do, I will tell this tale to you.

> A story, a story, let it come, let it go. (Traditional West African opening)

> At a time when the rivers were made of chocolate and wishes could come true...

> At the time when men and animals were all the same and spoke the same language... (Traditional Navajo opening)

> Back, far back, in the mists of time when the world was very young...

> Back in the days when animals could talk...

> Back when the world was young, and the humans and the animal people could speak to each other...

> Before the beginning of time, before the beginning of everything, before there was a beginning...

> Before the world became as it is today...

> Beyond the woods, beyond the seas, beyond high mountains lived a frightful dragon. (Chuvash)

> Did you ever hear the story of...?

> Everyone knows...

> Far away and just as long ago...

> Far away in a hot country, where the forests are very thick and dark, and the rivers very swift and strong, there once lived...(African)

> Far beyond the edge of the world there lived...

> Far, far away, beyond all sorts of countries, seas, and rivers, there stood a splendid city... (Andrew Lang)

> Far, far away in Russia, very long ago, there lived...(Russia)

> Far, far away in the midst of a pine forest, there lived...

> Here is a story! Let it come! Let it come

> Here's a story I learnt from an owl. I told it to a king. He gave me a purse of gold and this pin. [Papa Joe]

> Hill and Vale do not meet, but the children of men do, good and bad...(The Two Travellers)

> I daresay you have heard of...

> I do not mean, I do not really mean that this story is true... (Ashanti)

> I want to tell you now the story of ... (Tartar)

> I will tell you a story which was told to me when I was a little boy/girl. Every time I thought of the story, it seemed to me to become more and more charming, for it is with stories as it is with many people: they become better as they grow older.

> In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, in a little village, there lived... (Russian)

> In a certain realm, in a certain land...(Russian gypsy)

> In a land that never was in a time that could never be...

> In a place,neither near nor far, and a time, neither now nor then...

> In ancient times, the old men say...

> In ancient times, when the magpie was a Cossack chief and the duck a policeman, the bear had a long stumpy tail, as splendid as Mistress Fox's. (Tartar)

> In olden times, in times when rams were still without horns and sheep without tales, there lived... (Kazakh)

> In olden times when the Lord himself still used to walk about on this earthamong men... (Poor Man and the Rich Man)

> In olden times when wishing still helped...

> In that long ago day...

> In the beginning...

> In the beginning, when the earth was set down the sky was lifted up, some things were not quite finished.

> In the days now long departed... (Scandinavian)

> In the days when animals talked like people...

> In the days when animals talked like people. Those were the good old days! Sigh!

> In the high and far-off times...

> In the old days, as is known...

> In the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the gardens of Tartary were overrun with weeds, there lived...(Tartar)

> In the olden times when wishing still helped... (The Frog Prince)

> In the time before remembrance there was...

> In the years behind our years...

> In times long past, in a house near the woods, there lived an old man called... (Bashkir)

> It all happened long ago, and believe it or not, it is all absolutely true.(Traditional Irish opening)

> It happened, it did not happen, it perhaps could have happened in the tents of our neighbors.

> It is said, that...

> It is told that long ago...

> It sometimes happened in the long ago...

> It was still the time of ancient things...

> It was long ago

> Just tell it, straight up, let the listener decide what's at the heart of it.

> Let's talk about one time...

> Long ago and far away, across the western sea...

> Long ago, as only the very old remember...

> Long ago, in the time of mysteries... ("White Wave" by Diane Wolkstein)

> Long ago, so long ago, I wasn't there or I wouldn't be here now to tell you the tale...

> Long ago when the earth was new...

> Long before you and I were born, there lived... (Tartar)

> Long, long ago, before our grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' time...

> Long, long ago, soon after sky and earth had become separated so that there was room for trees to grow and the tribes of men to move between them, many gods and spirits still lived in the world. (Maori)

> Long, long ago, when powerful dragons still lived on the land and in the seas...

> Long, long ago, when some folk were already dead and others not yet born, there lived a ...(Tartar)

> Long, long ago when stones were soft...

> Long, long ago, when the world was new and the animals could talk...

> Long, long ago, when there was less noise and more green on the broad banks of Lake Baikal, (Tartar)

> Long years ago, in the early ages of the world... (Hungarian)

> Many hundred years ago in a country across the sea, there lived...

> Many years ago, in a time when memory was young... (India)

> Many years ago, when the time was so young, that there was not even anything called the old days..." (Bjarne Reuter)

> Not in my time, not in your time, it was in the old peoples time...

> Not in your time, not in my time, but in the old time, when the earth and the sea were new...

> Now here's a story I heard tell...

> Now little one, I will tell you a little story. Ever so long ago there lived...

> Now, look see. I wad'n there then so I could'swear twas the truth, could I now? But twas like this, see... (England)

> Now we are about to begin and you must attend! And when we get to the end of the story, you will know more than you do now. (Andersen)

> Once long ago, in a little town that lay in the midst of high hills and wide forests...

> Once on a time when pigs was swine...

> Once on a time and twice on a time, and all times together as ever I heard tell of...

> Once on the far side of yesterday...

> Once there was...

> Once there was, and twice there wasn't...

> Once there was and was not in ancient Armenia a man who was very poor... (Armenian)

> Once there was, once there was, and once there was not...

> Once there was, one day there will be: this is the beginning of every fairy tale. There is no 'if' and no 'perhaps,' the three-legged stool unquestionably has three legs. (Breton)

> Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, when pigs were swine and dogs ate lime and monkeys chewed tobacco, when houses were thatched with pancakes, streets paved with plum pudding, and roasted pigs ran up and down the streets with knives an forks in their backs crying 'come and eat me'! (_Jack the Giant Killer_ coll. by Katharine M. Briggs)

> Once upon a time, and a very good time too, though it was not in my time, nor your time, nor for the matter of that in any one's time... (English Fairy Tales)

> Once upon a time, a long long time ago, when mice ran after cats and lions were chased by rats... (Romania, Pellowski, _World of Storytelling_)

> Once upon a time and twice upon a time, and all times together as even I heard tell of... (English fairy tales)

> Once upon a time in the very middle of the middle of a large kingdom, there was a town, and in the town a palace, and in the palace a king. (Andrew Lang)

> Once upon a time, so long ago no one remembers when and where... (Chuck Larkin)

> Once upon a time, not in your time nor in my time, but in a very good time...

> Once upon a time, not your time, nor my time, but one time.

> Once upon a time there lived a king, like many others...

> Once upon a time, very long ago, a strange thing happened on a high mountain...

> Once upon a time what happened did happen - and if it had not happened, you would never have heard this story. (Andrew Lang)

> Once upon a time, not your time, nor my time, but one time.

> Once upon a time when the birds ate lamb and the monkeys chewed tobacco up a tree...

> Once upon a time, after the invention of teenagers but before there were shopping malls for teenagers to hang around in... (_Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird_)

> Once upon a time, and a very good time it was too, when the streets were paved with penny loaves and houses were whitewashed with buttermilk and the pigs ran around with knives and forks in their snouts shouting 'eat me' 'eat me'. ("King of Ireland's Son",_Irish Folktales_)

> Once upon a time when princes still set out to seek their fortunes and when cranky old women still sometimes turned out to be witches... (_Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird_)

> Once upon a time, when the grass grew greener, the trees grew taller, and the sun shone more brightly than it does today, there was a ...

> Once upon a time, so long ago, nobody but the storytellers remember...

> Once upon a time, in a time and place beyond measure...

> Once upon a time, a couple of days ago...

> Once upon a time, and a time before that...(Scandinavian)

> Once upon a time, in the long long ago...(Scandinavian)

> One Way-Back Day...

> So long ago that we have lost count when...(Scandinavian)

> So long ago that no one can quite say when...(Scandinavian)

> So long ago that we are not sure when... (Scandanavian)

> Some people don't believe what they are told. They only believe what they see...

> Somewhere or other, but I don't know where, there lived...

> Somewhere, some place, beyond the Seven Seas... (The Little Rooster, the Diamond Button, and the Turkish Sultan)

> That's the flourish (prishazka) just for fun; the real tale (shazka) has not yet begun... (Russia)

> There once lived a man as poor and humble as a body has ever been. All the same, he brought up his children to be sharp, nimble and hard-working. (Tartar)

> There was once in old times, in old times there was...

> There was, there was, and yet there was not (Georgian, Papashvili)

> This here's a story that happened back when animals were more like people and people were more like animals and things were just plain better all around...

> This is my story which I have told you. If it be sweet, tell it to someone again and then some of the thanks will come back to me. (Africa)

> This is what the Old Ones told me when I was a child... (traditional Cherokee opening & ending)

> This tale goes back to a time long ago, when sheep grazed peacefully in the green folds of the Tartar homelands. (Tartar)

> This was in the time that's gone by, and I'm going' to tell you a story 'bout it.

> Twas not in my time, 'twas not in your time, but it was in somebody's time. (Irish)

> Upon Time...

> Very many years ago, there lived

> We do not really mean it. We do not really mean it, but they say...(Ashanti)

> What the ear does not hear, will not move the heart...

> When men worked and walked with ease and life was very simple.

> When the earth had been stretched over the water and shaped into mountains and valleys...

> You may be wondering how I know these old stories...

Traditionally told tales often end with a conventional tag-line, to let listeners know the story is over, bring them back to earth, and ease the transition to normal conversation --or whatever conversation is involved in getting the next one started.

The usual one is "they lived happily ever after." Perfectly good, but sometimes you might want something different.

> A grief shared by many is half a grief. A joy shared is twice a joy. (Vietnamese Folk saying)

> A mouse did run; my story now is done.

> All this happened a long time ago-- so many years ago that if you counted them on your fingers among all the old men in the village you would have to borrow some from the children. But the children are running around. So try and find out when this was! ("Folktales of the Amur")

> Amen. (Jim Maroon)

> An' the wheel bend, an' the story end.

> And as far as anyone knows, they are living there still to this day.

> And ever since then, that is the way it has been.

> And if they didn't live happily ever after, that's nothing to do with you or me.

> And if they have not died, they are living there to this very day.

> And if you are going to tell a lie, tell it big enough so that no one will believe you.

> And like the little boy said as he sat on a block of Ice: "My tale is told!" (Chuck Larkin, and it's the truth)

> And now, my story has gone that way, and I've come this way.

> And now the story is yours.

> And she lived till she grew up.

> And so it was, and so it is.

> And so the story goes.

> And that is how it is to this day.

> And that's a true story!

> And that's no word of a lie! (Eamonn Kelly)

> And that's the end of that!

> And that's the truth. Pfffttt. (Edith Ann)

> And there happened in the end what should have happened in the beginning...and everyone knew and has never forgotten that whoever has a mind turned to wickedness is sure to end badly. (Andrew Lang)

> And the last person to tell that story... is standing here before you!

> And they ate and drank, and were merry and of good cheer, and if they have not stopped, they are merry and of good cheer to this very day!

> And they lived happily ever after... or if they didn't, it's none of OUR business.

> And they're all alive to this day, if they haven't died since.

> And this is a true story. And if it isn't, it should be. (Doc McConnell)

> And this was a story of how it happened.

>Are you getting tired of this story yet? No? Well I've had enough If you want any more you can make it up yourselves. The rat's tail is off. That's the end.

>Be bow bendit, My story's ended. If you don't like it, You can take it to Wales, And buy some nails And mend it.

> But do you want to know something interesting? The entire story took place in one afternoon!

> But that is another story.

> But the prince and his wife lived together long and happily, and ruled their people well.

>Chase the rooster and catch the hen, I'll never tell a lie like that again. (Bahamas)

> Don't remember all of it from them days. But I do remember some such. Even to this day.

>How about that for a real story!

I> am assured that it was really so, and we must believe it.

> I go around the bend, I see a fence to mend, on it is hung my story end.

> I hope you won't fail to be pleased by my tale. For a potful of butter, I tell you another. (Russian)

> I jumped in the saddle and rode away to tell you the stories you've heard today. I jumped on a spoon and away I flew and you've heard all my stories, so God bless you. I jumped on a spindle and away I spun. And God bless me, my stories are done. (Romanian)

> If I get another story, I'll stick it behind your ears. (Ghana)

L If my story be sweet, it is yours to keep. If it be bitter, blame the teller & not the tale.

> If my story be sweet, if it is not sweet, take some elsewhere and let some come back to me.

> If my story is not true, may the soles of my shoes turn to buttermilk. (Ireland)

> If you don't believe me, go see for yourself.

> If you don't believe this story is true, give me a dollar.

> In fact, if I hadn't been there myself, I never would have believed it could happen.

> In that town there was a well and in that well there was a bell. And that is all I have to tell. (Russia)

> It's the truth I've been telling you. (Peddlar of Ballahadereen)

> Kespeadooksit. The story is ended. (Abenaki)

> May God hold you in the palm of his hand and not squeeze too tight, may you be safe in heaven before the Devil hears of your death.

> My story has come to an end. Let out the rooster and lock up the hen.

> My story is done. Let some go and let some come! (Ghana)

> My story is done. But this story will go on, as long as grass grows and rivers run. (Native American)

> Now all is past: the story also, for all stories must come to an end at last.

> Now, honorable dames and gentlemen, do not judge this story of mine too severely. If you like it, praise it; if not, let it be forgotten. The story is told and a word is like a sparrow--once out it is out for good.

> Now, that is all of this story. What does it mean? Can you not see? Prut! Rub your spectacles and look again! (Howard Pyle's ending to The Apple of Contentment)

> Now, that piper handed the tune down to his children, and his children to their children, and the old people taught it to me.

> Off with the rat's head. (African)

> Open you ears and open your eyes, am telling' the truth, can't tell no lies.

> Poor meat, thud! Good meat, swell! Don't you know another story to tell?

> Shall we go to _____?

> Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out.

>So be it, bow bended, don't you know. My story's ended.

> So goes my little tale. Now it's your turn us to regale.

> So now all their cares were at an end and there was nothing to mar their happiness.

> So the bridge was mended and my story's ended.

> So the story is told, and here it begins. So the story is told, and here it ends.

> So you see, wonders abound...if you play your cards right. (Russian gypsy)

> Step on a tin, the tin bends. This is how my story ends.

> Such things do happen, you know. (Russian gypsy)

> That was just the beginning.

> That's all there is!

> That's all.

> That's the way my grand mammy told me. And there's no contradicting this, for she heard it with her own ears, just as you're hearing' it with yours.

> The dreamer awakes, the shadow goes by, / When I tell you a tale, the tale is a lie. / But listen to me, fair maiden, proud youth, / The tale is a lie, what it tells is the truth.

> The end.

> The happy pair lived in good health and cheer for many a long and prosperous year. (Russian gypsy)

> The happy pair lived long in peace and happiness by day and night. (Russian gypsy)

> The moral of the story is quite simple: If you insist on inventing stories, you had better marry an even better storyteller to back you up.

> The tale is told. The tale is told.

> The world is a story without a beginning we tell to each other from the day that we're born to the day that we die.

> Then three apples fell from heaven. One for the storyteller, one for he who listens, and one for he who understands.

> There now, I have chopped off half the winter.

> There you have it.

> There's many, many more like 'em, an' come some other time, maybe I'll tell you 'other.

> They feasted and they drank, and if the wine hadn't run out, I'd still be there with them instead of here talking to you.

> They grew to be very old, and lived happily all the days of their life.

> They had a great feast, and here we are with nothing!They lived happily ever after and were never bothered again.

> They lived happily ever after and were never bothered again.

> They lived in peace, they died in peace, and there were buried in a pot of candle grease. (Bahama)

> They reached a ripe old age and died in peace. (Russia)

> Think hard, think long. And perhaps you will find the answr to this riddle. (Tartar)

> This is my tale, whether it be sour, whether it be sweet, take what you wish and let the rest return to me.

> This is my tale.

> This is what the Old Ones told me when I was a child... (traditional Cherokee opening & ending)

> Three apples fell from heaven: one for the teller, one for the listener, and one for him (sic) who takes it to heart." (Armenian)

> Truth is beautiful, without doubt. But so are lies. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

> We shall exist as long as our stories are moist with our breath. (Navajo saying)

> Well, whether it was false or true, the tale spread far and near, because the tale was fun to hear. (Saam)

> What can you expect from a pig but a grunt? (English)

> What do you think?

> When the heart overflows, it comes out through the mouth. (Ethiopian)

> The world is a story without a beginning we tell to each other from the day that we're born to the day that we die.

> You see, that is my story. I heard it when I was a child. And now you have heard it too!